VESC FAQ | Connect two VESC via CANBUS for dual motors

When I cut the slave, red wire, the receiver didn’t get power at all. Maybe I’m doing it the wrong way.

[quote=“chaka, post:43, topic:142”] Leave it on your master vesc, [/quote] :confused: Unless you have a ubec/sbec around. The center wire powers the receiver and the power should come from only one source.

haha i dont know about BEC/SBEC. I have 2 VESC and 2.4GHz mini controller.

and this is my BLDC setting for master and slave:

Master 1

Slave

and I am planning to make the VESC on the right my master and left is my slave VESC

What @chaka is saying is that you cut the red wire coming from one of the VESC and leave the other connected. You see, the red wire is what feeds power to the receiver. You only need the power to come from one of the VESC, it doesn’t matter which VESC the power comes from but the receiver should only receive power from one of the VESCs.

Hope that helps. Al…

If you’re using CAN bus in a master/slave configuration, the receiver should only be connected to the master.

First you need to make sure both VESC’s are working properly by connecting each one to the BLDC tool and using the arrow keys on your keyboard to run the motor. Once you’re sure they are both OK, you can set up CAN bus:

  • Connect master to BLDC, give the master ID 0, configure the PPM settings (write conf) for your receiver and test to see if your motor runs. Don’t connect the slave to the master yet. Put your transmitter aside.
  • Connect the slave to BLDC and give it ID 1 and tick " send status over CAN" - (write conf).
  • Disconnect the slave from BLDC.
  • Connect both VESC’s with the CAN bus cable.
  • Cycle the power on both VESC’s off an on.
  • Reconnect the master to BLDC and tick “CAN Fwd” on the upper right of your screen, enter ID 1 To receive data from slave.
  • Goto the realtime data tab, tick “activate sampling” and verify there’s data coming back from the slave. You should see the graphs move. If they don’t, there’s no communication.
  • Now take your transmitter and pull the trigger to see if both motors spin.

Hope this helps

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So according to Raptor board, the dual vesc setup with non-Nyko Kama (or NunChuck) receiver should be like this?

No need to connect both vesc’s receiver side? Then how to know or decide which side is master one?

enter link description here

Another proof which shows only need one side connecting to receiver?!

Correct, If you’re using CANbus, the receiver is connected to the master only. The app for the receiver is configured only in the master. The master takes care of the control of the slave.

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Thanks, that means WITH the CANbus setup, the one connected to the receiver becomes the master one?

So is that possible to do a different way on dual Vesc which like old esc setup that “without CANbus then connected both receiver side with the ‘Y’ bridge then take one side’s middle wire out”

Learned those setup from : http://2bfly.com/knowledgebase/electronic-speed-controls/multi-engine-esc-wiring/

you have to program the master and slave in the BLDC tool software.

or you can set them up as 2 individual ESCs and use a Y if you prefer that.

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Okay! So there are not big differences, are they? I mean these two setup.

If you use a Y connection You won’t have traction control but I’m pretty sure you wont miss it. You won’t be able to get realtime data from both vescs over the same usb connection either, you’ll need to plug into each vesc separately to look at realtime data. It will make config straightforward though, you can set both vescs up identically.

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Very helpful info mate. Thank god I’ve asked those question. Didn’t even know that before. Then now I know what setup I’m going to run in future. Cheers!

Hello Everyone,

I heard that the VESC is open source which raises the questions.

  1. does the VESC have extra I/O pins available, and if so is there a way to program these pins.
  2. does anyone have a schematic for the VESC, would like to take a look at the hardware

@deadlyrobot310 - http://vedder.se/2015/01/vesc-open-source-esc/ Check here…

I have noticed with my dual VESC’s (via canbus) that if I’m on cruise control and I load up one wheel the motor spins up harder to try and overcome the load, but if I load the other wheel it just stops. I have tried turning on and off traction control option and it doesn’t seem to make a difference. its the motor attached to the slave VESC that stops under load.

is there some sort of setting that I’m missing?

found the issue, it looks like it was a faulty canbus cable.

Traction control if found doesn’t work as well for hub motors any way!

I thought so too, but it think the setting needs to be changed from 3000 erpm differences to lower number I suppose.

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