Should I remove the ESC red wire or not - a definitive answer is really needed ?

[ChopperAddict]

Hi

I have been researching all sorts of stuff to try to get my new 550 into the air. One question that seems to be a very grey area, but nevertheless is highlighted as being "important" is the question of whether the red lead on the lead from the Rx to the Naza should be cut/removed at one end.

It seems that if you have an Opto ESC, then it doesn't matter as it does not send power back to the Rx, but if you have a standard ESC with a BEC on board, you MUST/SHOULD/MAYBE/THINK ABOUT removing the red/power lead.

Presumably this is because the NAZA gets it's power from the MU, and therefore gets confused if it also gets power back via the ESC's ?

I ask this because my new 550 with Hobbywing 40A ESC's on board will not get off the ground, even at full throttle. It is driving me nuts. I do not want to go through neatly removing 6 red leads only to find I did not need to ?

I would really love a definitive answer to this question. ?
Thanks everyone.
Ian

 

[Benjamin Kenobi]

Hmm. I assume you did the transmitter calibration and pressed 'finish' when the sticks were all centered and sliders green? Calibrated the ESCs? I don't think the red wire is your problem but I've never tried anything but the OPTO ESCs as they are reliable and easy to setup.

Hope someone else chimes in.

 

[EastCoastJib]

I use opto's also and pulled the red pin out, folded it back and shrink wrapped it back before i put abrasion covers on. So.... yes

 

[EastCoastJib]

Also... did you calibrate the escs individually? 0-100?

 

[Benjamin Kenobi]

How come you removed the red pin? The instructions say there's no need. Been flying it for 18 months and all good.

 

[AirPix]

This is something I've puzzled over, too. "Good practice" with multi-motor fixed-wing aircraft is to disable all but one of the ESC's red power wire (or all ESC power wires if you use a separate UBEC). The reason given is that the multiple linear voltage regulators on the ESCs "conflict" and shouldn't be wired in parallel. The Naza has it's own external switching BEC, so it doesn't need the on-board ESC regulators. BUT I'm wondering how the Naza Flight Controller is wired internally-- are all of the ESC ("M") ports arranged so that the red ESC power wires are a null-connection (ie, not all wired to a common +5 bus). I've not gotten to the point in my multicopter build where the FC, BEC, RX, etc are test-wired up, and I'm hesitant to start poking around with a Volt/Ohm Meter to see what is sand isn't connected.

Just curious...

--Bill

 

[Bartman]

folks, with some flight control systems, the red wire provides power for the flight controller and the receiver that is plugged into it. some, like the Hoverfly PRO, don't need the power for the flight controller but they pass the power through the board to the receiver. The NAZA gets power from either the VU (version 1) or the PMU (version 2) and that power goes to the receiver. Apparently it doesn't matter if you remove the red wires or not as we've seen one post here that says they've been left on and there's no problem and I can say that I've got mine pulled (V2) and everything is honky dory.

here's a test you can do to see if the + pins of the motor slots are even connected to anything! put one ESC into motor 1 and power everything up.....use a multi-meter to see if there is voltage across the + and - pins of the motor 2 pins on the front of the NAZA.

bart

 

[ChopperAddict]

Thanks for all the feedback guys, it seems that the word on the street is it probably doesn't matter either way, but certainly with the red DISCONNECTED, NAZA MRC's fly just fine, so that is the route I am about to wire it up as

I am setting the ESC's independently by plugging the motor wire into the rx elsewhere, and then connecting each ESC up independently to the RX motor connection and starting with throttle full, then dropping it once all ESC's stop beeping at me.

The motors seem to be revving up just fine while connected to the Rx, so let's just hope they do the same when powered from the NAZA !

Thanks again
Ian

 

[stitch1615]

Before I knew about the "red Wire" I had installed some Turnigy Plush 12 ESC's WITH the red wire and it flew just fine.
I later pulled them and found no difference.
I did not pull them on some DJI Opto ESC's since they sell them with the red wire installed.
I figured they knew what they were doing. (Foolish me).
Anyway, those too are also working just fine even though we now understand that,
even though they may know what they are doing, they just seem to avoid sharing their knowledge.:tennis:
It might be nice to have a definitive answer from them.

 

[ChopperAddict]

As stitch1615 says, the manufacturers really should document this issue. It clearly varies in importance depending on whether you use normal or Opto ESC's. As I understand it, and by their very name, Opto's do NOT pass the power through their interface (hence Opto), so it does not really matter, BUT with standard ESC's that DO pass the current on, it follows that this can have an effect on the current used in/by in the NAZA.

I am no electrician for sure, hence my wanting to get this right.

In fact, since my last post, I have removed ALL the red wires, and set the min/max throttle using the Rx throttle output - no help at all for as soon as I connect them through the NAZA controller, they all beep madly at me and (all but one) goes into setup mode immediately - Grrrrrrrrr.

I can only assume that I now need to do the throttle setup using the individual NAZA outputs ?

Strange that I have been building and setting up all sorts of helicopters for years now, including doing it for lots of other people, and have never had any such issues with them at all. But with the NAZA I am struggling madly to achieve a simple thing, 6 motors and ESC's that know what is going on.

Could it possibly be that my NAZA is faulty ????????? or is it just that my brain is fried right now ??????

Cheer guys
Ian