How do I calibrate throttle on ESCs?

[Flydigital]

Sorry but reading around and not totally clear how this works....

Moving on from a DJI 550 I'm trying a bigger build using multistar ESCs. I have it all configured but on starting up motors it seems the RPMs are WAY to high. I'm assuming this is where throttle calibration fixes things?
I've read the signal lead from an ESC must go into the throttle channel on the Rx. Then you do the min-max configure routine.

So I assume I bypass the flight controller and then plug into throttle channel on Rx one by one.

Assuming this is all correct how do I do this using a Rx which uses PPM? (All the signals go through 1 channel and into the flight controller)
Can I use a different Rx(conventional channels) or does it need to be the one I'm actually using?

Thanks for any direction. A new unknown area here!

 

[Zaidy]

Hey Flydigital
few ways you can program your ESC;
1, Do them one by one using the sound menu on the ESC which can be a right pain !
2, Get a ESC program card, normally around £15 make sure it works with your ESC before buying, it makes life easy to program them as you have an LED to indicate your selection. Again one by one = time consuming
3, Get yourself a http://www.uavshop.co.uk/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=52&products_id=370 which speeds up the process, but I would still check them individually making sure that the settings are correct via the programming card.
As for using your RX, I am not 100 % sure on PPM, but I would think (I stand to be corrected) that if you use the same brand, "modern RX" the values for the throttle will be very very close so in theory you should be able to use a "conventional channel RX" to program your ESC !
Remember to check your programming parameters.
Good luck

 

[Flydigital]

Thanks. I went with the one by one option and managed to use non-PPM setting on the same Rx. It all seemed to go fine but the motors are as fast as ever. Screaming at full tilt it seems when throttle stick goes to the centre position. I tried putting one blade on and pinned it down and as expected it tried to lift off before I got the stick to centre position.
Once armed I would expect it to idle and then once airborne I would expect centre position to be higher to keep it in the air. I think it's way off.
So is the set up phase? I'm using a Pixhawk and new to all of what that involves. I'll take a look over on those forums too to puzzle this out!