ESC32 Q&A

[ApoC]

And a calibration would not get a better performance?

[JussiH]

The ESC32 calibrations serves two purposes: To calibrate the virtual current limiter and feed forward terms for closed loop mode. Closed loop mode is at the moment really only relevant for L1 control, but the virtual current limiter can be used regardless of the mode of the ESC.

It is always an advantage to calibrate the currentlimiter to your exact motor/prop combination, but its not mandatory.

Consider that the current limiters main job is to handle the spikes that occur during large ramps up in speed or if the motor fails. Its the ramping of throttle that casues the highest power surges, so having a strategy to limit/smooth them are crucial in any ESC. The default method uses a PI controller, but if you calibrate the CL term, then the ESC can predict what the current demand is for a certain throttle demand and allow to reach it faster than the PI controller will allow.

If using the default current limiter, then the advice is to set the currentlimiter about 10-20 percent higher than the highest current the motor will draw when ramped to full. So if your motor/prop pulls a maximum of 12A, then you set the current limiter to 13-15A. This means you get overhead for bursts, but the ESC can still limit current in case of a lockup or other motor failure.

Disabling the current limiter is a bad idea! In case a motor fails in flight it will allow that ESC and motor to draw as much current as your harness and battery will let it. Burning wires, motors and battery could be the immediate result - and if one ESC is allowed to draw max current, it can possibly brownout the battery before something burns out thus making the other motors and the FC struggle or fail.

If the current limiter is set correctly, it will only limit the huge spikes that comes from large and fast ramps of throttle, and you wont notice it.

[r0sewhite]

Is there a way to make the failure detection of the ESC32 (red LED flashing) available over any pin to other applications?

The reason is that we planned a safety management for our copters. We do not only want to monitor the batteries but also ESCs and motors. Our first idea was to measure the current that each ESC draws and define a critical current which triggers a failure command. But if the ESC is already able to alert events like prop strike or over current via its red LED, I wonder if there is any solder point on the ESC where we can tap the signal and use it for our safety management.

[bn999]

If the RED LED is reporting the information you want, then use it. The MCU brings one side of the LED low to enable it.

[LPR]

Some of the ESC32 are not working with my RC Timer 4215 motors. I have 5 out of 8 able to go from start to full throttle using the slider on the QGCS ESC32 settings page. I found out the hard way that they must be able to go from starting RPM to full throttle in order to guaranty they wont disarm in flight.

I calibrated the ESC32 many times and found that some ESC32 are not working with the motor there connected to. I've used settings from ESC32 that are working in ESC32 that are not working and it made no difference.
The ESC32 that are having the problem will work fine up to 50% or 60% and then not work at 60% or 70% or higher.
All the motors run fine at full throttle just not when you start at the lowest RPM and go to the highest RPM in one step.

I should test an ESC32 that did not work, on a motor that is working but I would guess it would work on a working motor if I calibrated the ESC32 for it.
Any suggestions?

Larry

[LPR]

The problem I have been experiencing is related to the RC Timer 4215 motors using 12 x 3.8 props needing over 25 amps when powered by 5s A123 batteries. After I calibrate the ESC32 at 30 amps I change the Max current to 30.0 amps and find it doesn't work (the ESC32 will disarm) unless I unplug the power to the ESC32 and the USB connection. After a restart every think is fine. I can click on the start button and move the slider to it's max setting and the motor jumps to max RPM.

This problem took many hours to find a solution to. I don't believe many have used high amp motors and the QGCS to calibrate them so this problem has not been noticed before.

Larry

[bertm]

[richiew]

Hi

I am looking to purchase new ESC32s but viacopter's site shopping cart doesnt work for me (international shipping issues?) and Flyduino is out of stock....

Does anyone know where else can I buy ESC32s from?

Cheers

[chschmid]

check this out:

[kinderkram]