TZflyer

A friend of mine has a twin engines plane in which he has installed two Power 60 motors.
Each has its own ESC and battery. What is the best way to control both from his throttle?
Does he plug one ESC into the throttle, the other into a spare channel and mix them together? Or can he somehow splice them together?

Ray

aeajr

My Feedback: (2)

a Y cable should work. Plug both ESC into the Y and plug that into the throttle channel. Assuming the two motors run reasonably even, and they should, you want them getting the same throttle signals.

If the radio has the mixing ability, you could put them on different channels and mix them using the radio's mixes. This might give you the option to have them run at different speeds, however this is fraught with danger. But, depending on the radio, this could work.

-pkh-

My Feedback: (2)

Castle Creations has a good guide for wiring up twins, check out page 2 of the March 2006 issue of the Scribe Newsletter:

[link=http://www.castlecreations.com/media/castle_scribe_archives/Castle%20Scribe%20CE-03-Mar2006.pdf]March 2006 Castle Scribe Newsletter[/link]

The jpeg below sums up their recommendations:

TZflyer

Thanks for the help guys, much appreciated!
Will try the y lead first, seems the simplest solution.

cyclops2

Did anybody cover the 2 ESC ... BEC's not being connected at the same time ? Did not see what brand of ESC's were being used.

AJ1202

Cyclops is right, I have a couple twins and a 4 motor, if your ESC has a BEC built in you need to unhook the power wire from one of them.
Using the Y harness to connect the 2 ESC is the easiest way and works fine, you may need to use a flight pack as well for your servo's depending on how many and how big they are, you can just Y harness your flight pack through one of your servo connections, also I would suggest running your batts together so both motors get their power from both at the same time, this will prevent one losing power or cutting out alone and leaving the other motor running

personaly I would rather have both motors cut out together if it's going to happen, then you can rearm them together if you have time
and not have to flight a sudden yawl or even a death spiral due to sudden loss of one motor

-pkh-

My Feedback: (2)

That depends on the ESC. If you read the article in my previous post, you'll see that the Castle Creations ESCs have BECs that can be ganged together for increased current capability, so you do not have to disable the BECs on those.

TZflyer

Thanks AJ,

I think we will have to disconnect the power from one ESC.
Which wire do I cut? I assume the red one coming from the ESC but don't want to make a mistake

AJ1202

It would be the red one BUT DON'T cut it, if you lay the plug down with the side up that you can see the pins, very carefully lift the tiny plastic tab in the open part and then you can pull the wire out of the plug. then just fold it back and tape it to the wire. This way you don't destroy your ESC wire and plug

TZflyer

Thanks for the help.