Need to squeeze a tiny ESC into a project whilst squeezing the most out of your motors? Look no further! The Mars AM32 35A motor controller is the ideal match for any small brushless or brushed setup. Needless to say, that includes our own RB180 and RB370 brushed motors and the RB1806 brushless motor (coming soon). AM32 is an open-source firmware in active development in the world of drones and RC rock crawlers, but it has a huge application in robotics. AM32 offers extremely fine bidirectional motor control, especially at low speeds, when compared to other firmware options. It is also easy to tune using freely available software. For more information, check the AM32 github!
One AM32’s best features is that it is available in brushless or brushed versions. We pre-install a tuned bidirectional-with-braking setup for each, so just select whichever you need when ordering and you’re ready to go, out of the box! Significantly, this choice is entirely reversible and has no hardware impact, meaning if you ordered ESCs with brushed firmware but want to upgrade to brushless at a later date, that’s entirely possible! Note that all Mars controllers will ship with the latest stable firmware version of AM32, which is currently 1.99.
The Mars controller has exposed motor connection tabs ready for soldering. For brushless setups, simply solder each motor phase to each tab. For brushed setups, solder only to the left and centre tabs (leaving the third tab untouched):
In the box you will receive spare heatshrink for insulating the connections once you’re done! Please note that our latest batch of ESCs have holes in the solder tabs to help make a strong solder joint and the input wires (positive and negative) are physically flipped (red now on the left as pictured above!) – they function exactly the same as the photographed units (we’ll update our photos soon)!
A single package contains:
- 1x controller
- Spare heatshrink
The key technical details are:
- Dimensions (W*H*L): 13.2*5.6*27.5mm + wires
- Wire spec: 100mm 18AWG (power), 150mm + Futaba connector (signal)
- Weight: 6g (including wires)
- Current rating (with adequate cooling): 35A
- Input voltage: 2-5s
For anyone looking to tune their own settings, the Mars controller takes the “AM32_IFLIGHT_F051″ build of AM32. You can download version 1.99 here:
- Brushless: AM32_IFLIGHT_F051_1.99.hex
- Brushed: AM32_IFLIGHT_F051_1.99.hex
- You’ll also need the configuration tool (latest is v1.82): Windows, Linux
To connect to your ESC you will need a USB serial adapter, a Betaflight flight controller or you can repurpose an Arduino. There is plenty of information about this online and on the repository.
We will ship your Mars controllers with these settings, but if you have a custom firmware request, just get in touch and we’ll be happy to help!
All credit for the excellent AM32 firmware goes to its developers!
