Brushless motor, joystick

Projects General Guidance
1

I just noticed the potentiometers in joysticks only use less than half the travel distance of the knob. The little stick shift only turns the pot from about 10:00 to 2:00 instead of the full 8:00 to 4:00 so the motors I have on either axis can't get full power. I using an Arduino nano to an ESC and a brushless motor. The question I have is, is there any way to adjust the code to get full power when the pot is about 3/4 max?

[code]
#include <Servo.h>

Servo ESC;     // create servo object to control the ESC

int potValue;  // value from the analog pin

void setup() {
  // Attach the ESC on pin 10
  ESC.attach(10,1000,2000); // (pin, min pulse width, max pulse width in microseconds) 
}

void loop() {
  potValue = analogRead(A0);   // reads the value of the potentiometer (value between 0 and 1023)
  potValue = map(potValue, 0, 1023, 0, 180);   // scale it to use it with the servo library (value between 0 and 180)
  ESC.write(potValue);    // Send the signal to the ESC
}
[/code]
2

Hello drumbum

Take a DMM and check the variable resistances of the pots.

Have a nice day and enjoy coding in C++.

4

Yes but how do you determine what the numbers should be?

5

DOHHHH!!!!!

6

Use that for safety! Suppose the ground connection is broken. Then You will read "full speed"! Perform a calibration, measure the range. Values outside the range should be handled as emergency, stop.
This is mandatory in industrial machines.

7

Very good idea! how do I do that? There's a 10k pot in the joystick. The motor runs forward or reverse. When the stick is in the center the resistance is 5k either way, when I push the stick full either way the pot only changes about 2k so about 7k to 3k. How does that translate to any of these numbers?

9

At 5K the output voltage is 0.5 x 5V =2.5V, analogRead = 512
At 7K the output voltage is 0.7 x 5V =3.5V, analogRead = 716
At 3K the output voltage is 0.3 x 5V =1.5V, analogRead = 307

11

..........AND the 5v reference is actually 5V.

12

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