ESC Telemtry using Dshot

ArduCopter Copter 4.0
1

Hello,

I’ve been attempting to get 4 BLheli32 ESC telemetry working through the Dshot 150 protocol. We currently do not receive the ESC data in the .bin files, and the status page in Mission planner just show’s 0s for all ESC data. I’d expect the ESC current, and voltage to at least show some values prior to running the motors. The flight controller is a Pixhawk cube black. We recently resoldered the ESC signal wires to the extra “AUX” outputs since we are using Dshot. Based on the Ardupilot documentation, the ESC data should’ve just defaulted to normal PWM output even when it was connected to “MAIN”. But we still were just receiving 0s for all the data. We are using serial port 5 for the ESC as well.

I don’t believe this is a software issue, but here is all the mission planner params we set for attempting to enable ESC Telemetry:

MOT_PWM_TYPE: 4
SERIAL5_PROTOCOL: 16
SERVO_BLH_TRATE: 10
SERVO_BLH_MASK: 3840
SERVO_BLH_AUTO: 1
SERVO_BLH_POLES: 14
SERVO_BLH_OTYPE: 4

When starting autopilot, one of the relevant messages on the Mission Planner Messages tab says:
RCOut: PWM: 1-8 DS150: 9-12

I thought this seemed correct, as we are attempting to use DS150 for 4 ESCs connected to the first 4 AUX OUT ports.

2

Use Mavlink2 for telemetry.

3

Looks correct. What version of BLH?

4

I saw this in some of the other posts, do you mean setting SERIAL5_PROTOCOL: 2, for Mavlink2?

5

You have to use Mavlink2 for your telemetry protocol going to your ground station if you want to see ESC telem in real time. Otherwise your setup looks correct. What ESC are you using?

6

We also aren’t seeing the ESC data in the Data Flash Logs. The ESC header info is there, but no data for any of the 4 ESCs. Using Mavlink2 would allow real-time observation of the ESC data, but since it’s not in the DFL either, I think there’s some other issue.

7

What ESC’s are you using?

8

MOT_PWM_TYPE: 4
SERIAL5_PROTOCOL: 16
SERVO_BLH_TRATE: 10
SERVO_BLH_MASK: 0
SERVO_BLH_AUTO: 1
SERVO_BLH_POLES: 12
SERVO_BLH_OTYPE: 0

My settings and these work.
Set BLHeli protocol with : https://oscarliang.com/blheli-32-esc-fc-passthrough/

9

The ESC’s being used are Wraith32 Mini’s

10

It appears the issue was that the ESCs had a BLHeli_32 firmware version was Rev 32.0. Telemetry is only supported for Rev 32.1 and on.