MA732 Magnetic Encoder Breakout Board

This is the first PCB I've ever built so I decided to use it as a learning experience to familiarize myself with PCB design. I designed it in EasyEDA based on an encoder made by mjbots and ordered the assembled PCB through JLCPCB. The MA732 is a great compact encoder option. I'm a fan of contactless encoders like this one for the versatility of them. This one in particular can operate mounted in two orientations: end-of-shaft (left) and side-shaft (right) which is great for an application like the lidar I'm building with a hollow shaft gimbal motor that makes great use of the side-shaft configuration alongside a ring-shaped diametric magnet. Using the side-shaft configuration does come with some unique challenges that can luckily be addressed by configuring the microcontroller. The method best supported by the MA732 is known as "bias current trimming."

Within the MA732, Hall effect sensors are oriented to detect the in-plane components of the magnetic field in the plane parallel to the package's top surface. In the case of side-shaft mounting, the magnetic field angle is no longer directly proportional to the shaft angle as with end-of-shaft mounting. By modifying the BCT settings in the register map, specifically register 2, the MA732 can be calibrated to compensate for this non-linearity and recover the linear relationship between the mechanical angle and the sensor output.