Remotes Supporting Multiple Receivers (SERIOUS)

You said the Rx’s are networkable, so hot failover would be my expectation of the capability (and also my hope).

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The limitation there isn’t in the radios. The VESC itself isn’t going to switch between direct UART master & canbus slave as a hot failover.

Does that make sense? I can expand if needed

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I concur. Stop being fucking babies and put not only the original title back, but also the original post with @b264’s latest edits. FFS it’s an SRO topic.

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I’m not familiar with CANBUS/UART, but does the VESC need to know?

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Let me explain:

Setup 1:
Dual ESCs connected via canbus. The slave ESC has its ‘app’ (aka its control input) set to take throttle commands sent from the master over can. You can’t use two receivers in this setup, because the can-slave input would conflict with the uart throttle input on the slave. No failover can occur.

Setup 2:
Dual ESCs, no canbus. Each has an RX and is configured as a separate uart master. This is an isolated/islanded approach and not something I can recommend. This is the scenario I used above, where if one RX times out it will spin down. No failover here.

Let me know if that makes sense!

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But…programming and some hardware sauce?

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Will do. Thanks for pointing it out

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Now we’re cooking with gas!

Dual radios (as opposed to isolated RXs on each ESC) is the correct and best practice approach. Boosted actually does this.

An mcu and some thoughtfully written code could do it.

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So when can we have it?

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If there’s enough interest in something like this, I can look at it once we get 1.0 published & launched.

I can potentially do it with just a pair of radio modules, no additional hardware

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How do I like your post a thousand times?

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I’m open to it. Just keep in mind that it’s easy to shoot yourself in the foot adding complexity to a system.

In systems design it’s always a redundancy vs potentially adding points of failure design discussion.

I’m just very cautious about this kind of stuff. Highly critical control systems.

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How do I become a willing test dummy? True redundancy almost never killed the cat.

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Seconded. Think there is desire for such a thing throughout the community

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Thanks @Zach

@malJohann I’m pretty much heads down sprinting towards the finish line on a 1.0 release, hopefully by end of January. Advanced receiver features will follow that, so early next year if I had to take a guess before I could dig in.

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Perfect mate, but could it be top of the pile of advanced features please, because maintaining signal is literally the most important aspect of any remote control system?

[edit] Thanks for the OP title and text (sort of) restoration @BillGordon! [/edit]

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May I suggest a different approach?

You are having issues with a particular 5G repeater that is trying to kill you & your family, correct?

With radio comms like this, the answer is not always just to throw additional radios at the problem. If a powerful radio transmitter is saturating a particular band, adding a second radio on the same frequency won’t fix this at all.

Understanding why the remote you’re currently using is having issues is a big step towards solving this. My concern is that the original ‘dual receivers!’ idea came up to band-aid fix a poorly performing radio link, when it might not be necessary if higher performance radio modules were used to begin with.

Before we go through the trouble of designing a dual-radio implementation, we should establish that there are operating environments where a single radio implementation can be overpowered. Based on my testing so far, I’ve not found that to be the case in the vast majority of test environments (as in, standing on top of a mountain next to a broadcast station with 2 dozen antennas & a dozen more satellites could cause lag).

Which remote are you currently using again?

The point I’m trying to make is if you are using a cheaper radio device, its possible it doesn’t have modern features such as FHSS (Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum) or other technologies that are used to stabilize link budget.

I’m currently out of beta hardware for OSRR otherwise I’d offer you one to start testing- I am very interested in solving this and you’re out in the real world fearing for your life from that nefarious 5G tower… but in the meantime, would you be open to playing guinea pig?

My first thought is to let you borrow a Hoyt Puck and have you test it in that area. The Puck uses a great radio module, FHSS tech, and in terms of reliability & performance it’s the best remote currently available on the market (IMO, I have thousands of miles on them without any connection issues. And plenty of riders in SF, which is considered a high-interference area). OSRR uses a similar class radio module, but I won’t have new 1.0 hardware until the end of Jan.

More than happy to send you one of my Pucks to get started on tackling this, if only to get some good comparison data. PM me with your address and we can get this ball rolling.

No dying though, be safe. 5G towers are supposed maniacs. :wink:

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I’d put it down to a high interference area, the 5G tower features because I literally crashed in front of it twice in two weeks, but signal is squirrelly all down Collins St for me.

Sure, but don’t underestimate the demand for true redundancy.

HK GT2B which has DSSS instead, FHSS is AFAIK the better tech.

Most generous, the Puck is literally the only other esk8 remote I’m interested in, although your OSRR looks leagues better. PM incoming.

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Bringing this up from the who know when…

Where are we standing with this? Is there actually a remote that can pair to 2 receivers at once?

I am about to start a 4wd adventure, and this would be rather helpful to know.

Miniremote does @b264 is a big fan for this reason

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