Cube Orange APD ESCs DSHOT Setup Quad

Cube Autopilot
1

Need some advice. There is a lot of conflicting info raising confusion. I have a Cube Orange. I will use 4 APD ESCs (200A F3). They support DShot, and I want to use the telemetry features. With the Cube Orange this seems to mandate Aux 1-4 as my inputs. I am assuming you only use signal and ground from the ESC to the Rail. Right? No other connections for the full telemetry functionality from APD’s ESC? Is the APD a BLHeli? I can’t seem to find this answer. This would dictate which firmware I flash the Cube Orange with right? I don’t want this to get screwed up and end up an unstable mess again. Please advise.

Also, Do I need to send VCC to the AUX rail to aid in supplying power for the Opto-isolator circuits? I know there was concern the Cubes need their power to be supplemented to strengthen for system noise immunity.

2

Can anyone see this post?

3

The APD is not BLHELI, but there own firmware.

Correct that you only need to connect signal and ground to the Aux ports for the ESCs to work.
You will need to join all the telemetry wires into one and connect it to a serial port for the flight controller to receive that info. You dont need to supply a voltage to the AUX power pins.

For Stable Ardupilot firmware you will need parameters something like this:
INS_HNTCH_ENABLE,1
INS_HNTCH_ATT,40
INS_HNTCH_BW,40
INS_HNTCH_FREQ,80
INS_HNTCH_MODE,3
INS_HNTCH_REF,1
MOT_PWM_MAX,2000
MOT_PWM_MIN,1000
MOT_PWM_TYPE,4
SERIAL2_BAUD,115200
SERIAL2_OPTIONS,16
SERIAL2_PROTOCOL,16
SERVO10_FUNCTION,34
SERVO10_MAX,2000
SERVO10_MIN,1000
SERVO10_REVERSED,0
SERVO10_TRIM,1000
SERVO11_FUNCTION,35
SERVO11_MAX,2000
SERVO11_MIN,1000
SERVO11_REVERSED,0
SERVO11_TRIM,1000
SERVO12_FUNCTION,36
SERVO12_MAX,2000
SERVO12_MIN,1000
SERVO12_REVERSED,0
SERVO12_TRIM,1000
SERVO9_FUNCTION,33
SERVO9_MAX,2000
SERVO9_MIN,1000
SERVO9_REVERSED,0
SERVO9_TRIM,1000
SERVO_BLH_AUTO,1

There might be a bidirectional DSHOT firmware for the Cube but I’ve not tried it. That would allow all comms over just the signal wire to each ESC. You wouldnt need to connect the telemetry wires at all.

4

Thank you so much for your response. This is helpful indeed! Phillip, can you respond to the firmware part and as to whether bi directional dshot and at what speed to use with orange and latest Ardupilot?

5

Check in the ardupilot docs
https://ardupilot.org/copter/docs/common-blheli32-passthru.html#bidir-dshot
and there’s a bidirectional dhsot discussion that should point you to the firmware

The Cube Orange is in the firmware list
https://firmware.ardupilot.org/Copter/latest/
Use CubeOrange-bdshot (for multirotor) not CubeOrange-bdshot-heli which is for traditional heli

I cant test it as I dont have a Cube here for testing :cry: