Patent ID: 8896246

Claim:
A method for operating a three phase motor, wherein the three phase motor comprises a rotor and a plurality of pairs of electromagnets, each pair of electromagnets of the plurality of pairs of electromagnets comprising a respective coil, the method comprising: when the rotor is not rotating, during an alignment phase prior to commutation: connecting a first coil of the respective coils to a high side drive and remaining coils of the respective coils to ground, applying pulse width modulation (PWM) to the first coil to control current in the respective coils; and once a designated PWM duty cycle is reached: releasing a coil of the respective coils, wherein the released coil is not required to move the rotor in a correct direction; and applying PWM to unreleased coils of the respective coils, subsequent to said releasing, wherein as a result permanent magnet alignment is forced to he congruent to the first coil; and performing forced commutation to further induce rotation of the rotor until feedback signal through a respective undriven coil is available.