Wiring Terminology on Cytron ESC

Help & Support Robot Parts
1

I bought 2 Cytron ESC’s and their wiring terminology confuses me. Their 3 outputs to the flight controller are labelled:
DIR, PWM and GRD
whereas my Hex Cube Orange carrier board has them labelled as:
Signal, Power & Ground

For wiring the ESC to the Cube, I figure:

  1. GRD is (of course) Ground
  2. DIR is “maybe” Signal
  3. but PWM to me is Pulse Width Modulation, which is also a “signal”, and that leaves me with no “power” wire

So my question is, how do the 3 Cytron outputs match up to the Cube inputs ?
Thanks in advance.

2

Hello @RC_Guelph and welcome to the forum,

Could you share the link or product code of the Cytron ESC you are referring to?

Regards

3

Here’s the link to the ESC documentation https://www.robotshop.com/media/files/content/c/cyt/pdf/md20a_datasheet.pdf

However, someone from another forum provided me with an answer. The HEX Cube Orange provides for wiring this, and the instructions are here: Brushed Motors — Rover documentation

The resulting answer, as I understand it, being:

  1. Connect the ESC DIR pin to a carrier board “relay” output “S” pin
  2. Connect the ESC PMW pin to a carrier board “servo” output “S” pin
    (i.e. instruction 1 & 2 require the use of two separate carrier board outputs, one a relay and one a servo)
  3. Connect the ESC GRD to a carrier board Ground

Nothing needs to be connected to the carrier board “+” rail.

I haven’t tried this yet, as I’ve gotten busy with other things.

Thanks for your offer to help.

4

Hi, did you manage to solve the problem? I can’t find a “relay” pin on my CubePilot Cube Orange. I am using the rover firmware with the boat frame.

I agree the PWM should connect to S pin but how do I connect the DIR pin?

5

Sorry, but I never figured it out totally, and I’ve since abandoned the project, as the electronics are too complicated for me. Good luck.