Ok, answering my own question here, I should have googled better.
The Pixhawk has no dedicated digital output or input pins on its DF13 connectors, but you can assign up to 6 of the “AUX SERVO” connectors to be digital outputs/inputs
So basically you can have a Hexacopter with DShot ESCs but not Octocopter, which makes me wonder why Cube has only 6 aux and not 8? Aren’t we in the digital age?
what can bus esc did you look up? If you don’t need bunch of amps holybro makes these20 amp can esc that pavel from zubax has helped them with. I have a set just working on a different build will confirm tonight they work with pixhawk for you!
Hi @Matt.C, thank you for the answer and link, maybe I can join the digital age after all , however I need to think what to do with my two T-motor F55A 4in1 which I already own.
I plan a 850 mm quad in X8 configuration and I planned to connect every 4 motors to one 4in1 esc.
So let me see if I understand:
I can set the MOT_PWM_TYPE=4, SERVO1_FUNCTION-SERVO8_FUNCTION=33-40, SERVO_BLH_AUTO=1
and all shall work including passthru, except I will not be getting the telemetry on serial5 anymore?
Thank you for taking the time to answer me, much appreciated.
Gal
Do tell, please.
I tried DShot 300 from a Black Cube AUX1 port to an APD X-Class 120A ESC - as DShot300 is the minimum protocol it accepts - and the result was ugly: weird response and ESC resets. Same was experienced on an old Pixhawk 1 AUX1 port, so I excluded F4-based FCs from possible builds.
There are reports it works on a Pixracer (F4 ugh!), and also on Pixhawk4 (F7), but only to the extent of 4 ESCs. Time constraints have prohibited me testing it on a H7 Orange Cube.
Aux is direct connection two way comms with the FMU
Main is one way protected high current output from the IO chip
Aux has 6 pins
Main has 8 pins
There is no logical reason for any difference between chips in the Aux, other than some cheaper non genuine boards having no protection on the PWM lines.
One more question on this issue, since telemetry is reported separately on serial 5 (I planned to connect the t-motor 4in1 esc telemetry cables) wouldn’t it work? Or maybe I didn’t understand and the Cube when using aux pins actually receive also telemetry from the esc’s ?
Thanks
Gal
Hi Philip,
Question !.(not Cube related …but X8 and Dshot)
Just to know , on the pixhawk its possible to connect (max) 6 Dshot esc’s on AUX OUT if i’m right. Howto build an X8 with 8 Dshot esc’s ?. Is it possible to use 4 AUX OUT channels and connect 2 esc’s per one AUX OUT Channel ?. What would happen if this setup is used ? would this work including setup and telemetry ? . … The old Walkera Scout-X4 used a similar setup when upgrading to an X8 ( four double esc’s , four motor OUT channels) .
Hi, why do you hack my thread? The title of this thread says it all.
If you have a question which is not related to this than open your own thread.
Thank you
Gal
When using AUX, the RX is via the AUX pins, if you want to use 8, you need to use the seperate pin from the main, as main are robust outputs, but one way only
Matt, as a side note, I did purchase the Kotleta20 and it’s a nightmare. Soldering to it’s tinny pads was a very painful experience and the fact that there is no good way to mount 8 esc makes a messy installation. Very poor PCB design and product in my opinion.
Gal
could not agree more here with you, they are pretty miserable to solder and there is little to no instructions on there the capacitor goes and if it was needed I didn’t add mine as they were only working on 3S. I hope more can ESC’s come out soon that have a better design and smaller form factor, 8 of those would be huge. I don’t think prices will come down anytime soon as there really aren’t many can esc’s out yet and the ones that are, are pricey for hobbyist, mainly only for commercial applications!
Is anyone actually flying Dshot on ArduCopter today !?
I mean, actually looking at a log and seeing that 2048-steps resolution, not only having PWM_TYPE set to 3, 4 or 5 and trusting the FC to use the setting.
Because I tried my damnedest, on Pixhawk, Black and Orange Cube and Pixhawk4 Mini to no avail. Outputs are plain PWM no matter the settings. The BlHeli_32 ESCs are auto-detecting input signal, and will happily run PWM, so all my quads are flying, but I have these two “special” APD units, a 6S/40A and a 12S/120A that don’t understand PWM as input, and will take only Dshot300 and upwards, that I haven’t yet been able to spin a motor with.
I know I can do it with BetaFlight, but I want to do it with AC.