I’m using a Thruster Commander + potentiometer + basic ESCs to control two thrusters on a kayak. Due to the way I have the thrusters mounted, I have no use for reverse.
Is there a simple way (using stock thruster commander and stock and/or readily available control components) to, for example, use the full range of a single turn potentiometer to drive a 0-100% signal in one direction rather than (100% reverse - 0% - 100% forward)? Or would I have to program a custom controller?
Thanks!
after some thought and reading up on how the TC takes inputs, maybe I can connect a 10k resistor in series with bottom tap of the (10k) potentiometer, so that when center tap is zeroed (full CCW) voltage is balanced across the resistor and potentiometer = center position/neutral signal? then raising pot setting will effectively just generate a 0-100 forward signal?
resistances would have to match perfectly (or add a trim pot to adjust until they do), but seems like it might work.
Hi @Wolfie,
Yes, your proposed solution should work.
The ESC has a signal deadband of ±25µs, and I believe there’s some buffer built into either end of the analog reading used by the Thruster Commander firmware, so the resistances may not need to match perfectly. That said, having a close match wouldn’t hurt.
Alternatively (if you have an Arduino or similar) you could reprogram the ESC firmware and turn off bidirectional mode, in which case the standard potentiometer setup for the Thruster Commander should work as-is - no extra resistor needed. These instructions may be of interest.
Awesome, thanks!