Alien Power Systems ESC Control with Arduino

[dracksed]

Hi,

I am trying to control an ESC connected to a brushless motor with the help of Arduino.
The purpose of my program is just to familiarize myself with controlling the speed of the motor.
My esc is connected to a pwm pin and the program sends different output values using ESC.write(value); (from the Servo library);

From what I understood, the write() function can have 0-179 as an argument, 0 being full reverse throttle, 90 being stop, 179 being full FW throttle. Now when I tell the ESC to run at certain values, it does not respond at all sometimes, and it works some other times. It has a very unpredictable behavior and I am not sure which values work (yet alone if I'm doing the right thing with write() ).

Here is my code:

#include <Servo.h>

Servo esc;

void setup() {
esc.attach(9);
}

void loop() {
int throttle;

for(throttle = 90; throttle < 179; throttle++)
{
esc.write(throttle);
delay(100);
}
}

The ESC and motor is here:

http://alienpowersystem.com/shop/esc/alien-120a-2-7s-ev-mini-esc-bec/

http://alienpowersystem.com/shop/brushless-motors/alien-5065-sensored-outrunner-brushless-motor-220kv-2200w/

Thanks!

 

[MagiicHat]

You might have better luck on a more arduino focused forum? I've dabbled, and controlling an esc should be a pretty straight forward affair.

 

[Metallover]

I'm not familiar with the Alien ESC, but most RC ESCs need to be calibrated, which is done based on the beeping.

I've had success with the arduino and an RC ESC before. It will take some practice to get it working right.

Something like this - http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=383523.0