Further details of the F-Series ESC setup including recommended prop/motor combination, tuning, firmware updates, and audible tones.
Regular checks and maintenance should be performed on the ESCs, especially after crashes. This includes:
Inspect for any broken or chipped components on both the top and bottom sides.
Power on using a smoke stopper or power supply to ensure electronics are not damaged or getting hot quickly.
The no-load current draw of the 120A ESC is 40mA. This can easily be checked by de-soldering the ESC from any PDB or wiring harness, and powering on using a 3S Li-Po or power supply. If the ESC draws less than 35mA or more than 45mA, there is a damaged component on the board.
Capacitors that are swelling or crushed should be replaced immediately. Excessive heat and high-current loads will reduce the capacitor's life.
The F-Series ESCs contain the following factory configured protection mechanisms to ensure maximum product lifetime:
Phase Current Limiting
The motor phase current is limited to the maximum burst rating for each F-Series ESC. These are as follows:
40F3 ESC: 100A Limit
100F3 ESC: 180A Limit
120F3 ESC: 200A Limit
200F3 ESC: 300A Limit
Over Temperature Protection
All ESCs are set to 110°C, at which point the maximum throttle is limited to a 50% duty cycle.
Over Voltage Protection
All ESCs will reduce regenerative braking response when a voltage rise is detected on the bus while braking.
Correct motor and propeller selection is very important to reduce the load on the ESC and to reduce motor saturation. Incompatible combinations can result in reduced overall performance, reduced system lifetimes due to excess heat and even ESCs burning out. If the prop and motor combination draw more than the ESC's nominal current rating at a static load, they are not recommended. For reference, a system running a 120F3 and a MAS 13x12x3 propeller should have the following motor Kv:
Cell Count
Recommended Kv
6S
500-700Kv
8S
400-600Kv
10S
350-450Kv
12S
300-400Kv
In order to use larger propellers, either the motor Kv or battery cell count should be reduced.
For tuning the flight controller with BetaFlight, we recommend referencing the latest tuning guides available from BetaFlight as each version may have different requirements and/or incompatibility with previous values.
PID Tips (Only Valid for Betaflight 4.3)
D term will need to increase 50-100%
Antigravity to half of default value
D term lowpass filters to half of default value
RPM and Dynamic filter ranges reduce by half to 1/3 default values
As always, reach out if there's any issues or questions, we try to respond as soon as we can. Contact options can be found under Help.
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