Why do we need an Electronic Speed Controller ? (ESC)

I will explain why we need an ESC to let a brushless motor spin.

Brushed DC motors, thats the ordenary motor you may know, has only 2 wires, you connect them to the positive and negative pole of the power source and the motor starts spinning. Simple. But These motors have many disadvantges. The most important 3 are: unefficient, lots of wear, bad to regulate the speed without loosing the torque. A brushed motor should NEVER be used for applications that demad long life and reliability.

simple brushed motor

About brushless motors, you need to now :

  • A brushless motor (BLDC motor) has 3 power wires. these 3 wires need to be powered in the right timing sequence to let the motor spin.
  • A sensored brushless motor (BLDC motor) has even more wires, because in a sensore motor are 3 sensores build in that indicate a controller in which position the rotor is in relation to the magnets of the motor. That allowes to start the motor even there is a higher load on it.

But as I discribed above, a brushless motor has 3 power wires to power. These wires are connected to the ESC. The ESC is placed between the power source and the motor. It will switch the power on its way to the motor in the right sequence to let the motor spin. It also handles the sensor logic if its a sensored motor.

Thats why we designed our new controller, it is optimized for energie saving efficency and goes into sleep mode if the motor is not needed. That is of special importance in off grid or batterie powered arangements, like in sailing Yachts.

It has a flexible concept and can be used as stand alone programmable motor switch or it can be used via any WiFi or network device with browser. It can be even accessed via internet from any place. As Internet of Things (IoT) device.

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