MR60

ESC calibration "all at once" procedure on Pixhawk

Posted by Hugues on February 3, 2014 at 12:11pm

Hello,

I just experimented a few days ago with my first pixhawk board to calibrate ESCs automatically (all at once).

Normally this works by the following steps:

1- turning on you transmitter, throttle up to max

2-Plugging in your battery (the board then understand you're in programming ESC mode)

3-unplug the battery

4-Replug the battery still having the throttle up

5-Wait a couple of seconds for the two beeps sounds emitted by the ESCs to then drop the throttle down

6-Wait for a confirmation beep the low throttle position was recorded (and then unplug the battery).done.

However the issue with the pixhawk board is that there is a physical safety switch you need to press for a duration a a few seconds to trigger the pixhawk board to send out the throttle PWM signal to the ESCs.

The issue is that once you plug in the battery, ESCs wait for max 5 sec max before entering their programming mode (and leave after two seconds their throttle range calibration mode), therefore making it impossible to press the pixhawk safety switch for a few seconds.

By the time the pixhawk lets you send the throttle signal to the ESC, the ESCs have already quit their throttle range calibration mode and you hear the programming beeps...

Could the developers tell me if their is a trick or a correction they could bring to carry out this ESC calibration with pixhawk without stress ?

thx!

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Replies

    • MR60
      Hugues > Jeff P February 10, 2014 at 9:29am

      Then I'm afraid I cannot guide you to calibrate your ESCs individually because to do that you need a throttle channel PWM output from your receiver directly connected on the ESC you are calibrating. Are you sure you could not use one of these four other ports as a throttle channel output ?

      I guess you would then need a SBUS -> individual PWM converter, like here on hobbyking :

      https://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__37953__FrSky_4_Channel_...

    • Jeff P > Hugues February 10, 2014 at 9:41am

      Hugues,  Thank you.....you got me thinking.  I have been using the R6202SBW  with all of my Pixhawks.  I believe there is a channel"3" that can be used for throttle.  if so, I am good.  The "all in one" was giving me issues in flight with most ESC's except for one brand.

       

      Thanks again........JP

  • Jeff P February 10, 2014 at 4:56am

    I had an issue with ESC calibration also.  I use SBUS,  How do you recommend I do individual calibrations with just a standard SBUS receiver?  (No throttle channel to port into)

    thank you,  JEFF

    • MR60
      Hugues > Jeff P February 10, 2014 at 9:01am

      On your receiver, don't you have normal servo outputs in addition to your SBUS output ?

  • Developer
    Craig Elder February 4, 2014 at 7:52am

    We talked about this last night on the dev call. We going to bypass the safety switch when the Pixhawk powers up into calibration mode.   Stand by for a fix to the problem. 

    • Paolo Parisse > Craig Elder April 3, 2014 at 7:22am

      Hi Craig, there's something new about this? I've the same problem.

      Thanks

  • Developer
    Craig Elder February 3, 2014 at 1:10pm

    Check out the sequence demonstrated here:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kfVusza17I

  • Craig Huber February 3, 2014 at 1:09pm
    Howdy, just did this same procedure this morning, worked great. Assuming this is a new pixhawk install, there is one step you need to do first. Connect to your pixhawk with Mission planner and do a radio calibration first to get your endpoints recognized by the pixhawk. This was what I missed.

    Then, with USB disconnected...
    Follow your 1, 2, 3, 4, push safety switch for 5 seconds, 5 should then happen, then 6.

    Pixhawk doesn't arm the ESCs until you push the safety switch.


    Try this, it worked for me.
  • MR60
    Hugues February 3, 2014 at 12:13pm

    Side question: if I do the calibration of the ESCs, directly from my receiver, thus bypassing pixhawk, does it get to the same results or does the pixhawk board need to be in the loop during this calibration to calibrate something for itself ?

This reply was deleted.