Arduino Board? ?for? ?Control of? ?Multiple ESCs??

Using Arduino Project Guidance
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Hi Folks

I want to control? ?7? ?ESCs and corresponding brushless motors using an Arduino,? ?is controlling this many from one board possible and if so which board would be capable??? I planned to use a? ?separate? ?potentiometer for each motor as an input to the? ?“analogue in?”? pins?; ?these would then control the ESCs via the board and its PWM outputs.? ?Does this sound like it would work??

Thanks? in advance for any advice you can give..

David

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The Uno only has 6 analogue inputs so you have a problem. Which ESC provide a link how many inupts does it require?.

Mark

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You might need more than one Arduino, but as long as your ESCs are to be controlled independent of each other then that wouldn't be a problem.

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You could easily use a single Arduino and the Servo library (Arduino Playground - HomePage) which will support up to 12 servos - since the ESC is simply treated as a servo - well, there you go.

If that didn't work for you, then get a serial servo controller, like the ones they sell at Pololu; hook it to the Arduino, then hook the ESCs to the servo controller - I think the smallest such controller can control up to 8 servo devices.

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Thanks guys. I haven't bought the ESC yet so not sure yet. I think i'm going to get myself an DUE - assuming it basically has similar characteristics to the UNO, only with more Analogue inputs. I'm not really too worried about space saving and its not much more expensive. I'll also check out the Servo Library.

For the control I plan to use a seperate potentiometer for each motor at the end of a long cable (300m / 1000ft). Any idea if this will work ok?

cheers

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300m is tooooo long and more expensive, especially if you need big gauge wire (wich you will need because motors draw lots of amperes)

I suggest put the arduino near the motors. the savings will be huge. Then you can use a 6 CH RC transmitter /receiver and split the modulation so that you actually control 12channels. With wich you can control the ESC's

You can do that using Due ( if you have a reason to use arduino ) and you can "hack" the pot's in the transmitter board
I've done something similar in the past, and was very satisfied. a reliable rx/tx costs less that $50 and has range of 1km or more 2.4GHz

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Its a long way - i should have mentioned that its an underwater device so radio transmitters are not an option (as far as my understanding goes!). But my plan was always to have the ESC and other electronics right beside the controllers - i only need to run a controlling signal (ie from a potentiometer) throught the 300m. I guess there's no way of using a CH RC transmitter/reciever setup unless its used wirelessly?

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This guy has a library:

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thanks - i'll keep it in mind. I've actually bought myself a Due so i can control each through an individual analogue-in. It just helps me to organise thing in my head that way!

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