Hello,
I have ordered an arducopter ESC 20A and a motor (850kv, A-2830/12) because I want to understand how it works and how to interface it to an arduino. In addition to these components, I have a battery 3.7V 2000mAh. I am pretty new to this things and need some basic help.
When I connect the motor to the ESC and the ESC power to the battery, with the white little cable to the arduino and the black little cable to the ground, the motor makes a sound that I identify as "123 tone". And it keeps doing it, again and again. And the motor doesn't rotate.
Why is the motor making music and not the ESC ? is it normal ?
I can't find any documentation on this particular case where the 123 goes on and on. Do you know what it could be ?
I am wondering if simply the battery is not fit for the purpose. What do you think ?
I thought it might be the battery, thus I tried to power the ESC with the arduino. First I put the positive power cable of the ESC in the 3.3V of the arduino and the ground to the ground but nothing happened. No sound, nothing.
Desperate :), I tried to plug the power in the 5V and I got the sound indicateing a bad voltage (beeping every second).
How should I do to power the esc with the arduino ? is it possible at all ?
Thank you very much in advance for your help,
Best regards,
Barth
Replies
Be careful using a DC power supply for testing! Motors can draw a surprising amount of current if you put them under any kind of load (like, say, a prop). A freewheeling motor will probably only draw under an amp though.
You need to treat the esc like a servo.
Look for the arduino code for the servo sample.
Power the ESC from the battery via the positive and negative heavy cables on the ESC.
The three heavy wires go from the esc direct to the three wires on the motor.
The servo cable needs to be attached to the arduino pins that are described in the servo sample.
The ESC will probably not initialiZe unless you have the equIvalent of a low throttle signal from the arduino.
So you need to play with the code and set then signal all the way low on startup or at least when the battery is plugged into the esc.
Then you could use a button on the arduino to vary the servo signal after the ESC has initialized.
Ok, I think that I can confirm that my battery is incorrect. I should use a higher voltage, a LiPo 3 cells or something similar.
Cheers