RC Planes & Quadcopters

Electronic Speed Controller ESC

Electronic Speed Controller:

Nowadays I am really into RC Planes and Cars. I have already designed some RC planes. One of the essential parts while making the RC Plane or Quad copter or an RC car is the ESC Electronic Speed Controller. I learned a lot of new things while working on the RC planes, I also damaged some ESCs, and now I know exactly why they were damaged. So, I decided to share my experience with you guys.   ESC is known as electronic speed controller yes it do some great jobs with motors to rotate motor. Electronic speed controller ESC converts DC power coming from battery to AC which is going in motor.

Electronic speed controllers of the brushless type motors. So, you may not know if you have a brushed or brushless motor in your rig and we need a controller for them the electronic speed controller is called that because it controls the speed electronically of your motor. If you don’t know if you have a brushed or brushless that’s a really easy way to tell brushless has three wires.



Amazon Purchase Links:

RC Planes Accessories

ESCs Electronic Speed controllers

Other Tools and Components:

Super Starter kit for Beginners

Digital Oscilloscopes

Variable Supply

Digital Multimeter

Soldering iron kits

PCB small portable drill machines

*Please Note: These are affiliate links. I may make a commission if you buy the components through these links. I would appreciate your support in this way!

Electronic Speed Controller




Connection ESC with motor:

Now a brushless motor has three wires. The three wires coming out from the ESC which directly goes to the motor. The three wires of the motor connected with the three wires of the ESC, on the other side the two wires red and black is known as for power to powering up the AC. So you can connect it with the battery or the chassis. Now the third wire which is known as servo wire. It is a servo wire but it is a battery eliminating circuit which is known as BEC. The ESC used 5 volt of output with 2 amps to covering the receiver or powering the flight controller. So ESC works for that now the electronic speed controller ESC has two wires one negative and positive here red and black is for the ESC and the third wire which is white is known as for signal. So signal wire is for reaction of these many wires is available with different shapes and size and mainly categories in different ends.

Electronic Speed Controller

electronic speed controller ESC can come in a variety of flavors and sizes from very small ultra-micro seven amp or less all with the 60 amp plus so you get very very large ESC very quickly. Now the thing that you will find very common though between all of them is they have the same connector same inboard outboard connectors for primary function. Now some electronic speed controller ESC have additional data logging capabilities you can connect to them with outboard devices but ultimately they have three wires that connect to the brushless motor. They have two wires that come out of them to connect to your flight battery and they have a radio system connection. So the most ESC have BEC a BEC stands for battery eliminator circuit. A battery eliminator circuit pulls power from your main flight battery back feeds it through the radio connection coming from the electronic speed controller ESC into your receiver empowers all your servos and your trend your any other electrical devices. You have onboard the aircraft now there are amperage limitations to a BEC built into electronic speed control so always check your budget as we refer to it an electrical world check your demand budget to make sure that you aren’t exceeding the capabilities of the BEC building to your electronic speed control.



Choosing ESC for the motor:

First you need to know how much your motor needs amp. So if you know that this motor needs 25 amps to run on a propeller then you can easily find a perfect ESC. So for example my motor runs on 25 amps and I am having the ESC of 20 amps if I connect this 20 amp ESC with this motor. It will burst ESC because the load will be overloaded because this ESC is 20 amps and the motor minimum requirement is 25 amps so it will burst. Now if you think that I can purchase ESC with the amps of thought 25 then it will also add ranges ESC cause sometimes when you are flying machine in the air. So it can generate more power or rotate faster. So it will be danger for the ESC, your ESC may be get heat up and can be burst also. So I recommended to you that buy an ESC with minimum 30 amps. If your motor requires 25 amps so if you buy 30 amps ESC for your motor then it will work perfect.  Now the choosing of ESC is quite simple if you know the requirement amps of for the motor now here is a termed Simon.

