SimonK vs. BLHeli firmware vs. T-Motor 10A Air ESC

Posted by on June 23, 2015 Leave a comment (0) Go to comments

Both SimonK and BLHeli firmwares are getting updates, new features and I was wondering which of these is better for my quadcopter. Since I started with the multirotors I was using the SimonK firmware and I am still happy with it. I also will test one T-Motor 10A Air ESC, which has its own firmware.

On four different ESCs I flashed the following versions and functions of the firmwares:

  • SimonK 2014-09-30
  • SimonK 2014-09-30 comp_pwm enabled (here is an article on how-to enabled it)
  • SimonK 2015-04-19 comp_pwm enabled (support “OneShot125”)
  • BLHeli 13.2 damped light enabled (support “OneShot125”)

IMG_9915

comp_pwm disabled vs. comp_pwm enabled vs. damped light comparison:

There is a significant difference between the SimonK firmware with enabled and disabled comp_pwm feature. The motor on the ESC without the comp_pwm stops probably a second later. On the other side the ESC with the BLHeli 13.2 and damped light stops even faster than the one with SimonK and comp_pwm. So 1-0 for BLHeli over SimonK. I was corrected on the RCGroups forum, that I didn’t enable the “MOTOR_BRAKE” feature on SimonK, so the comparison is not exactly right. I will test that too and update this article.

Then I decided to compare the BLHeli 13.2 and the SimonK 2015-04-19, as both support the “OneShot125”. Well here I found the SimonK better and smoother than the BLHeli ESC. The motor on the SimonK ESC was much quieter. 1-1 SimonK vs. BLHeli. Note: I used the standard settings on BLHeli, so there could be an option to change, that will make it perform better.

The T-Motor 12A Air ESC with its stock firmware does not have a feature like comp_pwm and damped light, so it behaved like the normal SimonK firmware. The motor was very responsive and its sound was also very quite. It is a bit subjective, but I think it performs like the SimonK with the “OneShot125” or even better. It is also a bit lighter (7.3g) and smaller than the HK BlueSeries 12A ESC.

IMG_9851IMG_9854

Please note that I only tested one type of ESC (HK BlueSeries 12A) and one type of motor (T-Motor MN2206 2000kv) on a 3S battery. The results can be different on other configurations.

Conclusion: The damped light on the BLHeli is a bit better (*to be updated) than the comp_pwm on SimonK, but the last one performs in my opinion much better in “OneShot125” mode.

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