Nicolas has designed and ordered custom adapters to use ESP-32 (Wireless Arduino) instead of the Flysky receivers. Instead of adapting a drone-receiver, I am designing a purpose-built controls system for combat robotics.
Flysky Drone Receiver
It’s simply placed onto the ESP32 module, and then it routes the necessary pins to the 3x7 pin format that the Flysky utilizes. This will make wiring just as easy as using a receiver, but with more flexibility. With a Flysky receiver/controller, you can only control your drive motors and 1 weapon motor.
With this PCB, you can control:
In addition, this solution is cheaper or equivalent to Flysky (not including controller cost). Flysky receivers are usually $12-$15 each. Each PCB costs around $2 each including the soldered components, and the ESP-32 costs $5-$10 each. This is a cheaper if not equal price for more flexibility in design. The ESP32+PCB setup weighs about 7g (0.015 lbs) more than the Flysky Receiver.
Note that it has the same input layout as the Flysky receivers, making it compatible with all of our electronics!
Implemented in our robot, Buzzsaw. You can see the ESP-32 plugged into the PCB.
TLDR: ESP-32 has 38 pins, we only need 6. It can only handle 3.3V output signal, so we use a one-way shifter to convert the ESP-32 motor controls to send 5V signals to the ESC’s. Ultimately, this PCB emulates a Flysky receiver by having 3 pin inputs, but is more customizable and capable of more controls.
Earlier design that shows how the ESP32 connects to the female headers.
ESP-32’s have many pins that can output PWM (motor signal) controls. This only uses 6 of them, giving the user access to 6 channels of control (6 motors/servos/steppers). It’s very modular, and can even be used to control other components such as LED’s, which would previously be harder with a Flysky setup.