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How to connect this weird controller to esc??

Fungineers

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Hey experts
I bought this omnibus f4 osd controller but its got a weird board. Cant find any documentation. Where do the wires from eec go?? Theres a weiird v+ and v- for each motor and a small round pad in between..im stumped. Thanks. My esc is 4 in 1 with 5 wires coming off the connector.
 
What kind of ESC is it?
You need to find the pinout for your ESC connector. 4 wires are the motor signal wires, and the fifth could be a voltage monitor, 5v out, or vbat out (it could be a number of things so it's important that you know what it is if you use it.)
The 4 motor wires will go to the four corners of the flight controller at the circular "M" pads. The fifth we'll determine once we see the pinout for your ESC. So effectively, you have the wire harness out from the 4in1 but no harness on the FC end, the wires will all go to their respective pads.

Without a diagram for the FC, how did you plan to hook up the camera and the rest?
 
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Hey @rtkDarling thanks!
Ok so the 4 motor wires go to the small round pads.
About the esc, it is a eacestar 4 in 1 (v1i think) blheli. It has 4 motor wires and 2 other wires. The red is chopped off and the black is the 5th wire. Heres the picture:
IMG_20190916_062829.jpg
 
So the biggest disconnect here is that you have an AIO FC (PDB/FC/BEC) meant to take the battery pigtail into it and feed the +/- out to 4 individual ESC's, it is not set up well for a 4in1 ESC, but you can still use it. The big issue with this is that the FC is designed to be the PDB and FC all in one and will need battery voltage wired to it to run the on board BEC to give the FC the 5 volts it needs to run, but the 4in1 ESC is made to attach the battery pigtail to it, so you have some decisions to make on how to wire this thing up.

Sorry RTK, this FC is not made to attach motors to it, it is made to attach individual ESC's to it, that is why there is only the + and - pads along with the motor signal pad (round pad) in the middle of each +/- set. If it was made to have the motor wire up to it, first off it would have a built in ESC (no such beast except in the Whoop arena) and it would have 3 pads for each motor.

I see this a lot lately, people buy AIO (All In One) FC's and expect to use them with 4in1 ESC's, tough to make a clean build with that. Plus, to hook VBat up to it, what do you do? Hook big jumper wires from the ESC battery pigtail pads to the battery pigtail pads on the FC? Not a clean way to do it. And if you have a VBat out from the ESC that you can wire to a small VBat pad on the FC, then you have a huge shorting possibility with the battery pigtail pads on the FC. Plus once you have VBat hooked up to the FC you have a huge shorting possibility with the +/- pairs at the corners of the FC.

My advice would be to save this FC for an individual ESC build (individual ESC's are making a big comeback lately), and get a proper FC for the 4in1 ESC

By the way, the pin out is right there on the board to the right of the connector, Negative (ground), then Signal 4, Signal 3, Signal 2, Signal 1 (- S4 S3 S2 S1)
Why the red wire is chopped off, and why it is not called out in the silk screening on the board is beyond me. I don't think you can even buy that ESC anymore, and without the full model name, there is no way to pull the pin out and find out how to wire it.
 
@HighTechPauper many thanks for the detailed reply.
I understand now that I have read (and done some research) that this FC is meant for individual ESCs; but it could work if I wire it up as @rtkDarling has explained. Yes, it wont be neat to connect the battery wires to the ESC, but I really dont want to wait for another bunch of ESCs. So question 1 is, could it be done?

Thank you also for shedding some light on the connector pinout. I totally didnt see the pinout on the silkscreen. What Ive read as to why the red connector is missing, is that the ESC is powered directly through the battery leads, so we dont need a 5V to it. Does that make any sense? That's question 2.

Again, thanks for digging up the pinout for the FC. I did eventually find it and here's how I think it should be wired. Please help me if I am incorrect.

Camera:
vin - camera signal in
vout - vtx signal in
(5v and ground to any 5v and ground for both).

Radio:
sbus from radio - RX6 (5v & gnd to 5v and gnd)
a spare pin from radio - rssi (for telemetry)

GPS:
GPS tx and rx - TX3 and RX3
5v and gnd - 5v and gnd

Buzzer:
self explanatory

Only thing Im confused about (assuming the above is correct lol):
a. what is RX1(D) for
b. what are TX1 and TX6 for (do the go to the radio?)
c.where is vbat going? Is that the full battery voltage? Do I have to connect it?

Thanks for your time! Appreciate it :)

Sincerely,
A Newbie.


 
@Fungineers, you're welcome, give me some time to get caught up here at the house and I will respond to all your wire out questions then, please standby.

But as for questions 1 and 2...

1. Yes it can most definitely be done

2. No that doesn't make any sense. The ESC does NOT need 5v, only battery input through the pigtail. But the ESC might have a 5 volt BEC to feed the FC (through the red and black wires) since some FC's do not have a BEC built in. It is possible that the ESC model you have does not have a 5 volt BEC on board so they chopped the red wire off so you wouldn't be confused into thinking it had a BEC on the ESC, that's what I'm thinking if it came from the factory like that with the red wire chopped off.

Can you tell me exactly what make/model of ESC that is, or any pictures of writing on the ESC or documentation you may have gotten with it? I think you said it is a Racerstar, but having as much info as possible about it so I can look it up will help me to make good recommendations about your wire out. The devil is in the details.
 
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@HighTechPauper thanksss!!

Its a racestar v1 4 in 1 esc. And you are correct it doesnt have a built in bec but my fc has a built in bec so looks like im good. Dont need the red wire. Will just short the battery leads to fc and esc!

