Dshot ESCs won't spin

Hexacopter 1.param (18.0 KB)
Connected to Pixhawk 6C. After the Pixhawk boots (all the little beeps) the motor plays its twin-tone “ready for arming” then the motor “stutters”, that is it briefly and intermittently rotates a fraction of a turn even before the safety switch has been pressed. After a while of that both the motor and ESC are warm, not even close to too hot to touch, but noticeably warm. When I run the motor test the stuttering stops, but the motor does not spin at all. BLHeli_S ESCs (Photo 1)


Connected to the FMU PWM output. Motors assigned to channels 9-14 (hexacopter). Loop rate set to 400, MOT_PWM_TYP set to 6 (Dshot600). Have tried multiple speed settings. Have looked at the channel’s output on an oscilloscope. Pre-arm, to me looks fine. According the specs I found (here) , each pulse is fine and the overall frame is at least close (scope hasn’t been calibrated in years…). Decided maybe it is still a configuration issue and built a tester out of an Arduino. I sends pre-am (all zeroes) for 2 seconds, then a value 48 for 5 seconds, then ramps up to a value of 1046, which according to the document I found is supposed to be 50% motor speed. Signal is 5V pulses. This photo

shows the first few bits of the 1046 value (100000… Can’t time the last pulse showing at this scale, but it’s a 1) at a scale you can time the pulse widths. Yeah, there is some voltage overshoot, but it is an Arduino, I have no idea what capacitance is on that pin. This

shows the entire pulse train in a scale you can easily decode the bits. According to my interpretation, it is indeed 1046 with checksum as described in the document. This

is the same thing at a scale to measure the frame length which comes out to really close to the Dshot600 frame time. Motor still doesn’t spin. Reflashed the firmware using BLHeli configurator in case a previous configuration “confused” the ESC. NO CHANGE.

What the BLEEP am I missing here?

Scope shots won’t tell us much (ignored them). Post the parameter file.
Flash Bluejay?

does it work when the output is set to regular servo PWM output?

Posted on original post

Should work as configured but those ESC’s came in several different versions with various descriptions. I had some of them 7 yrs ago.
Normally the 1st thing you do with BLHeli_S ESC’s is flash Bluejay firmware and then the BDshot version of firmware to the Flight Controller. But I don’t suppose there is Bluejay firmware for those.

But just for kicks what does the banner message say in the messages screen of Mission Planner for RCouts.

Tried one just now, it seems to. Will need to reconnect them all and try the ESC calibration on all with these ESCs. Right now the copter is pretty much disassembled for troubleshooting. I had “regular” PWM-only ESCs in at first, but could NOT get them to calibrate properly and so they spun at different (audible) speeds during the motor test (another post that got no replies). Was not about to proceed toward a flight with that, so I decided to try the Dshot route, you know because they “just work” without calibration. Right…

I am only suggesting pwm as a test to verify the motor and physical connections are ok.

Yeah, right now I’m willing to use whatever variation works!

I have the 20A version of that ESC and I use Bluejay on it.

Hi, I have the exact same ESCs running on a Pixhawk 6C and also can’t get them to do Dshot.
I tried everything incl Bluejay. No luck.

Please let me know if you get them running w Dshot (currently running Ondeshot 125)

Post the parameter file.