Icarus (RD13) Gets an ESC upgrade.

Published: Sat Nov 10 2012

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When I last worked on Icarus, it looked like this:

So today I decided to dismanlte the arms and upgrade the ESCs by uploading the SimonK Multirotor Firmware, and also by installing the amtel bootloader so I can use the new turnigy USB linker to upgrade these ESCs via the 3 pin servo lead instead of having to remove them and interface to the amtel chip directly.

I started by cutting open the arms and pulling out the ESC (Which were already stripped of shrink to fit better inteo the arms.

Flipping the quad over, we can get access to the amtel chip (The big one) on the ESC

Next I interface directly to the amtel chip using the amazingly easy and affordable tool from hobbyking (you need the programmer and you also need the interface tool.

After updating each ESC, I retaped each arm and removed the landing gear and replaced it with a set of colored foam floats which increase visibility and ensure I can retrieve the quad in the even it fals in the water.