Hacking ESCs

[PJ-27]

It seems since Dave pointed out those hacked Brushless aussie ESCs for brushed use everyone has jumped on the band wagon! I don't blame you, it's an awesome idea, and kind of Bitza.....
Anyway I've been doing some research so thought I'd post my findings and ponderings here..

Website where you can buy them:
http://www.botbitz.com/

The idea: (Which states bi-directional not possible yet?)
http://robowars.org/forum/viewtopic.php ... sc&start=0

Tutorial for the TZ85:
http://www.robowars.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1609

And Video:


At these prices though (and that shipping rate) you might as well buy them! Works out about £7.50 for the 10a controller. It has BW written all over it.

In other news Turnigy are now doing a super cheap brushed ESC.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TURNIGY-30A-B ... 1c276dea14

I found one for £8, handled drill motors fine, but they are uni-directional and have 'safety' features to only work on the throttle channel. Could these also be hacked? Would bi-directional be possible? Otherwise they make a good 12v spinning weapon ESC.

Also I've come in a job lot of Brushless PC fans but struggling to figure out how to control them if anyone can help? Applying a voltage to the power and Ground leads spins it up, so I'm assuming it has a control board built in. They're the 4 pin type, so I need some sort of PWM to control the speed, can the output from a Rx do this? What if I vary the voltage? Would a brushless ESC be any help?

[Laser]

I've ordered a few tz85's and I've got all the equimpment to hack them, I'm going to do a few test ones and post the results and then I may make a few for people...

[Mouldy]

should be possible to hack any brushless esc as long as you can locate the correct connection points on the PCB to re brain the code....

Would be good to see some of the larger cheapo escs driving a heavyweight... is totally possible to make a heavyweight esc out of something like this;

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/stor ... ouse_.html

But for now, for the price.... i couldnt be bothered with all the hassle when you can buy a pre hacked one from botbitz for cheap.

[PJ-27]

It looks like Steven Martin has written his own code for each controller (which has to be unique for each model) which takes some serious skill and time. It would be worth buying them from him just to thank him for his time!

To buy your own and hack them, and use his code would be fine, it's open source, but selling them on wouldn't be cool.

[archie2000]

can you get charged import on botbitz?
i had to pay £20 on banebots
my parents say get a sabretooth even though botbitz are cheaper
they must be worried about import tax
interested to see how these mods turn out

[PJ-27]

Import Tax is a bit of a gamble.....

The Sabertooths (Teeth?) are made by Dimension Engineering who are based in the USA, so make sure you buy from a UK seller, Technobots for instance, although they mostly have the older models.
I personally have received multiple packages from DE and never met import tax.

Also remember the Sabertooth controllers are dual controllers, smaller, lighter, have built in mixing, Li-Po protection and fail safing (as well as a few other things, current limiting, thermal protection, linear control, acceleration ramping.....)

[archie2000]

does anyone remember like a 1065 amp peak brushless speedo
it was.about $67
would.that work