00:00:00
today we're taking a look at two stacks
00:00:02
from Sky stars that are based on
00:00:05
am32 or at least they should have been
00:00:08
and I'll talk about that a little bit
00:00:10
more later on in the video anyway what
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we're going to do today is take a look
00:00:14
at these Stacks I'm going to walk you
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through the features and capabilities
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we're then going to take a bit of a look
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at the am32 configuration and explain
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what I meant about that should be as
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well now just before we get onto this I
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just want to say sky stars did send me
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these stacks to take a look at for free
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however they have not paid me to make
00:00:32
this video they've not seen this video
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before it's been published and as always
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my thoughts are entirely my own okay now
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Sky Stars have been one of the brands
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that have been on board with
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am32 pretty much since the beginning
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they were definitely one of the early
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adopters and getting into am32 before
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most others now today we're going to
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take a look at two stacks we have a full
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sizee stack and we have a mini stack and
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what I'm going to do is just give you an
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overview of both and just talk about the
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features of them and explain what these
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are like compared to some of the others
00:01:07
that I'm going to seen on the market now
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to start we're going to look at the
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30x30 stack now this is the f722 HD Pro
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4 obviously being called f722 means it
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is based off the f722 microcontroller
00:01:22
that runs 116 MHz now this flight
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controller features six uarts there are
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four pwm outputs for the motor the gyro
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is the mpu 6000 and it has a barrow on
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board as well what's nice about this
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stack is it also has i2c Port as well
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and led pads on the corners allowing you
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to control them flipping it over to the
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other side you will find on the back
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that there are dual backs there's a
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5volt and a 10vt back on this flight
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controller both rated up to 3 amp and
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there's also an ldo regulator on board
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for supplying power to the sensors to
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offer the cleanest possible output from
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the likes of your gyro as you can see
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there we also have an analog OSD chip so
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if you don't want to use it with digital
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don't worry you can still use it with
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analog and there is also 16 Megs of
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onboard blackbox storage located down
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there with a Wim Bon chip now looking
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around the board you can see there are
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lots of pads available there is a
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dedicated port for the digital but
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everything else is padded out as well
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and you've also got pads on the bottom
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of the board down here too what's nice
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about the board when you look at it it
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also seems to be some form of conformal
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coated on the bottom as well it's not on
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the top but it is on the bottom offering
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some additional protection one of the
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other nice features on this controller
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is the fact that you can control the
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back output with the switch on your
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radio that is all done via the user one
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settings and it's really handy if you're
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using it with digital vtx's the likes of
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dj3 Avatar HD it means number one you
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can stop it overheating but number two
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if you're using GPS you can actually
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allow your GP GPS to get good satellite
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acquisition good lock before powering up
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the digital VTX this is controlled via
