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ESC Forward Programming

Forward programming lets you change your ESC's settings through the flight controller -- from your radio with the Lua suite, or from the Configurator's ESC Programming tab -- instead of a programming card or the manufacturer's software.

ESC How it's connected
Hobbywing Platinum V5, Scorpion Tribunus, YGE, FlyRotor, XDFly, OMP, ZTW The ESC telemetry wire, used in both directions.
AM32, BLHeli_S, Bluejay The throttle signal wire (DShot ESCs). Configurator only, 2.4.

Telemetry-wire ESCs

Forward programming works over the ESC telemetry connection, but the wire has to carry data both ways.

  1. Set up ESC telemetry for your ESC first.
  2. On the Motors tab, turn on Half-Duplex. The UART then sends and receives on one pin.
  3. Half-duplex uses the UART's TX pin. Either:
    • wire the ESC telemetry lead to a free UART TX pad, with Pin Swap off; or
    • keep it on a UART RX pad -- for example the SBUS, DSM or TLM port on a Rotorflight flight controller -- and turn Pin Swap on (F7, G4 and H7 flight controllers only).
  4. Save, then power the flight controller and ESC up together.

Programming

Open the ESC Programming tab (2.4), confirm the blades are off, and pick your ESC.

In the Rotorflight Lua suite, open Setup → ESC & Motors → ESC Prog. and pick your ESC. The settings are grouped into pages such as Basic, Advanced and Other. See Rotorflight Lua Suite.

In RFSuite, open the ESC tools page and pick your ESC. See EdgeTX Lua Suite.

Some ESCs need a power cycle before new settings take effect.

Danger

Changing ESC settings can start the motor. Blades off.