XAircraft SuperX

[Motopreserve]

Moto, 1 of the three of my castle's esc's has a built in bec, the other three dont. All I did was tie the 4 positive wires together only. Ground and signal coming from m1-m4.

Castle has since changed the way you can get them now with or without bec's since i purchased my quad.

So that would make your ESC non-opto. If they have the BEC, they are working on a different design. That may explain your experience being different than mine when I tried the power to the + lead yesterday with no luck. This is all leading back to apples to oranges, and RTs explanation of how these things actually work. It's all becoming clear now...

 

[Motopreserve]

I almost give up easier getting new esc with bec or just stay with naza light or can i use this for bec

Have you tried the procedure laid out earlier? If you are having no luck, do what I did...try again Worst case, you could always swap the ESCs. I didn't resort to that because the other available ESCs I have are also Opto, as well as Simonk flashed, which seems to cause problems with some high pole count motors....or not. Hard to find a definitive answer.

 

[fltundra]

So that would make your ESC non-opto. If they have the BEC, they are working on a different design. That may explain your experience being different than mine when I tried the power to the + lead yesterday with no luck. This is all leading back to apples to oranges, and RTs explanation of how these things actually work. It's all becoming clear now...

I'm going to ask castle today to chime in, that's not how "I" understrand it.

 

[fltundra]

The opto ESC also has an internal BEC to provide its own power, so as far as reliability goes that is a wash.

The idea behind an OPTO ESC is to electrically isolate the high power system from the radio.
So if you are using an external BEC to provide radio power the opto type offers no possible advantage.
If you are using a separate receiver pack then you do have electrical isolation of the two systems. Whether or not this is an advantage is a matter of opinion

Pat MacKenzie

Here's another explanation

 

[fltundra]

Moto,
Give castle a call for yourself, they are more then happy to help you even if you haven't purchased from them yet. They have a first class tech support!
913 390-6939

 

[RTRyder]

Another thing that ken said, doesn't make since also. Where is the esc supposed to get the 5 volts it needs to run the logic chip if your connected to 22.1 volt batt. No bec on the package is misleading, because there has to be either a linear on switching power supply "or" 5 volts from receiver or FC to power the esc logic. the opto isolation is for the signal.

Through its internal regulator that steps battery voltage down to 5v to run the logic circuits, they simply do not connect the regulator to the servo wire nor is the circuit designed to handle the kinds of draw that a servo needs which is the case with a standard ESC BEC that can typically handle 1 amp or greater.

The simple explanation is that there is no true opto isolation on the Chinese "opto" ESCs as they power all of the internal logic using a step down regulator that derives power from battery voltage. The fact that the ESC will work with only the signal wire connected actually proves that the flight controller, RX, and ESC are all tied to a common ground via the main battery otherwise it would not work since there would be no common v reference for the logic circuits to be able to determine 5v vs. 0 volts. The only way that the ESC could work in this configuration is if it has the same common ground going to its logic circuits and it does, through the internal regulator that steps battery voltage down to 5v to run the logic.

Castle ESC are an exception case as they DO NOT follow the circuit design of the Chinese ESCs. Not having dug into what the guts of a Castle look like I cannot say if they do the same thing with their opto or not however I do know the circuitry and design is significantly different from the average made in China ESC so I render no opinion as to how and why of Castle and their products, only that they are DIFFERENT than 99% of the ESCs used on Multirotors so YRMV...

Ken

 

[fltundra]

I almost give up easier getting new esc with bec or just stay with naza light or can i use this for bec

Yes, that bec will work.

 

[RTRyder]

I just put a meter on the GB +pin and there is 5 volts! m1-m8 no voltage on +pins.
It never occurred to me that there would be 5 volts on GB + pin, but there is!

Since the gimbal outputs are designed to drive a servo that has no internal power source, of course there would be 5 volts supplied, otherwise the servo wouldn't work. No power is supplied to the power pin on the motor side because it isn't needed, 99.9% of the ESCs on the market derive power for the logic circuits from their own internal regulator circuits. There may be ESCs out there that do need that power but I've never seen or heard of them in all the years I've been using brushless motor technology.

Ken

 

[fltundra]

Since the gimbal outputs are designed to drive a servo that has no internal power source, of course there would be 5 volts supplied, otherwise the servo wouldn't work. No power is supplied to the power pin on the motor side because it isn't needed, 99.9% of the ESCs on the market derive power for the logic circuits from their own internal regulator circuits. There may be ESCs out there that do need that power but I've never seen or heard of them in all the years I've been using brushless motor technology.