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the user one settings in betaflight and
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you can simply configure it that you can
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have your VTX power output on a switch
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on your radio next moving over to the
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ESC now this is the am60 which is 60 amp
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up to 6s it supports a minimum voltage
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input like the flly controller of 3s it
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supports dshot 600 and 1200 and is based
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off am32 and the ESC is said to weigh 18
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G now really there's not a great deal to
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show you on the ESC compared to others
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am32 is flashable onto a normal ESC that
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supports BL hel 32 so there's nothing
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specific about this ESC Hardware wise
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compared to say a BL heli 32 ESC and
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really what you're looking at here is
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the quality of the build of this
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compared to others what I really like
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about this ESC is you have individual p
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ads for the motor outputs all the way
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down the sides you'll notice that they
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are all vied and they are all
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castellated as well and that is the same
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for the main power input pads as well
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again lots of vires going through with
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castellation down the outside and then
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obviously we have our connector up here
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for our flight controller quality
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everything looks really really good we
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will get it under the microscope in a
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minute but you can see there's just some
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touches to show that they've put thought
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into it the castellation and the vires
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on the pads you've got some glue on some
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of the components there and around the
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connector and it just shows that Sky
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Stars have put a lot of thought into the
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build itself but what we'll do is get it
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under the microscope to have a look at
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how everything has been laid out the you
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can see in the bottom corner we've got
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our digital VTX connectors we've then
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got our T1 R1 5vt and ground for our
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receiver we've got the LED pads on the
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corners down there you've got your rest
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of the pads there going around there all
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the way around the side with them all
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being labeled for the motor outputs and
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then additional pads over here now
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you've got LEDs located there as well
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for status there you can see the SC and
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SDA pads if you want to run a campus
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there's a boot button and then you got
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your Barrow sensor down there and then
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you've got a little jumper there to tell
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you what voltage output you want for the
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VTX it's going to be set as 10 volt as
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standard but you can change that to 5
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Vol if you needed to if we then now just
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flip it over to the other side it's
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going to be quite hard to show you this
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side because it is conformally coated
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all of the light is just going to
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reflect off it you can see there we've
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got the chipset the at 7456 e which is
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the analog SD you've got your Wim Bond
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flare storage you got some protection
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dodes our back as well as our sensors
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there you see invent Sense on that One
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More Voltage regulation
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there as well the build quality on the
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board looks really good all of the
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components look nicely placed all of the
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pads soldered look fine right up there
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with what I would expect from any other
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manufacturer now looking at the ESC
