KDE Direct XF UAS ESC and Flight Controller Compatibility List

[engin]

Hi, so sorry for my bad english. I have a fy680.. I had a naza v2 but I changed pixhawk. I hava a futaba 14sg with dragonlink uhf system. I have a problem. I have opto esc ant Attopilot 180A pm, 6s 10000mah LIPO.
1-I don't know How to wiring pixhawk to opto esc.
2- I dont know 14sg model type (multi, heli,airplane ...) and other functions
Thanks again..

 

[Arytron]

Hi everyone,

I wanted to add to the conversation as I did something slightly different after reading all the above and ended up with a good result.

What I have:

KDE motors

KDE ESCs

Pixhawk.

5v bec plugged into main out 8 on Pixhawk

Now this is bench only at the moment so who knows if problems will present themselves once airborne. I'll detail my steps:

Fresh install of copter 3.3 and reset all parameters to their default. (I notice that RC_MINx & RC_MAXx all seem to be 1100-1900 by default now)

Do mandatory setup for frame type, compass and accel calibration.

*Radio Calibration* is where I had success. I noticed that if I set my throttle min max in my Taranis transmitter to 1100-1900, the radio calibration screen in Mission Planner/APM Planner would show a different value. 989-2015 let's say.

I navigated to page 7/12 'SERVOS' of the Taranis and adjusted the min-max for the throttle while looking at the radio calibration screen of Mission Planner.

On the Taranis my throttle min is -79.6% for a value of 1132us

my throttle max is 77.2% for a value of 1932us

and my ppm center is 1539 delta.

On the radio calibration page of Mission planner though, throttle min is exactly 1100, throttle max is exactly 1900, and the midpoint is exactly 1520.

When I power up, the motors make that familiar beep every half second. When the arm button is pressed, beeps double in speed before a confirmation tone. Throttle down right then sees the motors spin up.

I had no need to change any of THR_MIN, MOT_SPIN_ARMED, or THR_MID as I've seen suggested elsewhere.

This has worked flawlessly every single time since I've done it so for me, at the moment anyway, this seems to be the key to get the KDE stuff and the Pixhawk to play nice.


Hopefully this helps someone out!

 

[Bartman]

@Arytron
that's a hell of a first post! welcome to MultiRotorForums.com and kudos for knowing how to jump right in!

 

[KDE Direct]

Dear Arytron,

Thank you for the detailed information - I know you shared this with me via e-mail, but helping to share this with the community is an excellent help for us. We have been in discussions with 3DR and are also soon releasing a new firmware edition with additional throttle-calibration routines, to help make this easier and more custom to each flight-controller style. Thanks again!

 

[Arytron]

@Arytron
that's a hell of a first post! welcome to MultiRotorForums.com and kudos for knowing how to jump right in!

Thanks!
I guess it's one of those "long time listener, first time caller" kind of things where I've already gotten excellent mileage out of the forums and had something seemingly helpful to share

 

[Arytron]

Dear Arytron,

Thank you for the detailed information - I know you shared this with me via e-mail, but helping to share this with the community is an excellent help for us. We have been in discussions with 3DR and are also soon releasing a new firmware edition with additional throttle-calibration routines, to help make this easier and more custom to each flight-controller style. Thanks again!

I'm glad you KDE guys got to see what I posted. I was really pleased with the KDE stuff I had bought so was initially dismayed to discover these Pixhawk difficulties. Trying to focus on that 1100-1900 with the 1520 midpoint made the most sense to me.

After I made sure that the Pixhawk (as far as the radio calibration screen was telling me anyway) was sending out *exactly* 1100-1900, I found I could change MOT_SPIN_ARMED without any issue and have a nice lazy spin, to something more energetic. Just to reiterate, this is pdb spaghetti on the floor with arms and motors splayed out with a bec blue-tac'd onto the pdb, so once airborne (and soldered properly!) things may change.

FYI, here's what I'm using:
KDE 4012XF 400Kv
KDE XF 35A OPTO ESC
Pixhawk + 5v BEC
Taranis transmitter

Now once again pleased with KDE stuff, just put in order for a KDEXF-UBEC22 from a shop in France as they seem completely unavailable in the UK at moment.

Cheers

 

[glider]

Arytron and KDE,
Thanks for your posts. I'm convinced the issues I was having is related to a conflict between the self calibration routine of the KDE ESC's and Arducopter. This appears to be verified by KDE above. I still have the 35A ESC's and plan to try them again on another build, but only until I'm confident there won't be the same hiccups. One thing for sure is when the copter did fly, the throttle response was excellent, but the braking is what I was most interested in.

