How to setup a 4WD with Ubox V2

From Spintend service and support

This is a guide to help our users to setup a 4WD with two Ubox V2. Compared with Ubox V1, V2 is specially designed for 4WD, it supports CAN plug-in power ON, and disable-receiver, these two features are very helpful for the build of 4WD.

Conception

To combine 2 Uboxes to build a 4WD, we need to set one of them as master, the other to slave. The master Ubox receives the remote’s control signal, relay the signal to all the other ESCs through CAN bus. In this article, we begin with Uremote V2, for the third party remote, they are same.

So, let's set the master/slave Uboxes first.

Prepares

  • VESC tool V3.01 PC edition and VESC firmware 5.03 in ESCs.
  • Two Uboxes
  • An Uremote.
  • A 'Y' power cable to distribute battery power to two Uboxes.
  • A 4PIN CAN cable,
  • An USB typeC cable.
  • 4 motors
  • A Power button and cable, included with Ubox.

[piture needed]

Step by step

Choose one of 2 uboxes as slave，disable its internal receiver, enable its internal CAN bus

  1. power off ubox and Uremote.
  2. Do not power on remote, then power on Ubox
  3. After button led is solid green, click button 9 times, then wait 1 second.
  4. Power off Ubox, then click button to re-power on Ubox, check if the button led is no blinking when power on. If blinking, Go to step 1, and try again. Blinking is mean receiver is enabled.
  5. Check the CAN LED inside the Ubox panel, if no light, go to 1, 2, in step 3, click button 6 times instead.

Now the slave Ubox’s receiver is disabled, and its internal CAN is ON.

Set the other Ubox as master, enable its internal receiver and CAN bus, binding with Uremote

  1. power off ubox and Uremote.
  2. Do not power on remote, then power on Ubox.
  3. After button led is solid green, click button 8 times, then wait 1 second.
  4. Power off Ubox, then click button to re-power on Ubox, check if the button led is no blinking when power on. If not blinking, go to step 1 and try again. Blinking is mean receiver is enabled.
  5. Power off Ubox, then Power on Uremote, go into setting menu->Receiver Config->Binding->Enter. Then power on Ubox, the binding will succeed.
  6. Go into remote's setting menu->Ports Config->UART. Set to ‘UART To A’.
  7. On the remote, go into setting menu->Ports Config->CAN Bus. Set to 'ON'.

Now the master Ubox’s receiver is enabled, and its internal CAN is ON.

Combine with CAN cable

  1. Use Y power cable to plug in 2 Uboxes,
  2. Then plug in the CAN cable into master Ubox’s CAN-out and slave Ubox’s CAN-in.
  3. Plug in power button into master Ubox’s ‘BUTTON’ socket.
  4. Click button 1second to power on, and hold button 3 seconds to power off.
  5. If power ON/OFF not work, go to step 1, check if all the cables are in its correct socket, and try again.
  6. Connect to VESC tool, scan CAN device, to check if all 4 ESCs are displayed on VESC tool (Refer to below pictures: Setup remote control). If not, back to step 1 (set slave Ubox), check CAN cable and CAN enable configuration, try again.

Setup motors FOC

Connect in all 4 motors, plug the USB cable into the ESCA of master ubox, open VESC tool, do ‘Setup motors FOC':

Do setup FOC.jpg


Setup remote control

In VESC tool, AutoConnect.

Auto connect.jpg


In the VESC tool window, low-left corner, select Local ESC.

Select local esc in can list.jpg


Go to APP settings->General->Gerneral

App settings general general.jpg


Read out APP settings

Read out app settings.jpg


Set APP to Use UART

Set app to use uart corrected.jpg


Write back to ESC

Write app settings back to esc.jpg


Then, set VESC remote->General->Control type as current mode or the other mode you wanted, and write back to ESC.

App settings vesc remote general current.jpg


Now finished, push the remote’s gear to test if all 4 motors are spinning.

Be careful of click buttons on right side bar, read out setting first, make settings, then write back to ESC. If occasionally, you reset them to default, we recommend that you repeat FOC setup and subsequent steps, because during FOC setup, the VESC tool will automatically bind them to CAN bus combined mode, this is convenient. Otherwise, we need to config them manually, that is a little troublesome.

Lights and horn

Plug in front light, brake light, and horn, into their respective sockets. Test them on the remote. If one of these devices not working, you can do a crossing check first. For example, if the front light is working, use it to check the rest socket to test if the sockets are functioning.

In 4WD configuration, the slave Ubox's light and horn socket is not functioning now, you can use the 12V and GND as DC source.

Concludes and explains

Limits and cautions

  1. Since our solution is based on open source VESC, users should fully understand the risks of open source projects. This article only describes the possibility of this build method, and is not responsible for the damage and accidents caused by users themselves.

See also

Main Page
How to setup a 4WD with Ubox V1
How to build a 2/4WD switch-able board with ubox v2

Notes

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