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there's not a great deal to show you on
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this side of the board although I can
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show you the castellation and the vires
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on the pads you can see that there you
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can see the virs on the pads there it's
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hard to show you without refocusing I'll
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put some b roll up so you can see the
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castellation on the pads better but it
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looks really nice I do like the way
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these pads are cut out for the motors as
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well if we flip the board over this side
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you can see them there a little bit
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easier you can see for the pads on the
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corners that it does go around the
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outside of the connector but there is a
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ground under there as well so there's
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nothing to worry about there we can see
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our
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fats our motor
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drivers just going be quite hard to see
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what the make is on
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these I'll try and get that up in a
00:07:05
minute and again we'll talk about that
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separately but overall with the build
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quality again all of the components look
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well placed no issues whatsoever now
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just looking at those micr controllers
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they are the a32s
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421s and then the motor drivers is the
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sa 628
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34s that you can see there it's quite
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hard to show it with the conformal
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coating but you can read it and as for
00:07:29
the fat is quite hard to show you here
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but they seem to be the tph HR 85s if I
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just try and get the light right there
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you go you can just see it written on
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one of them there next moving over to
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the f722 Mini HD Pro 2 now this is a
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mini version of the one we've just
00:07:46
looked at again based on the f722
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chipset running at 216 MHz mpu 6000 gyro
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still has six uarts still has i2c still
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has a barrow sensor still has analog HD
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D still has 16 Megs of onboard Black Bog
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storage and it even still has a digital
00:08:05
VTX connector down there as well it has
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pretty much most of the same
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functionality as you get on the larger
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one apart from this is in a 20 x 20 and
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that one's in a 30x30 it still features
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dual Becks but they are reduced from 3
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amp capable down to 2 Amp capable but
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again that's going to be absolutely fine
00:08:25
for most people's use cases 5vt and 10vt
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will be fine with all the usual digital
00:08:30
VTX suspects another nice feature on
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this fight controller is that it does
00:08:34
have a TVs protection diode built in as
00:08:36
well which should just offer some extra
00:08:39
protection and hopefully additional
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reliability now just moving around to
00:08:43
the back of the board there you can see
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our backs on the S side got our flash
00:08:47
storage there and then you've got that
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dedicated digital connector with some
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additional pads and like the other one
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we still have a USBC for updating the
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firmware next looking at the ESC and
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this is the km 55A rated at 55 amp 3 to
00:09:00
6s input and again based off am32 now
00:09:04
this is a bit of a different past
00:09:05
compared to the first one you will see
00:09:07
it does have a metal heat shield over
00:09:08
the top which should help with cooling
00:09:10
but the big difference on this is that
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it is a single sided ESC there is no
00:09:15
castellation on the pads on this because
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the pads do not go to the bottom of the
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board instead you have just top mounted
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pads with vires going through and there
00:09:25
are no pads on the bottom so there's no
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need for castellation down the side if
00:09:30
we then look on the main battery input
00:09:32
it's exactly the same so again there's
00:09:34
no pads on the bottom of the board you
00:09:36
just have pads on the top although you
00:09:39
do have some additional little pads in
00:09:40
the middle there for your capacitor what
00:09:42
you'll also notice on this side of the
