Can someone share how to drive TX of ESC of DJI spark motor?

[dji_chao]

I am an electronics hobbyist.
My intention is to drive TX of ESC chip myself. Currently I have a few hardware below
1) DJI Spark Brushless Motor 1504s
2) ESC Board for DJI Spark Part
3) Some FPGA development board.
I can build hardware or build some MCU system to write some firmware code.
I thought I can have a lot of fun by driving TX of ESC myself using my own hardware/firmware code, to test drone flying control.
I can even build some prototype by integrating my own host system with the 4 DJI spark ESC+motor.
So hope someone can share some typical TX commands/patterns required. Thanks!

 

[Spark 317]

Hello from the Hoosier Heartland, dji_chao.

I have no clue what you are talking about but others may know and can help.

I do know I can welcome you to the Forum.

Good luck.

 

[Andre Levite]

I am an electronics hobbyist.
My intention is to drive TX of ESC chip myself. Currently I have a few hardware below
1) DJI Spark Brushless Motor 1504s
2) ESC Board for DJI Spark Part
3) Some FPGA development board.
I can build hardware or build some MCU system to write some firmware code.
I thought I can have a lot of fun by driving TX of ESC myself using my own hardware/firmware code, to test drone flying control.
I can even build some prototype by integrating my own host system with the 4 DJI spark ESC+motor.
So hope someone can share some typical TX commands/patterns required. Thanks!

That is some pretty sophisticated tinkering you are into. Most folks on this forum draw the line at a simple motor swap. You may need to contact a top notch repair guy directly for that kind of info (ex. ThunderDrones). I see that the DJI engineers already shot you down on official DJI Forum

I have found Spark motors are most "fun" when in the aircraft at about 100 feet and Sport Mode

Welcome and good luck!

 

[jimlips]

I've been in electronics my whole life, been into drones the past two years. I have no idea what you mean when you say "TX". That normally means "Transmit" in most electronics terms. I know the ESC is the Electronic Speed Controller, don't know what FPGA is, either. What is it you are trying to do? Build your own drone, using parts from the Spark as the base?

 

[dji_chao]

Hi jimlips, I am intending to use the ESC+motor (DJI spark parts) purchased, and build my own flight controller (using FPGA) to drive the ESC.
If you can google or search a bit for ESC, the board has 6 pins A/B/C (to the motor), +/- (from flight controller board VDD/VSS), TX (from from flight controller board).
I guess TX is the only signal that how flight controller to instruct ESC about what speed to drive the motor.
So here I am asking for some help regarding TX spec. Thanks and hope it is clear about my intention.

 

[Hotwire]

FPGA sounds like a very tough choice. You would need to include a minimum of 3 giros. You also need to know the ESC com system which isn't open sauce for DJI and I'm sure they no longer use PWM. If you wish to build a UAV from scratch and FC from a chip, go and check out betaflight or one of its predecessors. There are plenty of small programmable chips that can get you going. Start with a PWM ESCs because most of the code for PWM already exists. Same goes for Rx coms, just start with a big chunky PWM Rx.
DJI are very closed shop. You aren't likely to get any help from them. They have been close since the beginning.

 

[aeropic]

Hi everybody. I'm very new to this forum and found it by chance searching for "spark ESC Tx"
I get some skills as an electronics hobbyist, tinkering on drones ...

I would be too interested in the answer to your question, mainly for curiosity and R&T ;-)

What I'm sure is that Tx is a digital signal for two reasons :
- I measured it on a scope. There are serial bits at quite low frequency (1 to 2ms per bit) with a voltage of 3.3V
- as it drives both the motor speed and the leds, it cannot be PWM !

We should now go to the step of logic analyser to expect further information. It might be a simple serial protocol...

Any feedback welcome!