Quad ESC for 4 engined plane.

[Cliff Bastow]

As people may have seen I am building an Avro York, I am wondering if it is possible to use a quad esc instead of 4 separate esc.

Is this possible does anyone know and if so what are the advantages and disadvantages?

Cheers in advance.

[Frank Skilbeck]

Which one exactly are you planning to use?

Edited By Frank Skilbeck on 28/04/2020 21:18:12

[Denis Watkins]

My 2d worth, is if you burn out one ESC, which does happen

A quad ESC board is then a throw away, where 4 individual ESCs, you just replace one.

[Jon H]

Posted by Denis Watkins on 28/04/2020 21:15:26:

My 2d worth, is if you burn out one ESC, which does happen

A quad ESC board is then a throw away, where 4 individual ESCs, you just replace one.

also one toasted esc only looses you one engine and not all 4. It will fly fine on 3 but might not glide well

[Frank Skilbeck]

The advantage is probably tidier wiring as only one power feed, if using 4 escs then you'd need to split the power feed from the battery into 4.

[PatMc]

The BEC in a quad ESC won't be able to handle the current for servos therefore a separate Rx battery or discrete BEC would be necessary.
Whether a quad ESC or 4 single (Opto preferably) ESCs are used all 4 red wires of the ESC to Rx leads would need be disconnected to allow this, also either 1 or 2 Rx channels with double Y leads or 2 single Y leads or 4 individual Rx channels would be required.

Depending on your Tx capability, another option might be to use a quad ESC with a dedicated Rx for the motors & a second Rx with either it's own battery or discrete BEC to control the servos.

[Chris Walby]

I am all for keeping things simple as its generally more reliable (less links in the chain) although in this case (with 4 props) I would go for two pairs (both inners and both outers) as a balance between complexity vs reliability. If such items are not available then I would go for 4 ESC's

More of a consideration is where the ESC's are for cooling and complexity of wiring (overall weight of the model). I assume that a quad ESC will roughly produce the same heat as four individual ESC's, but in one concentrated place.

I think most quads that suffer single motor failure result in catastrophic loss of control, yet the owners accept the risk with £40k worth of camera on board. Having said that I have seen a video (on AI and self learning systems) where the presenter cut multiple blades off a quad and how it adapted in flight (lots of spinning, but still controlled!).

IMO BEC's are a separate consideration based on type of U/C used, number and type of servos and weight constraints of additional batteries + C of G consideration.

[Cliff Bastow]

All good points, I was planning to use a separate battery or a BEC for the RX anyway as a safety feature.

I had not thought about the engine out point, better I think to stick to 4 separate ESC and then if one fails as suggested I will only loose one engine.

Also the separate ESC will go in each nacelle and cooling is easy to arrange as the cowls have the radiator hole in them. A quad ESC would probably have to go in the fuselage somewhere central so cooling not so easy.

Thanks all.

[Frank Skilbeck]

Cliff, probably worth planning now on the power leads to the ESCs (I'm guessing you are going for putting the lipos in the fuselage), some sort of power bus system might be tidier.