Third Party ESC integration w/ VOXL2
-
Hello @patkirkmartin ,
DShot could be used with VOXL2 when using Flight Core V2 as an external flight controller (stm32-based). However, Flight Core V2 is EOL.
The IO expander board (M0065) does have capable hardware to generate DSHOT signals, however, integrating and testing DShot-based ESCs is not in the scope of our team's effort.
Have you considered using a 3rd party flight controller as well as the ESC and using VOXL2 as a companion computer?
Alex
-
A large part of my team's selection of your hardware was the small footprint we get by combining flight controller + companion computer on the same piece of silicon. If we move to a third party flight controller, we honestly may as well just move away from this ecosystem.
I am not afraid of getting into some more technical details with your development team on what it might look like for us to work on a DSHOT integration.
PS: As an aside, my team has a large order put in with your sales team that we have not heard back about in some time. Would you please pass along that we need a response on that? I have sent a follow up via your sales inquiry forum on the website with more information
-
A large part of my team's selection of your hardware was the small footprint we get by combining flight controller + companion computer on the same piece of silicon. If we move to a third party flight controller, we honestly may as well just move away from this ecosystem.
I am not afraid of getting into some more technical details with your development team on what it might look like for us to work on a DSHOT integration.
PS: As an aside, my team has a large order put in with your sales team that we have not heard back about in some time. Would you please pass along that we need a response on that? I have sent a follow up via your sales inquiry forum on the website with more information
I will pass on your note about the order to our team.
Regarding DSHOT, can you please clarify which features are a must-have for your application? specifically, do you need both DSHOT control (lets say Dshot600) and DSHOT telemetry? Or UART Telemetry.. or no telemetry..
Thanks,
Alex
-
I will pass on your note about the order to our team.
Regarding DSHOT, can you please clarify which features are a must-have for your application? specifically, do you need both DSHOT control (lets say Dshot600) and DSHOT telemetry? Or UART Telemetry.. or no telemetry..
Thanks,
Alex
Thanks for passing my note along. Greatly appreciated.
The biggest thing we need out of DSHOT is the telemetry. At this point, or for a first pass, any way we can get telemetry from a third party ESC if fine. Even if we are still using PWM or OneShot.
-
Sorry for being very specific.. but there are two types of telemetry you can get from DSHOT-capable ESCs.
- UART telemetry : the four ESCs send telemetry one at a time over a dedicated UART line, which can be fed into standard UART RX
- DSHOT telemetry is sent from each ESC over the PWM lines (all at the same time) and do not use UART. The FC hardware as to change the PWM outputs to inputs while receiving telemetry (requires tight timing)
So, do you have a requirement to use one or another.. or which specific fields in the telemetry are you looking for?
Alex
-
DSHOT Telemetry seems like the only option for the MadMotor ESC linked in the original post so that would be our requirement.
-
Hello @patkirkmartin , thanks for clarifying.
Just to give you some more background and the reason for my questions: we have previously experimented with enabling DSHOT output using VOXL2 IO board and it worked during testing. However, due to lack of need and time to properly test and release, the feature was never mainlined. Also, we tested receiving the telemetry via UART only (which some DSHOT ESCs support) - had to hijack a UART port on the voxl2 io board for that.
Further developing the (bi-directional) DSHOT on the voxl2 io board is currently not on our roadmap, however if you we willing to do your own code development for the voxl2 io board, we can look into releasing the source code for it (together with the initial DSHOT output implementation).
VOXL2 itself is not capable of outputting the required DSHOT signals.
Alex
-
Hello @patkirkmartin , thanks for clarifying.
Just to give you some more background and the reason for my questions: we have previously experimented with enabling DSHOT output using VOXL2 IO board and it worked during testing. However, due to lack of need and time to properly test and release, the feature was never mainlined. Also, we tested receiving the telemetry via UART only (which some DSHOT ESCs support) - had to hijack a UART port on the voxl2 io board for that.
Further developing the (bi-directional) DSHOT on the voxl2 io board is currently not on our roadmap, however if you we willing to do your own code development for the voxl2 io board, we can look into releasing the source code for it (together with the initial DSHOT output implementation).
VOXL2 itself is not capable of outputting the required DSHOT signals.
Alex
I really appreciate you taking the time to answer this question! Thank you so much. Very helpful.
My team and I are definitely interested in making this work, so if you are willing to release the source to us that would be great. I will most likely need to continue reaching out for technical guidance as we work to get this implemented. What might be the best way to continue technical discourse on this subject? A new thread? Direct message?
-
@patkirkmartin , let me double check with the team what the process for this will be and the timeline. I will get back to you soon.
Since the plan would be to provide the source to the public, it would be posted on gitlab, the feature-related discussion can happen there. We will certainly be able to help review the code and perform some testing.
Alex
-
@patkirkmartin , let me double check with the team what the process for this will be and the timeline. I will get back to you soon.
Since the plan would be to provide the source to the public, it would be posted on gitlab, the feature-related discussion can happen there. We will certainly be able to help review the code and perform some testing.
Alex
@Alex-Kushleyev
Hi Alex,Looking for some updates on the I/O Expander firmware release? Any news?
Also, a follow up question for third-party ESC integration: what is the recommended way of getting telemetry information like battery voltage and current to the FC? Do I need to harness from the ESC to a different port on the VOXL2 or does the IO Expander have the ability to accept this telem information and send it back to voxl-px4 through normal channels?
Hello! It looks like you're interested in this conversation, but you don't have an account yet.
Getting fed up of having to scroll through the same posts each visit? When you register for an account, you'll always come back to exactly where you were before, and choose to be notified of new replies (either via email, or push notification). You'll also be able to save bookmarks and upvote posts to show your appreciation to other community members.
With your input, this post could be even better 💗
Register Login