Patent ID: 6979976

Claim:
A driving apparatus for driving a brushless motor having a rotor with a plurality of magnetic poles and a stator with a plurality of magnetic coils, by effecting a rotation control of the rotor by sequentially switching application of a current to each of the coils in response to a detection signal, comprising: a pole-position detector for detecting a position of a magnetic pole and outputting the detection signal; a controlling circuit for generating a driving signal in response to the detection signal from the pole-position detector; an inverter control circuit for controlling application of the current to each of the coils; and a rotational speed sensor for sensing a rotational speed of the rotor; wherein the controlling circuit is adapted to generating a braking signal based on the rotational speed sensed by the rotational speed sensor and transmitting the driving and braking signals to the inverter control circuit, and wherein the inverter control circuit is adapted to effecting the rotation control by sequentially switching application of the current to each of the coils upon reception of the driving signal and effecting the braking control by applying the current to at least one coil except those coils being excited under the rotation control upon reception of a braking signal generated on condition that the rotational speed is beyond a predetermined value.