BBB Beetleweight Single Brushed ESC v3

Example Robot: Abracagrabra by Rebecca Wilton

Rebecca built this magical lifter robot Abracagrabra – she runs two BBB Single Brushed ESCs – one per side each powering two BBB 22mm motors, see the wiring diagram below for how to add four motor drive to your robot.

More info about the ESC:

LED indicator light & beeps:
Start up beep = ESC has just powered on – it is receiving power and is connected to motor(s).
Solid LED = Powered on. Receiver ready, ESC is armed.
Flash & beep with short gap = Powered on. Throttle isn’t centred.
Flash & beep with long gap = Powered on. No receiver signal.

Mixing:
Check out our full mixing guide – to make it so you can drive your robot with one stick on the transmitter.

Firmware updates:

• BN1 & BN2 on PCB 75% duty cycle (slower output speed)
• 24/3/23: BN3 on PCB –  100% duty cycle – full speed output
• 17/1/24: BN3 + 3 written on PCB – Improved resistance to motor noise. More ways to fix for noisy motors below.

Do not use more than one BEC at a time – see both diagrams below
Unplug/cut the red servo wire on all but one ESC if you wish to power your receiver with a built in BEC.
Cut the red servo wire or tape over the metal connector to prevent risk of shorting.
If you’re powering a servo or other higher current components use an external BEC and disconnect all other BECs.

Please note: these are single ESCs and you will need one per drive side of your robot. You’ll need to set up mixing on your transmitter – Mixing Guide. We don’t recommend running 25mm motors above 3S, however our 22mm Planetary Gearmotors will run 4S lipos. Typical Beetle Wiring Diagram using these ESCs for two or four wheel drive:

Using external BEC – ESC’s BECS (red servo wire) are disconnected / cut:

Components in this example: 3S or 4S Lipo, Beetle Safety Kit, Breakout cable, BBB ESCs, BBB 22mm Motors, BEC and Flysky Reciever.
Image made by Team DSC.

Using one of the ESC’s internal BECs – other ESC’s red servo wire is disconnected / cut:

Fix for noisy motors causing glitchy movement above 50% throttle:

Almost all beetle sized brushed motors will work out the box with our single and dual ESCs, but a few nerf and 25mm style motors can produce enough EMI to interfere with the input signal from your receiver at high speeds. There are two things you can add to help fix this:
1. Solder 100nF (0.1uF) ceramic capacitors to your motors – if you use one per motor solder across the terminals, if you use two per motor solder from each terminal to the motor case, if you use three do both the below. (diagrams from Pololu – more info on reducing motor noise here)

2. Solder a 1Kohm resistor between the signal wire (yellow for dual, white for single) and the 5V wire (red) to help reduce interference at the input signal to the ESC.
Any questions or issues, please email us and we’ll happily help.

Microswitch End Stops:

Useful for brushed weapons that don’t continuously rotate such as axes and lifters, you can attach a microswitch at each end of the range (as an end stop like a 3D printer or CNC) to help prevent stalling out of motors and damaging your gears  – connect up some microswitches like so: