Castle Creation ESC Hacking

[magudaman]

So over all these years a lot of people have been pushing toward using more and more RC components but nothing has ever been released from these RC companies to really make it easier to use their products (maybe because were always burning them up ).

What surprised me is no one on the net (that I found) is hacking the firmware of these little guys to do different things with them. It would be super awesome if we could have 0-5v throttle, true current limiting, etc. I do recall castle used to have a website up where they showed off custom firmware HV110 RC controllers that had all these features above but were about 3 to 4 times the cost of the normal controllers.

While I would love to dive right into this, I don't have the skill set to reverse engineer their controllers and their code but would be willing to sacrifice a castle link and a castle BEC (F305) micro controller

What I do know:

- They seem to use Silab microcontrollers (developer kits are $69 for the F300 series (castle BEC) and the F330 Series (
- The current products could be made to have similar features to normal brushless controllers with the correct programming.
- We could have all our own setting modifiable through a beautiful GUI (with proper programming)
- All the firmwares for all their products are contained inside their Castle Link Software


I did find these guys:

http://open-bldc.org/wiki/Open-BLDC

That have replaced the logic board on some HV80 units with some awesome custom brain units!

 

[AussieJester]

Personally I think the CC is great as it is, I have sent hv160 & hv110 back for warranty and received new replacements, modifying the esc with custom firmware & new "brain board" would put an end to warranty... Best of luck anyways, mated with the new Rc Cycle Analyst, thrse esc's perform beautifully, imo.

KiM

 

[magudaman]

Personally I think the CC is great as it is, I have sent hv160 & hv110 back for warranty and received new replacements, modifying the esc with custom firmware & new "brain board" would put an end to warranty... Best of luck anyways, mated with the new Rc Cycle Analyst, thrse esc's perform beautifully, imo.

KiM

Well I don't think sending the units back often is very sustainable at CC or exactly right since were using them for an unintended purpose. Plus to keep them running properly it seems to requires a bit of magic in capacitors, settings, special servo driver boards, and slipper clutches. Heck it sounds like you blew up both of your units, shouldn't that be reason enough if they wouldn't blow at all or require that warranty service?

 

[AussieJester]

Personally I think the CC is great as it is, I have sent hv160 & hv110 back for warranty and received new replacements, modifying the esc with custom firmware & new "brain board" would put an end to warranty... Best of luck anyways, mated with the new Rc Cycle Analyst, thrse esc's perform beautifully, imo.

KiM

Well I don't think sending the units back often is very sustainable at CC or exactly right since were using them for an unintended purpose. Plus to keep them running properly it seems to requires a bit of magic in capacitors, settings, special servo driver boards, and slipper clutches. Heck it sounds like you blew up both of your units, shouldn't that be reason enough if they wouldn't blow at all or require that warranty service?

Actually....i didnt "blow" either up under normal riding conditions, i wasn't even on the bike when the hv110 blew and the bike was stationary with a blown motor when i blew the hv160 by stupidly applying power when the motor had a short... both were user error and i used PAID warranty i.e $US90 and $US130 bucks to have them replaced with refurbished units.... I dont use a servo driver boards anymore or slipper clutches i do have 4 additional caps though and none of your 'magical' firmware will eliminate the need for these as i see it... Unless you come up with something mind blowing i wouldn't entertain the thought of updating the CC with non approved firmware if there was a chance of warranty being voided, i dont plan on sending the HV160 or 110 back again but if i do i will only have to pay ~1/3 the price to have it replaced., they work extremely well for my particular application as they are, but again i wish you well with your endevours...

KiM