Multi-plex 8 BLDC motors using shift registers?

Question

I want to drive 8 tiny diskmotors - they look like low current motors. robotshop 2mm vibrating disks

I want to drive perhaps 2 or three of them at a time with pulse-width modulation signals and I would like to do it from a single driver since they are uni-directional. This would assume the same pulse width for all activated motors. Assuming the current requirements are met by the driver;

Question: Can I drive them all from one circuit with a shift registers or with a multi-plexer. If so, how?

Is there a way to drive them with one motor driver that allows for variable pulse width as well?

Answer 1

Question: Can I drive them all from one circuit with a shift registers or with a multi-plexer.

Yes

If so, how?

Use MOSFETs to connect individual motors (complete with reverse polarity protection diode) to a "bus" voltage. The "bus" is the PWM switching power source. The 8 mosfets need 8 control signals and if you are low on GPIO then a shift register would work fine.

You might even be able to use one of these: -

It's got four high side and four low side mosfet drivers and runs from SPI control. I'm also sure you can get a MOSFET equivalent of the ULN2003 octal open-collector driver.

There's also the TPIC6C596 from TI: -

It's got a serial input line with 8x 250mA rated MOSFETs.