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Lab 11 - Motors and Controls

This week we worked on setting up our Cubepilot and controller to connect together and have a better connection. The main portion of this lab is to add some more components and test if we can control a motor before installing them into our Believer. The ESC is connected to a battery and then connects to the cubepilot board powering the bus on the board. The servos are connected to the bus and powered through the bus.

DATX Setup

Questions:

What is CRSF and SBUS? What are the differences? CRSF (crossfire protocol) is a low-latency, bidirectional communication protocol used in drone systems. SBUS (Serial Bus) is a communication protocol that allows multiple control signals to be transmitted over a single wire between a transmitter and receiver.
What is Multi-Bind on the TBS Tracer?
The Multi-Bind allows you to bind to multiple radios at once without rebinding ever again.

In this portion we made sure the controller is setup correctly to connect with our Cubepilot.
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Avionics Setup

Here we made sure all of our avionics is working properly.

Screenshot 2025-11-18 145219.png
RCMAP_X
There are 6 parameters - record the name and the current setting.
RCMAP_X
Name
Current Setting
RCMAP_Brake
0
RCMAP_Flap
5
RCMAP_Pitch
2
RCMAP_Roll
1
RCMAP_Throttle
3
RCMAP_Yaw
4
There are no rows in this table

SERVO#_FUNCTION
There are 7 active parameters - record the name and current setting.
SERVO#_FUNCTION
Name
Current Setting
SERVO1_FUNCTION
FlaperonRight
SERVO2_FUNCTION
FlaperonLeft
SERVO3_FUNCTION
Throttle
SERVO4_FUNCTION
Throttle
SERVO5_FUNCTION
VTailLeft
SERVO6_FUNCTION
VTailRight
SERVO7_FUNCTION
Rudder
There are no rows in this table
Add a table above that links your DATX control input with the Servo Outputs above. For example, list all servo outputs that the right stick control.
Input and Output
DATX control input
Servo Outputs
Left stick up and down
3 and 4
Left stick right and left
5 and 6 and 7
Right stick up and down
5 and 6
Right stick left and right
1 and 2
There are no rows in this table

Motor and Control Setup

Questions:

What does the RCMAP_X parameter control?
It controls what channel each control input communicates over.
What does the SERVO#_FUNCTION control
It controls what function each servo does.
List all possible power sources for the following systems:
Servo: Board Power
Motor: Battery Power
Cube/FCU: Battery Power/voltage regulator

In this section we tested our servos by connecting our avionics to a test setup and made sure our controller was connected properly and doing what we want it to do.

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