Step 4: Programming the ESC

Our ESC will be controlled by VBar and so it needs to know where is motor off, full throttle and also the direction of the signal. Maybe it was vice versa in the past, depending on your equipment. Thats why we have to program these things new from scratch to our ESC.

To do this we have integrated a "collective control" mode. In this mode we will pass the collective stick signal straight through to the ESC. Full negative is motor off and full positive will be full throttle. Please keep the values at -100 / +100% for programming the ESC.

Some ESC require a special stick signal and power  off/on to get into programming modes. Turning the power off will also cause a VBar restart and we'll get out of our collective control mode. In this situation use a external RC battery to power the VBar (keep it in collective control mode) and unplug / plug the ESC cable instead of turning off the RC power.

The ESC has to be set up with the manufacturer's tools and prog cards etc. now. 

Throttle travel—fine adjustment

Ready with configuring the ESC we were now able to set the start value of our ESC. Therefore we need collective control and full negative (motor off). Now increase the "motor off" servo throw until the motor starts. Usually we will get a value around -80% here. Now we set this value minus 5% as "Motor off" (-80% - 5% = -85%). this will give us a bit better spoolup.

Vbar uses this position as failsave too. please check this w/o main blades / main gears. Therefore we have to do 2 tests: One is a TX-switchoff and the other one a RX-unplug check. Note that the failsave position for TX-RX connection failures comes (except spektrum sats only) from the TX and has to be set there right. The Failsave for RX-VBar connection failures comes from the VBar.

At least you can set the full throttle value, give full collective (collective control mode) and use the slider, try to find out the maximum RPM position and set it as needed.