VOXL ESC 4-in-1 Digital I/O UART Communications

[Ender]

Hi ModalAI Team,

I have a question regarding the following product: VOXL ESC 4-in-1 Digital I/O UART Communications

It is quite unusual to have UART communication for ESC, no? Is it a specific protocol or is it just PWM with a different name?

I am trying to figure out if I can use it similarly to other ESCs I used before.

Thank you for your time!

Best regards

[Zachary Lowell 0]

Hi @Ender - yes the voxl 4 in 1 esc does use UART, no different naming convention, that is the protocol used.

If you wish to use PWM then you can leverage this breakout board: https://www.modalai.com/products/voxl2-io?variant=40610514206771

The board above will allow you to connect PWM esc's into this breakout board and then into the voxl2.

Zach

[Alex Kushleyev]

@Ender , the UART-based communication offers many benefits over traditional PWM.

Just as few examples, we can use bi-directional communication to monitor and tune performance in real time and for offline analysis, take a look at some of the tools we have to analyze the ESC performance:

• esc calibration
• regenerative braking analysis
• low-kv motor tuning

If you are not used to such protocols, it may take a bit longer to figure out how to properly tune and use our ESCs, but digital communication is the standard of many new ESCs and even hobby ESCs try to achieve similar protocols using DSHOT (which is essentially a UART-style digital communication protocol, which can be implemented using PWM pins that do not support UART on the microcontrollers). In addition to UART communication, our ESCs offer closed-loop RPM control, which helps with maintaining consistent ESC response across different conditions and battery charge levels.

If you don't want to add any more variables to your project, you should definitely try the voxl2-io solution that Zachary suggested, so that you can use it in PX4 just like traditional actuators and connect your favorite ESCs to voxl2-io. voxl2-io board will connect to VOXL2 and will communicate with PX4 (running on VOXL2) via UART. voxl2-io will send out the desired PWM signals to the individual ESCs that you have connected to it.

Alex