Connecting Multiple ESCs: Dos, Donts and Dual Receivers (SERIOUS)

[glyphiks]

I stole this image off google.

Righto, my first SERIOUS thread don’t let the title fool you, this is not an invitation for a shit fight on redundancy. I will be flagging the shit out of this thread if it strays from pure technical advice.

Over the last year, I have done a LOT of reading, and feel pretty confident that I could connect most ESCs together in various ways without blowing anything up. But the information that I have learned on this topic is sporadic, strewn across different threads far and wide.

It would be awesome if this thread could contain all the vital information on how to connect ESCs successfully, but also the dangers of connecting them incorrectly.

Photos of your setups would be amazing, as it helps the words make so much more sense.

Here I will list the 3 ways that I am aware of to connect multiple ESCs, and I would love for you guys to expand on them;

CAN BUS
SPLIT PPM/PWM
MULTIPLE RECEIVERS

Please share your experiences with these methods and specifically;

What ESCs you were using
Any challenges you faced / how you overcame them
Why you chose that method
Advantages
Disadvantages

And again. This is not to be a shit fight. It’s not a dick swinging contest. And it’s not about which method is better than the other.

Pure technical advice… please. I will categorize useful information into the posts below as the thread progresses

[glyphiks]

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[glyphiks]

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[PrivacyDoctor]

Thank you @glyphiks! I was about to read up on this!

[kook]

@glyphiks

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Good thread… I have anecdotal anxiety and the thirst for knowledge as you… I look forward to smart peeps enlightening you/me/us…

[glyphiks]

Good luck. It’s bloody hard work. I’m hoping some of the big boys will chime in on this with some gold.

[kook]

you can flag this and delete this later to clean up the thread… but I find it weird and unusual how persnickety and protocol intensive motor-controllers are after coming from kwads…

esk8 has Vedder (gawd bless his soul, bitcoins sent, thanks Frank) it’s almost impossible to fuck-up a kwad esc, almost… but on this esk8 shit you have to dot your fuking Ts and cross your eyes and pray to the chocolate baby jesus just to make it not produce a brick…

I don’t understand 'lectricty except when the smoke escapes it’s bad… kwads have filtering, adjustable PIDs, blackboxes all kinds of kool shit… but esk8 with we power up a motor-controller without 10 hail-mary’s we have a brick…

really… this is 2020… I’m a kook and a fool make this shit kook-proof…

[glyphiks]

Exactly the reasons this thread needs to exist. For fucking kooks.

[jack.luis]

AH yes this is exactly how I felt when I blew up my third ESC. When I switched to Unity (RIP) everything got better and my grey hairs subsided. My next build is going to have a 2x single ESC setup so I’ll be closely monitoring this thread.

[BigZwatt]

Good morming. I recently went down the dual VESC road. I was actually forced to when my unity bricked (RIP) .
Im using
Vesc 4.12 x2
ACK S.W. ver. 3.103
H.W. ver. 410
2x mini remote 2.4ghz receivers
The only part that took some time was copy pasting my settings from one vesc to the other. I screenshotted my vesc 1 motor config and ppm settings so I could make sure they are identical.
The only con is my vescs aren’t reading correct voltage despite being set up properly and i have an hm10 so I’m getting my telemetry via uart. But I only have 1 BT module so I only get data from 1 Vesc.

[Tamatoa]

Please, I need a “for dummies” guide to dual drive with pics so I can skip the text.
Thanks

[iamasalmon]

ok, maybe this helps
assuming you want to use singles and not something like a unity.

1. connect your battery. this battery has two xt60’s built in, but you can just use a parallel connector. mind your amp limits here, a single xt60 is rated at 60amps cont, so a splitter can out you over that limit if you go more than 30batt amps each

2. connect the motors. pretty straight forward here, 1 esc per motor, wires can be in any order, switch if goin backwards.

3. split PPM. the Benchwheel remote has a built i splitter so you just plug both the servo connectors into the reciever. otherwise you have to make your own or buy a mini or GT2B and get a second reciever.

run detect and have fun

[Tamatoa]

Thanks that’s helpful.

In this configuration, do you program each ESCs like 2 separate single but with the same parameters? No need to bother with the master/slave thing?

[BillGordon]

You still need to cut the power to one of the connectors, right?

[Chibatterysystems]

People may hate on my method but I’ve done this with 2 boards and plan to do it on my third …all 4wd boards.

I just make a PPM splitter from the receiver to all 4 ESC’s… I don’t cut any positive wires… I don’t fuck with CAN… Works perfectly fine over 3 years of this method and have never had a problem.

[iamasalmon]

oh yeah, the switch.
I have mine between the two halves of the 6s 5p packs

(insert switch of choice)

[glyphiks]

Ahhhh thats awesome! I wondered why the benchwheel receiver had so many pins!

@Tamatoa yes. When using split ppm/pwm, all escs need to be programmed independently.

[glyphiks]

Have you done this with multiple types of remote? Or always the same remote?

[glyphiks]

@BillGordon was referring to cutting the positive of one of the ppm cables I believe… I have only read about this but @Chibatterysystems has been successful in leaving positives connected over 4 escs, it looks like you have too?

[BillGordon]

@glyphiks

@BillGordon was referring to cutting the positive of the
one of the ppm cables I believe

Yes, that was the intention.