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board is that the motor controls are on
00:09:46
a separate little PCB that is mounted to
00:09:49
the main board you do see that's from
00:09:51
some manufacturers it just allows them
00:09:53
to sort of design that part of the board
00:09:54
separately and then mount it onto lots
00:09:57
of different designs of esc's absolutely
00:10:00
nothing wrong with doing that what we're
00:10:02
going to do next is get this under the
00:10:03
microscope as well and have a closer
00:10:05
look looking at the 20 x 20 again we've
00:10:07
got the 722 in the middle we've got our
00:10:09
Barrow our rosd chip is on this side of
00:10:11
the board this time we've got a
00:10:13
protection diod up here which is the TVs
00:10:15
diode and then you can see we've got
00:10:18
some basic passive components and then
00:10:20
you got your pads that run all the way
00:10:21
around the outside these are not labeled
00:10:23
so you are going to need to use the
00:10:26
website instructions to make sure you
00:10:28
understand what these are
00:10:29
flipping over to the other side of the
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board again it is conformal coated so
00:10:33
it's going to be quite hard to see the
00:10:35
components but you can see there we got
00:10:37
the wind Bond flash storage invent sense
00:10:39
mpu 6000 gyro we've got the voltage
00:10:43
regulation circuits on each side as well
00:10:46
and then you've just got three pads over
00:10:48
there alongside our digital VTX
00:10:51
connector down there we also do have our
00:10:56
control for our back on our VTX you got
00:10:58
the pitch
00:10:59
and the 5 volt and that's exactly the
00:11:02
same as what we saw on the big
00:11:03
controller looking at the ESC you can
00:11:05
see the pads there in a bit more detail
00:11:08
we've got the vires going through on the
00:11:10
edges as well as some vires further up
00:11:12
on some of them as it is single-sided
00:11:14
pads there isn't a lot to show you on
00:11:16
this side but you can see that there are
00:11:18
some traces down there but they're not
00:11:21
solderable all the soldering is on this
00:11:24
side here as I've said because this
00:11:26
doesn't have the pads on the bottom
00:11:27
there's no castellation exactly the same
00:11:29
on the power pads as well as you can see
00:11:32
we've got plus and minus there with Vias
00:11:35
going through to help spread the current
00:11:38
on the other side of the board now just
00:11:40
looking on this side just to show you
00:11:42
the design so we have a couple of fets
00:11:45
here and here on the bottom side of the
00:11:46
board we've got our voltage input and
00:11:49
regulation area there and then we've got
00:11:51
our main motor drivers down here so you
00:11:54
can see there you go you can see the
00:11:57
at32 F4 two ones for the
00:12:00
microcontrollers you can see that one
00:12:02
there there there and there and then we
00:12:06
got some motor drivers there which look
00:12:09
to be labeled sa
00:12:13
628
00:12:14
408 and obviously as I've said already
00:12:17
these were all on a separate PCB that
00:12:20
sold us to the main PCB absolutely no
00:12:22
issues with that at all soldering on the
00:12:25
connections looks really
00:12:27
good yeah don't see that causing any
00:12:30
problems whatsoever finally just moving
00:12:32
up to this side of the board you can
00:12:34
then see our ESC connector there's no
00:12:37
pads on the bottom but there are pads on
00:12:40
the top for the ESC connector if you did
00:12:43
want to hardwire it now just to show you
00:12:45
what else you get in the box with the
00:12:46
flight controller because I haven't
00:12:48
actually covered that yet I'm just try
00:12:50
and get it out there we go in the bottom
00:12:53
you get this little box and included
00:12:55
with this
00:12:57
is let's say again in we've got our
00:13:00
power cable we have a capacitor so
00:13:03
they've included a 35v 1,000 UF so it's
00:13:07
a nice size that pretty good and then
00:13:11
we've got a plug and wiring kit with
00:13:14
some bolts for our stack mounting
00:13:17
options basically so everything you need
00:13:19
to get yourself up and running now the
00:13:21
next thing I wanted to do was walk you
00:13:22
through a bit of the overview of the
00:13:24
configuration of am32 and whilst we are
00:13:27
still going to do that it was at this
00:13:29
point in my testing that things went a
00:13:32
little bit sideways and I found
00:13:34
something that was rather unexpected and
00:13:36
that was as follows the km 55A ESC that
00:13:40
I received is a model that would
00:13:42
traditionally come with BL heli 32 but
00:13:45
obviously as a result of the issues
00:13:48
around that it is now shipping with am32
00:13:52
and that is absolutely fine where things
00:13:55
were a little bit strange was with
00:13:57
regards to this the am6
00:13:59
which is an ESC labeled am32 but the one
00:14:03
they've sent me has actually come
00:14:05
installed with BL heli 32 installed now
00:14:10
this is a fully legitimate copy of BL
00:14:13
heli 32 it is not one of the test
00:14:16
versions it is version
00:14:19
3210 that officially looks like it's
00:14:22
licensed there doesn't seem to be any
00:14:24
quirks around it whatsoever however that
00:14:28
is not what what it says on the front of
00:14:30
the ESC now I do want to state that I
00:14:33
was sent early release versions of this
00:14:35
hardware and as a result of that it
00:14:37
seems there's been a bit of a mixup
00:14:40
unfortunately though I am not the only
00:14:42
person to have had this and there are a
00:14:44
few posts around social media and
00:14:46
Discord of users facing the same issue
00:14:49
buying an am32 ESC and getting BL heli
00:14:52
32 installed whilst this is unfortunate
00:14:56
I will add that the vision of B heli 32
00:15:00
that I did get on this ESC is fully
00:15:02
legitimate it is not that test copy that
00:15:05
we saw some of the manufacturers ship it
00:15:08
appears to be a fully licensed copy so
00:15:10
in the end I'm technically no worse off
00:15:13
I've got an ESC with legitimate software
00:15:16
but it isn't the software that it says
00:15:18
on the front that isn't to say though
00:15:20
you couldn't flash this to am32 and I'm
00:15:24
actually going to do a video walking you
00:15:25
through how to do that later on the
00:15:27
channel but as I am always open and
00:15:30
honest on this channel and other users
00:15:32
have also faced this I did want to
00:15:35
highlight the fact that this has
00:15:37
happened and it has happened to other
00:15:39
people as well but Sky stars are solving
00:15:42
this for people as I understand it if
00:15:44
you do get an ESC with the wrong
00:15:45
firmware and you want to have what it
00:15:48
says on the front just reach out to them
