I read this is possible here:
How to drive brushless motor with Arduino?
I'm just getting started with Arduino and electronics in general, can anyone recommend a tutorial or guide that could serve as a starting point for how to approach controlling a brushless ESC with an Arduino?
I can't seem to find much information about how a brushless ESC even works, let alone what it will take to use an Arduino to communicate with one (or more).
Thanks in advance!
If it's the kind of ESC used with R/C planes, the hook-up is pretty straight-forward.
On the output side, there will be three wires to connect to the motor. It almost doesn't matter how you connect them, except that if your rotation is opposite to what you expected, you can just swap any two of the three.
For input, the ESC takes a power feed from your DC source, usually a lithium-poly with planes, and a control signal from the R/C receiver.
The control signal is the same kind used with servos. There is a pulse of a certain width, and variations in that width cause variations in servo position, or in the case of the ESC, the resulting speed. Point being, that if you can get control an ordinary servo with your Arduino, then you have practically everything in hand for controlling an ESC.
Use the Arduino servo library to control your ESC. R/C ESCs are usually driven by the same PWM signals as servos.
http://www.arduino.cc/playground/ComponentLib/Servo
To calibrate the ESC, I'd measure the rotation speed by painting a pattern on a wheel and tracking it with a light sensor.
If you don't fancy building that, but accuracy is important - try a bicycle speedometer.
