Castle Phoenix Ice with Futaba 4Pk, what's the tricks to set up?

[don ferrette]

Ok so I'm setting up a pair of Castle Phoenix Ice Lites converted to water cooling to work with my Futaba 4PK. A couple people had previously posted that the 4PK doesn't need a Pistix to work so I went that route. Here's the deal- after setting up the ESCs with my CastleLink when I power to up the Phoenix with a 5S pack the ESC doesn't arm until you push the 4PK throttle to full forward brake position (the braking is turned off in the CastleLink programming) and when you begin to release the trigger to go to it's natural neutral/zero position the motor starts running. The CastleLink programming was set with auto detect on the throttle so do I need to go back in and set the end points manually?? Any help here will be greatly appreciated.

[HydroMike]

Don i think I had the same going on, on the ul1 it was the trigger I had to set it to 70/30 and not 50/50 not sure if that is what ur looking for

[gsbuickman]

Hi Don
Have you double checked to make sure your trims are set at 0° neutral, then run thru the throttle range setting process, so the esc's know where full throttle & neutral are at ?. I had a problem with an ESC & my airtronics m11. Mike pointed out that I needed to do this as well. Hope it helps ....

[longballlumber]

Try reversing channel 2.... For some reason, I've always needed to reverse the throttle channel when using Futaba equipment. All of my radios are of the "stick" variety though

Later
Mike

[don ferrette]

Throttle is reversed just like it says to do in the instructions for Futaba. All trims are at zero, throttle end points at 120, TX is set to 70/30 for trigger. There is no "range setting process" listed in the instructions, it just says ESC has arming protection that will not allow it to arm until it sees zero throttle input which right now is all the way forward (full brake position) even with braking function turned off. I'm wondering if the "auto detect" throttle setting needs to be changed in CastleLink to the manual (user entered) end point settings but want to ask first before I went down that path. As I mentioned people have previously posted here that they got these ESCs to work with the 4PK and no Pistix, just need to figure out what I'm overlooking.........

[Fluid]

To get the Castle aircraft controllers to work without a PiStix with my Spektrum I had to use these settings:

Throttle trim: -100 percent
Throttle sub trim: 100 percent low
Throttle: normal direction

I never tried one without a PiStix with my old 4PK so I do not know if the Futaba can be set to work without one or not. But setting things to zero is definitely not going to work.....these are not land controllers and don't work the same for throttle inputs.




.

[don ferrette]

To get the Castle aircraft controllers to work without a PiStix with my Spektrum I had to use these settings:

Throttle trim: -100 percent
Throttle sub trim: 100 percent low
Throttle: normal direction

I never tried one without a PiStix with my old 4PK so I do not know if the Futaba can be set to work without one or not. But setting things to zero is definitely not going to work.....these are not land controllers and don't work the same for throttle inputs.

Thanks for the input Jay, gave it go, didn't change.

[don ferrette]

WOOHOO!!! Got it to work! Big thanks to Jay for getting me thinking in the right direction.

After fiddling with it for a bit the settings on my 4PK came out as follows-

throttle servo setting - reversed
throttle trim on radio - B80
throttle sub trim - B100

And best of all this is with NO Pistix!

[Fluid]

Great news, glad it works!



.

[oscarel]

Wow, glad I stumbled on this thread!!!! Worked for me as well with 4pls. Thanks Don!!

[oscarel]

FYI, setting the fail safe resets the endpoints and then the motor runs at neutral when you lose signal (tested by turning off transmitter). To solve I changed the 'Throttle Type' to Fixed-Endpoints and followed the instructions in Castle-Lync. I ended up with 98% on forward and 35% on reverse trims. Fail safe is now safe!

Fixed-Endpoints
Fixed-Endpoints will set zero-throttle and full-throttle points to fixed values so that the ESC does not have to learn from your transmitter. If you are using this mode, you will most likely want to change the EPA settings on your transmitter to allow full throttle resolution with the throttle stick. *!**To do this, turn on your TX and set normal mode in the transmitter for a linear throttle curve (0,25,50,75,100). Bring your high side and low side endpoints on your throttle channel down to 25%, plug in the battery pack with the throttle stick at full (it won't start up), then bring your high endpoint back out towards (and sometimes past) 100% until you hear a single tone. Next, bring your throttle stick down to the bottom position and bring the endpoint out from 25% out towards (and possibly past) 100% until you hear the ESC arm. Unplug the battery pack, wait a few seconds, then plug back in and verify that the throttle is working properly.

[dmitry100]

oscarel: What settings did you use for the EndPoint and Trim/Sub Trim settings in the Futaba 4PLS to run the Castle controller without the pistix?

[Doug Smock]

Stuck it to this thread for awhile.

[dmitry100]

Well at least this is the only thread regarding any kind of Castle calibration with or without the pistix

[Moonie]

Boat Mode on futaba radios works well to.