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    Seeeker ESC PWM Port External Control

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    • N
      nekolny
      last edited by

      Hello I am currently working with modal Ai seeker and I want to utilize the PWM port on the ESC board and control it externally such as using the J3 connector and wire it to Arduino board or external PWM controller for manually turning on the Motors wihout the VOXL interference.

      I was curious if it is something that can be applied or was done, as currently working with Arduino setup and trying to get the ESC to respond to the commands, which I am sending with 1-2 ms signal as sepcified https://docs.modalai.com/modal-esc-datasheet/ In this case I do not need the output signal, so based on understanding I can disconnect VOXL board and use the PWM input to control the motors, but so far had no sucess. In this case i am using 5V input instead of the 3.3V.

      The optimal setup PC -> Arduino -> PWM Port on ESC with VOXL board disconnected.

      Alex KushleyevA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • Alex KushleyevA
        Alex Kushleyev Dev Team @nekolny
        last edited by

        Hi @nekolny , as described here (which you probably already saw) https://docs.modalai.com/modal-esc-datasheet/#pwm-inputs--outputs , the PWM input is supported and is the default behavior of the PWM IO pins.

        Please double check with firmware version you are using on the ESC using voxl-esc tools. https://gitlab.com/voxl-public/voxl-sdk/utilities/voxl-esc/-/tree/master/voxl-esc-tools?ref_type=heads . You can use these tools using a linux PC to perform firmware update and testing, but also these tools are installed on voxl2 in /usr/share/modalai/voxl-esc-tools. Make sure to stop voxl-px4 process before using voxl-esc tools on voxl2 : systemctl stop voxl-px4.

        The latest firmware for all of our ESCs is 39.20, so please install that and test again. Please also note, as listed in documentation, if the UART communication is detected by the ESC (valid packets sent from the host, even packets used in detecting the ESC), the pwm input is disabled until the ESC is power cycled. This is done for safety reasons to avoid conflicting inputs.

        The latest firmware is located here : https://gitlab.com/voxl-public/voxl-sdk/utilities/voxl-esc/-/tree/master/voxl-esc-tools/firmware and you can install it using voxl-esc-upload-firmware-all.sh script, which autodetects the ESC type and updates all 4 ESC channels with the firmware present int he firmware folder (so make sure that has version 39.20 - depending on which voxl2 SDK you are using, you may not have the latest already installed on voxl2, but you can always get the latest from the gitlab location)

        Alex

        N 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • N
          nekolny @Alex Kushleyev
          last edited by

          @Alex-Kushleyev

          Thank you for the information. I am currently using VOXL 1 board, with version 1.2.0 for the drone that I am trying to connect the ESC to but as there is no command for voxl-esc. I am wondering how would I apply it on the VOXL 1 board.

          Alex KushleyevA 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • Alex KushleyevA
            Alex Kushleyev Dev Team @nekolny
            last edited by

            @nekolny , you should use a linux PC to run voxl-esc tools in order to connect to the ESC and check / update the ESC firmware. VOXL1 does not have support for voxl-esc python tools to communicate directly with the ESC.

            Alex

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
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