Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
Controlling brushless DC motors with Arduino
Whatever physical design you choose, you'll need to control the motors, and Arduino is
well suited for this task. In this case, I chose fairly standard brushless DC motors and then
fitted them with RC boat propellers. These motors work just fine underwater and are easy
to control with RC
electronic speed controllers
(
ESCs
).
For this project, you'll need four brushless DC motors and four ESC controllers. You'll
need to make sure that the ESCs will be able to control the motors to go both forward and
backward. The following is an image of one such unit:
This particular unit is a Turnigy Trackstart 25A ESC, made normally for an RC car and
available at many RC outlets, both retail and online. The connections on this unit are
straightforward. The red and black wires with plugs go to an RC battery, in this case, a 2S
7.4 volt LiPo RC battery. The other three plugs go to the motor. This particular ESC comes
with a switch; you won't use it in this particular project. The last connection is a three-wire
connector, similar to a servo connection. You'll connect this to Arduino. The following dia-
gram shows the connections:
