Hello everyone,
I am a teacher guiding my students through a fixed-wing aircraft control system project using Arduino. They have encountered a motor issue that we haven’t been able to resolve, and we’d truly appreciate any advice or insight you could offer.
What the system is expected to do:
When the transmitter and receiver are both powered on, the ESC (Electronic Speed Controller) should enter throttle range calibration mode. This is usually triggered by moving the throttle joystick from maximum to minimum, allowing the motor to function normally after calibration.
What is happening instead:
• When we power the receiver, the ESC skips calibration and enters normal mode.
• The joystick does not trigger any motor response.
• Even when the transmitter is off and only the receiver + ESC/motor are powered, the ESC still enters normal mode, but again, there’s no throttle response.
• Update: After updating the program, the ESC now doesn’t enter any mode. We suspect the receiver’s wireless module isn’t receiving a signal from the transmitter side.
What my students have done to troubleshoot:
• Carefully checked the wiring, including ESC and parallel connections.
• Debugged the program and tried different communication channels.
• Verified the wireless module connections on both ends.
• Confirmed that joystick values are present and updating on the transmitter side.
• Made sure the IPEX antenna is connected properly.
We’re attaching:
• A circuit diagrams
• A code snippet showing the relevant part of wireless communication and motor control (I am sharing pictures of the transmitter and receiver code as image files since new users can’t upload files.)
This project has been a great hands-on learning opportunity, and we would love to help our students solve this problem and understand what’s going wrong. Any guidance would be deeply appreciated.
Thank you so much for your time and support.
Warm regards,
Nahid (on behalf of my students)
