Monday, November 15, 2010

Living with a bipolar Heli. (ESC reset to defaults)

The unfortunate fact is any ESC that depends on software will have defects. I say this because I have been a Software Engineer for 25 years, worked on many products and have yet seen a software based system get released bug free, sorry Futaba that includes you.

This Saturday, when trying to fly my Logo 600, it showed its dark personality. Upon getting ready to fly, the ESC reset itself to the defaults, meaning Airplane mode and no soft start up. I usually set my helis up to arm the ESC based on the throttle hold, so I start the heli up in stunt mode 2, depending on the soft start of the ESC. Once the throttle hold is switched off my blades spin up and up and away!

Not this time the heli went wild spinning out of control. I was quick enough to shut her down and save the heli. Keep in mind that I have flown this heli maybe 12 times and all the sudden she goes nuts. When I took it home I found out that the ESC had set itself to the defaults. Then I immediately emailed Castle Creations.

As they said 3.24 had the fix for that situation, I did not want to be put into that situation again, so the tech at Castle Creations offered this advice for any ESC you are using.

“Set the motor direction to Reverse in the Castle Link & then set the correct direction with the motor leads. By doing this if the controller resets to default the motor will spin the one way so as not to drive the main gear. Therefore saving your heli.”

Seems like good advice!

No comments:

Post a Comment