Please take your time. Waiting on the wireup confirmation :)
 
@Fungineers, sorry buddy, that won't do it, Racerstar makes a couple dozen 4 in 1 ESC's. Let's try this, do you know what Amp rating and can you send me a clear picture of the entire ESC top and bottom?
 
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@HighTechPauper I cant seem to upload image but its a 20A esc. Only one pinout as shown. Then 3 wires out for each motor.
Would love if you could shed some light on the questuons about the pinout of the fc
 
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@HighTechPauper

Camera:
vin - camera signal OUT
vout - vtx signal in - Check to see what the vTX can handle, many will take VBat directly from the ESC board where the pigtail attaches and can provide a very clean 5v/Ground for the cam. This can go a long way to you having clean video
(5v and ground to any 5v and ground for both).

Radio: Technically correct but we call them Receivers, the "Radio" or "Transmitter" or "Controller" is the thing you hold in your hands.
sbus from radio - RX6(S) (5v & gnd to 5v and gnd) RX6(S) - This is an instance where a UART is broken out for use inverted for SBus protocol
a spare pin from radio - rssi (for telemetry) ???? This depends a lot on what RX (Receiver) you have, R-XSR, XM, XM+, you said SBus so I assume you have a Taranis or Xlite? And if so what exact model

GPS: This should all be ok, but you won't know if there is am issue until it is all together and working, but I don't use GPS so I don't know if there are any caveats with this board or iNav/BF functionality you hope to achieve. If you are planning long range I can't advise, I am not sending my stuff more than 1/4 mile
GPS tx and rx - TX3 and RX3
5v and gnd - 5v and gnd

Buzzer:
self explanatory

Only thing Im confused about (assuming the above is correct lol):
a. what is RX1(D) for Some protocols are inverted and some are un-inverted, because the F4 processor is not set up to do both like F3 and F7 boards the manufacturers have made some pins available for popular control protocols. That is why you have RX1(D) for DSMX Spektrum protocol, an Un-inverted UART port broken out for the user
b. what are TX1 and TX6 for (do the go to the radio?) No, they may not go anywhere, and heres why. There are rules that cannot be broken here, a port can only be used for one thing, even if only the TX or RX pad is in use, the other mate to it cannot be used for anything. For instance, you can't put SBus on RX6(S) and use TX6 for anything like Smart Audio or Smart Port from the Receiver if you had for example an R-XSR.
c.where is vbat going? Is that the full battery voltage? Do I have to connect it? VBat may not go anywhere, it depends. Yes, once the FC is jumper-ed to VBat on the ESC, then this pad will have VBat on it. Sometimes it is used to feed VBat the the vTX instead of taking the vTX right to the battery pigtail connection (When the vTX is rated for VBat, you simply MUST know what the input voltage range is for various pieces to hook things up optimally).
See my embedded advice... which may beg more questions I'm sure. Sometime this basic stuff is better covered on the phone, PM me if needed.
 
@HighTechPauper Thank you! that clears up a lot.

Ill power up vtx and cam from Vbat then (they can take upto 40V).

On the SBUS protocol: What you mean to say is, that my signal from the receiver can either be SBUS or SBUS Inverted. And since my FC is old, i cant fix this in betaflight, so I will have to use one of the pins (RX(D) or RX(S)) on the FC. Is that correct?

About the Receiver, I have an R10DS (Radiolink) receiver. Its really big and bulky but I got it with my AT10 Radiolink Radio/Controller, so thought I will use it. This is what it looks like:
recepteur-12-voies-r12ds-radiolink-24g-dsss-et-fhss.jpg
It also has a telemetry module that plugs in.
From the research I have done. It seems like i have to wire the sbus (last bottom row of pins) to RX6 on the FC for control. And for telemetry, I can take any other pin, and connect to RSSI on the FC (then map it in betaflight as RSSI). Is that correct, or is this receiver too outdated lol.
 
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@Fungineers,

Before you read on, there may be enough info on the web to figure this out about the Receiver, but I do not know since i have never seen or worked with those.

I don't know enough about RadioLink or that receiver, it looks like it should work by hooking the pin labeled SBUS (pin 11, ONLY 1 wire!!!) to RX6, but how to get it out of PWM mode and into SBUS mode and how else to work with it I do not know. Or even if it will work at all, as you said, it may be too outdated (PWM is for planes and such that have Servos instead of FC's). Unfortunately I don't know for sure, all you can do is research it and see what you can find out. It would really make it better if you sell the RadioLink and buy a Frsky QX7 or QX7S (QX7S is preferred if you can swing it).

Telemetry will not work as you have described from the looks of things, but I don't know for sure. If it was going to work, it seems there is a second module that may plug into the receiver at the 4 pins labelled GND/SDA/SCL/VCC, and you would take this second modules wire (1 wire only) to the RSSI pad on the FC (, but I do not know.

1568939618477.png

If it was Frsky we would know, but I don't know anybody using a RadioLink. Perhaps google for some Youtube videos to see if you can find anything. If you are not sure let me know and I will try to research a bit for you if I can.

You misunderstood me, or I was not clear about Inverted vs Un-inverted...
There are some manufacturers whose protocols are ALWAYS inverted, like SBUS.
There are some manufacturers whose protocols are ALWAYS UN-inverted, like DSMX, or Crossfire.
You MUST hook up Inverted protocols to Inverted ports, and you MUST hook up Un-inverted protocols to Un-inverted ports, or they will not work
 
I have used these boards in a lot of my quads the past couple of years. They're cheap and they work well! I have them in 7 quads and I have 2 spares. The power to ESCs are the pads that stick out and the little (dot) pads on the inside corner of them are the signal pads for each ESC. BTW, I recommend Betaflight 3.4.0 for firmware as the best running version on this board. Newer or older versions have not worked well for me.
 
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