00:15:50
and they should swap it out now what I'm
00:15:52
going to do next is just give you a
00:15:54
quick overview of the options that are
00:15:56
available within am32 if you haven't
00:15:58
seen seen them and then I'll come back
00:16:00
and share with you some thoughts on the
00:16:01
hardware itself now one of the great
00:16:02
things about configuring am32 is the
00:16:04
fact that you don't need to install any
00:16:06
software on your computer you can go to
00:16:08
am32 doca and use their webbased
00:16:12
configurator that allows you to do all
00:16:14
of the configuration on your ESC you can
00:16:17
also use the ESC configurator page this
00:16:21
not only supports am32 but it supports
00:16:23
blh s and blue J as well and this is
00:16:26
probably the most widely known and used
00:16:28
method of configuring your ESC there is
00:16:30
also an app available for your PC as
00:16:32
well if you want to use that offline
00:16:34
however this isn't quite as smooth or as
00:16:37
easy to use as the webbased
00:16:38
configurators now to connect to am32 is
00:16:41
fairly straightforward pretty much the
00:16:42
same as it is for BL hel what you first
00:16:45
of all need to do is select your Port so
00:16:47
as long as you've got it connected via
00:16:49
USB you should be fine if you do have
00:16:51
trouble here just make sure you have got
00:16:53
be tolight closed because if be tolight
00:16:55
is open in the background it could
00:16:57
override the serial Port connection
00:16:59
we're then going to click connect and
00:17:00
then read and this will then connect to
00:17:03
the am32 ESC and then you'll see
00:17:06
everything pop up on the display now
00:17:08
looking along the middle the first thing
00:17:09
you will see is each ESC has been read
00:17:11
in we have information in here such as
00:17:13
the bootloader the MCU and the firmware
00:17:15
type and you can see that for each ESC
00:17:18
As you move along below this we then
00:17:20
have some options for each ESC so we can
00:17:22
reverse the motor output on each one
00:17:24
independently or we can enable 3D mode
00:17:27
independently as well scrolling further
00:17:29
down the screen this is where you get to
00:17:31
the rest of the main settings for am32
00:17:34
and at the top of this there's a real
00:17:36
important one which I think is actually
00:17:38
a great thing that you have at am32 and
00:17:40
that is the ability to manually set the
00:17:43
protocol the way it worked on BL heli
00:17:46
was the protocol was detected from the
00:17:49
flight controller on connection based on
00:17:51
the communication types but this wasn't
00:17:53
manually setable however here in am32
00:17:57
you can and the great thing about this
00:17:59
is it reduces the possibility of things
00:18:02
like accidental spool UPS as a result of
00:18:05
the ESC Mis Connect into the flight
00:18:08
controller and picking up the wrong
00:18:10
protocol this means you can actually
00:18:12
manually set the protocol that you want
00:18:14
it to use for each ESC scrolling down
00:18:16
from here you then have the more
00:18:18
advanced options so under motor we've
00:18:20
got things such as stuck rotor
00:18:22
protection stall protection Hall sensors
00:18:25
variable pwm and complimentary pwm
00:18:29
you've got your timing settings your
00:18:31
startup power your motor KV options
00:18:33
motor po options beeper volume and pwm
00:18:37
frequency controls over here under
00:18:40
limits you've got things such as
00:18:42
temperature limit current limit and
00:18:44
you've got low voltage cut off available
00:18:46
here as well then you got cidal startup
00:18:49
if you want that option we've got
00:18:52
breaking options and then further down
00:18:54
you've got Servo settings such as the
00:18:56
low the high threshold the neutral and
00:18:59
the dead band if you wanted to use it
00:19:01
with pwm overall everything under here
00:19:04
is really nice and straightforward about
00:19:06
the only things you do need to do when
00:19:07
you first set it up is set your protocol
00:19:09
i' personally set it manually and then
00:19:11
you want to make sure you got your motor
00:19:12
KV right your motor poles right and if
00:19:14
you want to adjust your pwm you can but
00:19:17
you shouldn't need to change that from
00:19:19
standard now I'm going to end this video
00:19:21
here I'm going to then make another
00:19:23
video where we're going to flash this to
00:19:27
am32 and then I'm going to be talking
00:19:29
about some of my experiences with am32
00:19:32
once I've done a bit more testing just
00:19:35
going over some of the things that we've
00:19:37
seen today with regards to the quality
00:19:38
of the stacks the hardware is really
00:19:41
really nice I like the work that Sky
00:19:43
stars are doing the reports from the
00:19:45
community on the Sky Stars Hardware is
00:19:47
really good as well people say it's some
00:19:50
of the best and most reliable hardw that
00:19:53
they've used in fact esc's especially
00:19:55
seem to be pretty much bombproof I also
00:19:59
like the features that have been
00:20:00
integrated into am32 and the big one
00:20:03
here is the ability to be able to set
00:20:05
the protocol which means you can take
00:20:08
away some of the risk of your flight
00:20:10
controller and ESC miscommunicating that
00:20:13
could potentially result in a spool up
00:20:16
this very issue was a problem on earlier
00:20:20
versions of BL heli 32 and whilst they
00:20:23
did solve and mitigate this I much
00:20:25
prefer being able to just say hey I want
00:20:28
to use this protocol and take away
00:20:31
specifically that risk all together now
00:20:34
if you're interested in seeing some of
00:20:36
this hard with yourself there will be a
00:20:38
link to the Sky Stars website in the
00:20:40
description I want to say a massive
00:20:42
thank you to them for sending this over
00:20:44
as I've said in part two we're going to
00:20:46
take a look at flashing the ESC to am32
00:20:49
and walking you through that process now
00:20:51
if you've liked what you've seen here
00:20:52
please do let me know below if you have
00:20:53
any comments or questions let me know as
00:20:55
well and also if you'd like to support
00:20:57
the channel to allow us to keep making
00:20:59
content please you consider check out
00:21:00
the link to my patreon as well as buy me
00:21:01
a coffee it is only through the support
00:21:03
that my patreons May able to keep making
00:21:05
content on this channel and if you'd
00:21:06
like to support us to allow us to keep
00:21:07
making content in the future please to
00:21:09
consider checking it out I want to say a
00:21:11
massive thank you to all of my patreons
00:21:13
we would not be able to keep doing this
00:21:14
without your support anyway that's it
00:21:16
for me stay safe I will speak to you
00:21:18
soon