I have 14 KDE 2814XF-515 motors, so that's how much confidence I have in KDE products. I've yet to find a 4s motor that is so versatile with so much power, stays cool and negates the need to move up to the ever popular 6s configurations. My builds generally stay at 3.2kg or less, which is perfect for these motors. Plus, they are very efficient. No offense to TM guys, but in the 500 kv range TM has nothing that compares, at least in my experience both in performance and quality. Seriously, try a set of the 515's and you'll never go back. Soap box/off

 

[MouseRCClub]

Hey Everyone,

There's no reason the system would not be working, assuming the internal electronics are the same as the Pixhawk system (3DR uses our ESCs in their commercial-group as well), there is power being applied to the servo-rail to properly arm the OPTO-circuitry, and the programming on the TX and Mission Planner is correct.

I just received this from an alternate customer, who was having a similar problem with the motors running consistent, and it came down to proper calibration of the TX. I'm not a fan or user of the Taranis radio, purely by the build-quality and low-cost components inside, but hopefully this will help shed-light on the programming if this is the system being used:

Here's the quote from the e-mail:

"We solved the problem this way:

-on Taranis servo ch3 we put 1520 middle value -on mission planner radio calibration we moved the max and min from the Taranis until we reached 1100 min and 1900 max -then we entered calibration mode on the copter; powering it with the ch3 stick on high and esc 2 on parameter list in mission planner -now it works we have a correct the range."

View attachment 26404 View attachment 26405 View attachment 26406

Please let me know if this helps and if not, then I can help involve 3DR in this as well, to explain the proper calibration routine. Also, please test the ESC outside of the Flight Controller (via direct connection to a RX), which will rule out the ESC if possible (or potentially find a flaw in the ESC, works great to identify the root cause). We have an instructional video posted online to help with this:

We have a bench-top setup with a power supply replacing the battery, the PWM signal from a DAQ card, using a MT35115-15 motor and KDE UAS55+ ESC. The control lead does not have anything connected to the red (+5V) wire, it is plugged into a connector that has wires going to ground and the PWM out from the DAQ. Everything works fine but should it? There is no flight manager or controller in the loop at this time.

 

[R_Lefebvre]

Every real Opto ESC I have used won't power up without 5V from the signal wire.

 

[MouseRCClub]

Every real Opto ESC I have used won't power up without 5V from the signal wire.

To clarify, the signal (PWM) wire is white, the positive (+5V) wire is red and the ground wire is black. Red and black battery cables from the ESC in our setup go to the power supply. Our white wire is connected to the DAQ output, the black to ground. The red isn't hooked to anything. The motor arms, and performs perfectly through the throttle range. But from discussions here it sounds like it shouldn't be working at all. Since there aren't any wiring diagrams for the internals of the ESCs to be found, we just aren't sure of the details of why we're up and running. We just need a better understanding of what's going on before we go further in building.

 

[R_Lefebvre]

Try this, because I'm curious.

Disconnect the ESC from everything. Then, using a simple multimeter, check for continuity between the battery ground, and the signal ground wires. If there is any continuity at all, it's simply not opto-isolated.

 

[MouseRCClub]

Try this, because I'm curious.

Disconnect the ESC from everything. Then, using a simple multimeter, check for continuity between the battery ground, and the signal ground wires. If there is any continuity at all, it's simply not opto-isolated.

There is no continuity so it really is opto-isolated. And working without +5V on the red wire.

 

[R_Lefebvre]

Interesting.

I guess new generation opto isolator transmitters are able to be powered directly from the PWM signal now.

There are plenty of fake "optos" out there however, that have continuity. They don't even have a negative wire in the signal cable. Just the single wire for PWM.

 

[MouseRCClub]

Thanks for the input - gonna be interesting getting to flight!

 

[Azfar Helmi]

Guys, if I uses a BEC to power the servo rail, can I still build an 8 rotor system?

As what I understand here, one of the "Main Out" are now used by the BEC to power on the servo rail. Only left me with 7 for ESCs

Another issue is, my setup is 12S and it looks like KDE BEC only support up to 8S, any other good BEC for me to try?

 

[traxx2003]

Ok so my question is, when trying to manually set the PPM range to 1100-1900 in the mission planner for Pixhawk, you are only required to do so to the throttle channel correct? What about the other channels? I'm in the middle of a new Skyhero 850 build equipped with KDE 55A ESC's & TMotor 4120 400kv, when trying to calibrate ESC's with the Pixhawk, I ran into problems.