Programing dual ESC's

[Bubbletop409]

Good morning crew

I am new to brushless motors and currently setting up a 1/16th Air Sea Rescue boat with dual brushless motors. When programing the ESC's do I do one at a time or can I leave the "Y" connector connected and do both at once. Thanks for the help.

Larry

[gsbuickman]

Hi B.T. since we don't know what kind of setup, parts your running or pics to reference, i'll take a guess at it. I figure your running dual esc's, motors and dual props. Therefore your esc's need to be set identical to each other, and probably neutral timing on the motors for counter rotating props. The motors also have to be a matching pair. So the setup runs in synch together.....

[siberianhusky]

I'm guessing at this but since only one esc should be providing the power for the rx and servos as well as the other esc I would try both at once, as long as the rx power wire is removed from one esc it won't hurt anything. If it doesn't work try individually.
Everything GSBM said above still applies.
Just remember that you don't want both BEC circuits in the escs providing power, only one.
Easy to use a pin to push down on the tab holding the red or + connector and pull the connector out if the JST plug that goes into the receiver. A bit of heatshrink or electrical tape to insulate it. This way if you want to use the esc for something else you can just re-insert the connector into the plug body. Some people just cut the red wire, others use a servo extension, cut the wire in the extension and leave the esc wires intact.
To be honest I have no idea why two becs can`t get along together. I thought you would have double the current because the are connected in parallel not series. Everybody says to use only one bec though, I've never experimented myself, don't want to blow something up.
Anybody know why you have to disable one bec when using two escs?

[srislash]

You have to worry about backfeed of power. It only takes a blip. I have done it, blew something up. One should be able to put a one way resistor or something inline though. I am no electronics guru so not sure what exactly. Got me thinking now though about amperage doubling :-).

I have not tried to set/calibrate both at once but am curious if it can be done. Setup maybe, but calibration, would you not have to power both ESC's at the same time?

[srislash]

Ok just tried on a pair of Seaking 120's and it seemed to take the setup using Yconnector. I used program box and separate Rx power.

[Bubbletop409]

Thanks for all the tips guy's. I see where more information on my setup would have been helpful.

So this is what I am putting together: 63.75" hull, 2 40mm counter rotating 3 blades, 22 to 25 lbs. RTR, 2 Leopard 4074 1050KV, 2 Seaking 180 A ESC's, 11.1 5000mah li po's. I may run two battery packs in parallel for each motor depending on what kind of run time I get.

I now know about interrupting the + side of one of the ESC's, however on a previous build I did not, and while the boat ran, and no radio damage was done, one motor constantly ran faster than the other, causing steering issues.

When I do the programing I'll check back with my findings.

Larry