Next thing you need to select is ESC for selecting the ESC you need to keep in mind the KV rating of your motor so you need to ensure the maximum current is drawing at the maximum throttle that is 100% so what is the amount of current it is drawing at 100% will give the amp rating of the ESD so 4,000 kV. it goes maximum up to 20 amp. So here I am having 30 amp ESC. electronic speed controller ESC comes in various forms and sizes. It can range from 20, 25, 30, 40 ampere and even higher. It depends upon you and the type of quad which you are making you need to select the ESC. The thumb and route for selecting the electronic speed controller ESC is that you should have 20% more amp rating than your motor. Consider the case where I’m having a thousand kV motors and it can draw a maximum of 20 amperes of current so with 20 percent thumb rule you need to select an ESC of 25 amperes or more but I will recommend you to go for 30 amperes. So consider an and the scenario where you need a 20 ampere of current but you are choosing a ESC of 40 amp current will it be any useful to you? No it will decrease the performance of your quad because the weight will be increase from 4 to 10 gram. It is highly recommended that you select the correct type of ESC otherwise you are gonna end up the performance of your quad. So I would recommend you to go for 30 amp of ESC that will give you quite sufficient. Consider and the scenario where your quad draws about 20 amperes of current and you are selecting an electronic speed controller ESC of 20 amperes only. So when you go to hundred percent throttle they wanna heat up and after some time they won’t even burn off and they can literally catch fire and it could be dusted for you quadcopter as well as for your he is see also so you need to keep these things in mind before selecting the ESC I have taken 30 amperes of ESC then 25 amperes even the 25 amperes will serve the purpose 4000 community it is because before choosing the ESC if you are having the same KV rating but then also the current drawn by the motor can drastically change depend upon the size of the router that is the size of the motor that which you are using and also it depends upon the winding of the router that you are using a copper winding or some other winding and apart from that the size of the propeller that you are choosing so these are the three things which can pretty much change the current rating of your motor. So it is recommended to go for 30 ampere which is sufficient.

Now there are two types of is electronic speed controller ESC available a programmable one and non-programmable. So here I am having non programmable ESC but if you want you can go for a programmable ESC it is going to be little costly. So you can go for a SimonK firmware  or BLHeli firmware although there is no much difference is there a programmer ESC will be more responsible and will be very precise and considering these type of ESC. So it is up to you whether you need to a programmer electronic speed controller ESC or non-programmable but if your advanced user already needs something more precise then it is recommended to go for the programmable ESC.



Types of ESC:

ESC is perfect for planes and helicopters additionally I see it best for planes and helicopters traditions. ESC quite simple and can set up by radio control. So you can directly set up the traditional ELC with your radio set up or software card. So it is quite simple and can be used for helicopter or the plane.

Simon KESC:

Simon kESC are one of the best ESC for multicopter, comes with a specialized field. So Simon kESC if you are using for your multicopter then it’s a best option Simon KESC is best for multicopter. It work very fast and react very quickly and it is plug-and-play type ESC. So it is plug-and-play connect your wire here motor wire connect your battery connect it with receiver calibrate and now it’s done. So Simon KESC are also very simple and it is only for multi rotors multicopters. So if you are you trying to put purchasing ESC for your multicopter then Simon KESC best option and this will select your amps of Simon KESC and buy the Simon KESC.

BL helios ESC:

BL helios is also same as Simon KESC but BL helios have the ability to change elements like traditional using PC software. So BL helios have the ability to change the settings of the ESC with the PC software. Mainly BL helios ESC is better for low speed motors and motors with B prop our very low kV motors. So if you are having very low kV motors with big prop then BL heli is good too as for you so you can buy Bill Haley if you are using the motors big motors so these are the species and pin bears of the ESC.



Calibration of the ESC:

Now let’s calibrate the ESC so calibrating ESC you need a receiver 6 channel receiver or 10 channel depending on you aid battery with a transmitter. So let’s connect the wire first motor wire to the ESC. So connecting the motor wires to the ESC. ESC using a flexi radio controller the process is effortless connect your ESC with brushless DC motor. Now connect ESC signal wire on channel 3 of your flex key receiver usually this ESC signal wire has to be connected to throttle pin of your receiver. Now turn on the transmitter and put the throttle stick to max then carefully power up your ESC with a lipo battery wait for a painting musical tone from ESC after you hear these musical tones lower down the throttle stick to the minimum and again wait for the ding ding ding musical tone. These musical tones indicates that electronic speed controller ESC has stored the maximum and minimum values of the throttle stick increase the throttle and observe the response of the brushless DC motor.

Engr Fahad

My name is Shahzada Fahad and I am an Electrical Engineer. I have been doing Job in UAE as a site engineer in an Electrical Construction Company. Currently, I am running my own YouTube channel "Electronic Clinic", and managing this Website. My Hobbies are * Watching Movies * Music * Martial Arts * Photography * Travelling * Make Sketches and so on...

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back to top button