2020-10-29, 10:55 PM
(2020-10-26, 09:08 PM)seandepagnier Wrote: I modified brushed_tgy significantly to make it work with pypilot but in the end I no longer use because it has higher power consumption (two atmegas instead of one) and the mosfets aren't as good either.
If you have a mystery esc, you will need to map which IO pins drive which mosfet gates and other pins such as temperature sensor and redefine them before recompiling and flashing the brushed_tgy firmware otherwise you may very well end up with smoke. I tested with blue series and afro esc as well as another type, but there are many more and they all use different pin outs.
I am using VESC for my boat's electric motor and ebike but not yet for autopilot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgMlcdPjUc4
This would be a great esc, but it uses much more idle power (doesn't matter much though) as well as still needs adapters for isolation and a little bit of code written to support pypilot. Then it would work for brushed as well as brushless motors (which should have an angular encoder on the motor shaft) I would eventually think using a large outrunner motor on a ball screw with this arrangement would make an incredible actuator for an autopilot with high speed and efficiency while also working at low speeds and giving force feedback.
For a brushed motor, the VESC is almost a good fit, but after adding the needed components for protection (I already fried a VESC) as well as supporting everything needed, they become less cost effective than the motor controllers I'm already making for brushed motors, but not by a lot. For brushless they seem a good fit, but I've only used in sensorless mode, and sensored mode is needed. Now FOC control is reportedly buggy (vesc can smoke) with version 4, and vesc 6 and later are also very expensive, but maybe FOC mode isn't required for an autopilot control, it would just make it more powerful and efficient.
I watched your video - very cool!!
The VESC seems to be geared for very high current applications - like skateboards, e-bikes and your boat motor but are there suitable "low power" (and lower cost) versions for driving an actuator? I'm assuming that 1.5 to 3A is all we should need.