Ken

On my Alexmos 3 axis gimbal you clip the + wire for pitch and roll!

 

[fltundra]

Since the gimbal outputs are designed to drive a servo that has no internal power source, of course there would be 5 volts supplied, otherwise the servo wouldn't work. No power is supplied to the power pin on the motor side because it isn't needed, 99.9% of the ESCs on the market derive power for the logic circuits from their own internal regulator circuits. There may be ESCs out there that do need that power but I've never seen or heard of them in all the years I've been using brushless motor technology.

Ken

I was referring to the email dhardjono received as far as the GB power goes.

 

[RTRyder]

On my Alexmos 3 axis gimbal you clip the + wire for pitch and roll!

And connect it to a receiver port. The vast majority of gimbal ports on flight controllers are used to stabilize servo driven gimbals using the gyros and accelerometer of the flight controller so connecting a brushless gimbal to them does nothing unless they can be configured as pass through ports to allow tilt control from the RX.

Ken

 

[Dhardjono]

Yes, that bec will work.

so that bec is an esc all i have to do is hook up all 4 red to red in esc bec and black to black wire from 4 esc to that bec black wire? fitundra ?

 

[Motopreserve]

I think most controllers still have the ports available for servo gimbals. You certainly wouldn't need the 5v for the brushless type.

Thanks for for the phone number - but since it already have 2 sets of non-Castle ESCs, and one is currently working fine, I'm going to quit while I'm ahead

 

[Motopreserve]

so that bec is an esc all i have to do is hook up all 4 red to red in esc bec and black to black wire from 4 esc to that bec black wire? fitundra ?

If the ESC has a BEC you don't need to anything unless you want to remove all but the signal wires since you don't need to be running power to the superx. I'm assuming your RX is powered via the servo from the FC or some other way.

Sorry RT/Tundra for the redundant post. My last post passed RTs in the ether...

 

[RTRyder]

Here's the bottom line. Castle ESCs are a significantly different design in both hardware and firmware from the Chinese ESCs. Unless you happen to be using Castle ESCs, use the procedure I outlined to erase the current configuration of your ESCs which is held in its eprom memory and start from scratch as though you are doing the build for the very first time. While doing so do not change end point settings on the TX else you need to start over again. If you go step by step through the setup procedure for the SuperX and the ESC using the same radio settings and having reset the ESC back to their factory default configuration you should wind up with a working system when you're done. If not there is the possibility that a factory reset does not erase the ESC eprom memory, in which case you likely will have great difficulty getting them to work with the SuperX but could likely use them with a flight controller where you can change the low throttle PWM output signal level in the firmware as can be done with MultiWii boards.

On to other things, good luck.

Ken

 

[fltundra]

I think most controllers still have the ports available for servo gimbals. You certainly wouldn't need the 5v for the brushless type.

Thanks for for the phone number - but since it already have 2 sets of non-Castle ESCs, and one is currently working fine, I'm going to quit while I'm ahead

Like i said they are happy to answer "any of your questions" regardless if it's there esc's or someone else's. Seeing that I ordered a set of the new KDE motors, they recommend Castle and that's all i have seen anyone doing pro flying using.

 

[Motopreserve]

Like i said they are happy to answer "any of your questions" regardless if it's there esc's or someone else's. Seeing that I ordered a set of the new KDE motors, they recommend Castle and that's all i have seen anyone doing pro flying using.

Fortunately, for the first time in 48 hours...I have no questions!

...famous last words

 

[fltundra]

Fortunately, for the first time in 48 hours...I have no questions!

...famous last words

I'm really just glad you got it working

 

[Motopreserve]

I'm really just glad you got it working

You and me both!

 

[Mike SF]

...
i have another set of ESCs here that are also OPTO - so I don't know that I want to desolder everything from the PDB, solder up a new set - just to find that the same issue arises.

I need clarification on:

1. OPTO ESC gets what it needs from superx?
2. All 3 servo wires (+/- and signal) on each channel should be connected to the superx?
3. In still sane....

Clarification on question #3 seems paramount right about now

I'm using ZTW Spider ESCs that don't have a BEC. But they still have a 7805 voltage regulator on board and I cut the +wire from all BECs. Works well. I guess it depends on each ESC. So if it doesn't have a BEC, you need to test if it needs power from the FC, or if it powers up on it's own. Easy to test with a servo tester.