I'm so tired of blowing my 4 in 1s and want to try individual ESCs.

Do they still even make FCs that can take individual ESCs?

If so can someone give me a recommendation for an FC that would work?

Thanks guys

You can still find some Kakute F4 AIO V2 on AliExpress: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/2251832667860742.html
But yea FC with PDB integrated are being phased out as 4in1 ESC are what people use nowadays.

Another option is to use a PDB, like this Brain FPV one:

https://www.brainfpv.com/product/radix-2-power-board-2/

Thanks for the replies guys.

I ordered the BrainFPV Radix 2 FC and PDB

Grabbed 5 70a NeutronRC indiv escs

The individual ESCs I bought were $35 each. For their 70a 4in1, it's $140

I can't understand why 4in1s ever became the standard. I have 30 good escs in a drawer, with 10 bad ones making the 30 good ones unusable

(07-Nov-2022, 06:23 PM)Egg_FPV Wrote: Grabbed 5 70a NeutronRC indiv escs

The individual ESCs I bought were $35 each. For their 70a 4in1, it's $140

I can't understand why 4in1s ever became the standard. I have 30 good escs in a drawer, with 10 bad ones making the 30 good ones unusable

So the same price for 4 individual ESCs vs the 4in1 ESC of the same spec. The 70A 4in1 is 70A per ESC so 280A in total, the same as the total for the 4 individual ESCs.

The reason 4in1 ESCs became popular is simply because they tend to create a cleaner more compact built with less soldering. The first quad I ever built has individual ESCs which was 13 solder joints per ESC (3 motors wires, both ends of the 2 power wires, and both ends of the 3 UART and telemetry wires). So just for the ESC wiring that totalled 52 solder joints compared to only 12 solder joints with a 4in1 ESC board (just 12 motor wires to be soldered). 4in1 ESCs are also far more reliable than they were back in the day. As long as you do the maths and match a 4in1 ESC correctly for your motors and you buy a decent brand then you will be unlucky if you smoke an ESC on a 4in1 board.

(07-Nov-2022, 06:38 PM)SnowLeopardFPV Wrote: So the same price for 4 individual ESCs vs the 4in1 ESC of the same spec. The 70A 4in1 is 70A per ESC so 280A in total, the same as the total for the 4 individual ESCs.

The reason 4in1 ESCs became popular is simply because they tend to create a cleaner more compact built with less soldering. The first quad I ever built has individual ESCs which was 13 solder joints per ESC (3 motors wires, both ends of the 2 power wires, and both ends of the 3 UART and telemetry wires). So just for the ESC wiring that totalled 52 solder joints compared to only 12 solder joints with a 4in1 ESC board (just 12 motor wires to be soldered). 4in1 ESCs are also far more reliable than they were back in the day. As long as you do the maths and match a 4in1 ESC correctly for your motors and you buy a decent brand then you will be unlucky if you smoke an ESC on a 4in1 board.

Yep exactly. I figured the 4in1s were coming with some sort of price break, but you don't even save a penny versus individual

I've used a bunch of the new 4in1s and have blown most of them. Always 55a - 65a. Always checked motor spec sheets and had at least a 15% buffer. Also always use at least 1 50v 1000uf cap, usually two. I also show current on my OSD to make sure I'm under the ESC rating

The ones I've had most luck with are the Hobbywing x-rotor 60a and Foxeer Reaper 65a but even those really aren't working well. Most recently, I had an arm break and it tore two of the motor wire pads off the esc.

Man I'd rather do 100 solder connections per quad than lose 4 of my working ESCs every time 1 dies. I don't think 4in1s will ever make sense to me haha. thanks a ton for the info above^. I wanted to make sure I wasn't overlooking anything

Hey guys - I wanted to ask about this PDB

https://newbeedrone.com/collections/all/...s-34v-360a

Would I be able to use a regular FC, like a T-motor F7 Pro, with this pdb to use individual ESCs?

Would I just need to direct solder the wires from the FC pins to the PDB?

Looking at it, I'm thinking I'd need to wire:

FC + to PDB 12V
FC - to PDB GND
FC r4 to PDB TLM
FC 1 to PDB M1
FC 2 to PDB M2
FC 3 to PDB M3
FC 4 to PDB M4
FC Curr to ?

Is there anything I can do with the FC's CURR wire? I don't see anything on the PDB.

Thank you!

Yes, you will direct solder the wires to the through holes on that PDB from the FC.

The PDB does not seem to support a analog current sensor IO function nor does it have a current sensor onboard. Some single ESC's have an onboard current sensor and will provide the info via Telemetry but I have only come across a handful of these (example the Holybro Tekko32 series).

