Electric work machine

An electric work machine comprising:

• a brushless motor including three terminals configured to receive an electric power;
• a drive circuit configured to supply the electric power to the brushless motor,
• the drive circuit including:
• three positive-electrode-side paths that respectively electrically couple the three terminals to a positive electrode of a power source;
• three negative-electrode-side paths that respectively electrically couple the three terminals to a negative electrode of the power source;
• and
• six switches including three positive-electrode-side switches and three negative-electrode-side switches, the three positive-electrode-side switches being (i) provided on the three positive-electrode-side paths, respectively, and (ii) configured to individually complete or interrupt the three positive-electrode-side paths, respectively, the three negative-electrode-side switches being (i) provided on the three negative-electrode-side paths, respectively, and (ii) configured to individually complete or interrupt the three negative-electrode-side paths, respectively;
• and
• a control circuit configured to execute:
• a driving operation of controlling the drive circuit, based on a back-EMF of the brushless motor generated at each of the three terminals, to rotate the brushless motor;
• a braking operation of turning on a switch pair of the six switches and turning off other switches of the six switches during rotation of the brushless motor to thereby decelerate and/or stop the brushless motor, the switch pair being two of the three positive-electrode-side switches or two of the three negative-electrode-side switches;
• and
• a switching operation of switching the switch pair during execution of the braking operation, the switching operation including turning off an off-target switch based on an electric current flowing through the off-target switch satisfying an off-requirement, the off-target switch being one of the switches in the switch pair at a present time.