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Using a servo instead of an ESC

Posted by Clark Hymas on April 29, 2011 at 9:22pm

I have looked through the entire thread on radio equipment and have not seen this question...I notice most of you are using  ESC's, I am planning on using one of my existing planes with a .70 four stroke so I am needing to control a servo instead of an ESC.

I have hooked up the jumpers from my receiver to the APM, turning on the radio powers up the APM as I figured it would being the #1-signal #2-pos, #3-gnd (wires in the servo leads).

I have not hooked up and programed the 3 pos switch to #8 input on the APM yet but I noticed I don't have any through controls - manual mode.

Am I putting the cart in front of the hourse and need to go program my radio and hook up the #8 input or am I looking at other problems?  Will powering the system work this way and the servo work for the throttle control.

 

I am aware I have some vibration issues ahead - I have come up with some vibration dampers that should isolate almost all the vibrations from the motor.

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Replies

  • Ritchie April 30, 2011 at 6:24am
    Using a servo for throttle instead of an ESC should be as "hard" as changing the throttle control code to be the servo's useful swept area. The output for the ESC use the whole range of the PWM and you need the equivalent of around 50% (a guess on my part). Of course if you can use the full sweep of the servo to control the throttle no code changes will be needed.
  • Clark Hymas April 30, 2011 at 5:36am
    I started hooking up one channel at a time, as of right now when channel 3 is hooked up the throttle servo works as it should but none of the other servos work.  I forgot to mention I am using a Futaba 7 channel 2.4GHz Faast system with a R617FS reciever.
  • Don Brooks April 29, 2011 at 9:42pm
    Hrmm.. Controlling a servo or an esc should work just as well when connecting throttle to the correct channel on the receiver.

    If you have no servo control when things are connected through the apm, you may want to start with the test modes in the apm planner CLI and make sure the radio test is giving results when you move the sticks. The easiest mistake would probably be reversed servo leads or jumpers.
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