(24-Nov-2022, 12:30 AM)kafie1980 Wrote: Yes, you will direct solder the wires to the through holes on that PDB from the FC.

The PDB does not seem to support a analog current sensor IO function nor does it have a current sensor onboard. Some single ESC's have an onboard current sensor and will provide the info via Telemetry but I have only come across a handful of these (example the Holybro Tekko32 series).

Thanks for the help. I'm going to be wiring it up tomorrow.

Would I power the FC from the 12v pad on the PDB?

Thanks again

12v pad should be fine as the BrainFPV Radix 2 FC can take vbat.

(07-Nov-2022, 06:38 PM)SnowLeopardFPV Wrote: So the same price for 4 individual ESCs vs the 4in1 ESC of the same spec. The 70A 4in1 is 70A per ESC so 280A in total, the same as the total for the 4 individual ESCs.

The reason 4in1 ESCs became popular is simply because they tend to create a cleaner more compact built with less soldering. The first quad I ever built has individual ESCs which was 13 solder joints per ESC (3 motors wires, both ends of the 2 power wires, and both ends of the 3 UART and telemetry wires). So just for the ESC wiring that totalled 52 solder joints compared to only 12 solder joints with a 4in1 ESC board (just 12 motor wires to be soldered). 4in1 ESCs are also far more reliable than they were back in the day. As long as you do the maths and match a 4in1 ESC correctly for your motors and you buy a decent brand then you will be unlucky if you smoke an ESC on a 4in1 board.

It appears 4in1 ESCs made things easier for people, but you lost the modular design part, so failures are total now.  You lose an ESC, you spend whatever the cost of a new 4in1 is.  Yes you don't need to do 52 solder joints, but it costs you more in the long run.  So 4in1's were actually brought out to make it easier to relieve hobbyists of money.  Judging by the number of threads I see on related forums, some of them fail pretty often and cost quite a lot of money.  But since I never flew single ESCs, was the failure rate on single ESCs just as high?

i think I would rather do 52 solder joints to save 75% of the cost of a new 4in1, in the event of a problem.

Anyway this is still on my todo list.  I bought a few (Chaos 25A ESC) from unmannedtech a bit back and will try a test build at some point.  Hopefully this thread will help when i do it.

One of the most innovative ideas that never really seemed to take off was a hybrid 4-in-1 ESC design called the X-Racer Quadrant. It consisted of 4 separate ESCs that you could either use as separate ESCs on the arms (quads had wide arms back in those days), or which you could join together to make a stack mountable 4-in-1 ESC. This gave the best of both worlds along with ease of installation into a stack coupled with the fact that if one of the ESCs died you could just desolder that one quarter and replace it with another one. There are a couple of resources about them below for anyone interested who didn't already know about the existence of these back in the day...

Oscar Liang Article: https://oscarliang.com/xracer-quadrant-blheli32-esc

Oh man, that’s awesome. I wish that had become the standard for 4in1’s.

(21-Dec-2022, 06:51 PM)SnowLeopardFPV Wrote: One of the most innovative ideas that never really seemed to take off was a hybrid 4-in-1 ESC design called the X-Racer Quadrant. It consisted of 4 separate ESCs that you could either use as separate ESCs on the arms (quads had wide arms back in those days), or which you could join together to make a stack mountable 4-in-1 ESC. This gave the best of both worlds along with ease of installation into a stack coupled with the fact that if one of the ESCs died you could just desolder that one quarter and replace it with another one. There are a couple of resources about them below for anyone interested who didn't already know about the existence of these back in the day...

Oscar Liang Article: https://oscarliang.com/xracer-quadrant-blheli32-esc

Dude that hybrid 4in1 ??? - I've never seen that

Just an hour ago I saw an APD pdb with the escs screwed on, making it one piece. I thought "I wonder why they don't make it so you can swap your bad escs out of 4in1s since you can just screw these onto the power board"

That^ APD setup might be normal for xclass quads and cinelifters but today was my first time seeing it. I've only done this since last year so I still see new stuff every day

#bringbackhybrid4in1s

I just want to dig this thread up because I have a random question.

Can you an individual ESC with any FC?

So say i have a standard F411 AIO FC. The three pads for the motor (or connector) are +v, -v, signal?

If you wire an individual ESC +v and -v to the battery (bypass the ESC on the AIO FC) and the signal wire to the signal pad on the ESC/FC would it work?

Sorry for the almost baby level question. Just trying to get my head around it.