HobbyWing XRotor 15A ESC with “OneShot” and Damped Light

Two weeks ago I posted an article about the XRotor 10A ESC, which I wanted to use for my next acro quadcopter. I wanted to download the English manual from the HobbyWing website and noticed these new XRotor 15A ESC. The XRotor 10A performs in my opinion great and HobbyWing claims the new XRotor 15A is even better than SimonK and BLHeli ESCs. I wanted to know what the difference is and asked the HobbyWing support team. This is the info that I got:

  • The XRotor 15A does not support signals with refresh rate up to 621Hz like the 10A version.
  • The XRotor 15A supports “OneShot” and “DEO” (its like Damped Light). The old 10A ESC doesn’t support these functions.

HobbyWing made some tests and claims that these new ESCs have better efficiency and lower working temperature. I decided to give these ESC a try and ordered four pieces.

The ESCs came extreme quickly from Hong Kong to Germany, only 10 days. Before I mount them on the quadcopter I wanted to know what’s under the heat shrink and removed it.

The ESCs are a bit bigger and heavier than the XRotor 10A. Unlike them these have longer motor cables and some other type of gold connectors.

IMG_0124

On the front side you can find the MPS MP6530 Brushless DC Motor Pre-Driver. The MCU is not anymore the SiLabs F396, but a custom 32bit HW503 / 515AB MCU. The voltage regulator is 7805.

front

On the backside you can see the 30V rated IRFH8318 MOSFETs.

back

I have mounted the ESCs on my acro quadcopter and they perform very well. OneShot is activated and I have no sync issues with the T-Motor MN2206. Active breaking is good, but not great.

The ESCs are rated for max 3S. I have tested them successfully on 4S with no problems. They don’t get warm and I haven’t experienced sync issues. Made some flights with a 6S LiPo too, but sometimes I experience problems. Still not sure if it’s a sync issue or something else.

Update: I have found what have caused the problems. I have enabled the feature “Do not spin motors when armed” in Cleanflight. If I leave it disabled, I have absolutely no issues on 6S LiPo. Perfect response, no sync problems 🙂

I have tested the XRotor 15A on my motor thrust stand and here are the results:


T-Motor MN2206 2000kv – 6×4.5 propeller – 3S 1300mAh 45C Zippy battery

  50% Throttle 220g thrust 2.92A current
100% Throttle 704g thrust 14.75A current

T-Motor MN2206 2000kv – 6×4.5 propeller – 4S 1300mAh 45-90C Nano-Tech

  50% Throttle 381g thrust 4.30A current
100% Throttle 1055g thrust 21.31A current

T-Motor MN2206 2000kv – 6×4.5 propeller – 6S 1300mAh 45-90C Nano-Tech

  50% Throttle 637g thrust 6.59A current
100% Throttle 1600g thrust 33A current

I almost broke my T-Motor MN2206 on the 6S combo. The XRotor 15A was hot, but fine. Overall I am very impressed with them. You can find the ESCs here or a complete set here.

  1. Awesome! I love that you push the limits beyond its rating. I do the same at times if its rated at 3s I will slowly push it up until it gets hot. Can’t do it on all ESC’s. I approach it like you did, I will first look at the components ratings (Caps/Fets) and if I have a little headroom I will try it. Definitely have to watch prop sizes at higher voltages, power consumption will go up much higher if using same size prop as lower voltage, sometimes that limits its practicality.

    1. Hi Chris, thank you for comment. Sometimes I have the problem, that the components are rated for up to 30V, but cant handle this. This was the case with the FVT LittleBee 20A ESC, which voltage regulator should handle that voltage, but sadly broke and destroyed the SiLabs MCU.

  2. Hay i have orderd also 4 xrotor 15a because of your great review i have a question my came whit a 16v power cap but you put a 6s lipo to it i think it blow the power cap at my esc’s. Have you olso got a 16v power cap?

    Thanks for your review i have now all the series xrotor 10a 15a 20a ilike tham allot.

    Greets Nick

    1. Hey Nick, yeah mine were also with 16V caps. I have tested them on 6S for a short period and these didnt blow up. But to be 100% sure I have changed them with 35V. Greets, Sergey

    1. Hey Angelo, I can for sure let you know if you can remove the heat shrink and send me a picture of the ESC. But yes, it is possible that LD-Power and HobbyWing are working together. HobbyWing works with T-Motor already and the XRotor ESCs are identical to T-Motor Air Series. Sergey

      1. OK good idea, i wiil buy a heat shrink for replace after i will cut… and post a photo ASAP..
        Regards
        Angelo

  3. Hi. Is it possible to flash BLhelli on these ESCs with BLhelli suit? If yes, i would imagine the peformance with oneshot and damped light enabled would be better.
    I’m buying a couple of t-motor air 15A ESCs and i want to know if I can flash them with xrotor 20A hex file in the BLhelli suit (since they are so similar)? this way I can enable oneshot and damped light on the ESCs right?

    1. Hey Pouya, you cant flash the XRotor 15 with BLHeli, because it has not Silabs MCU. It has a custom 32bit MCU. The XRorot 15A has special firmware, so it already has OneShot and Damped Light enabled. Cheers, Sergey

  4. Can I use these together with Betaflight? I tried to flash my CC3D with Betaflight once and couldn’t get the engines to turn. I am under the impression that BLHeli firmware is needed, but couldn’t find anything conclusive about the matter.

      1. Thank you for the superfast reply! I have flashed Betaflight in the meantime but I can´t get all 4 motors to spin. If I choose ONESHOT125 as protocol, 3 motors move kind of jumpy without throttle signal and the radio signal I see in the program appears jumpy as well. If I choose PWM as ESC protocol, just one motor spins, but normally. How should I set this up? If I change the RX input from PWM to PPM, I can move all 4 motors with the programm regulator, but not with the radio.

        1. The RX signal should be setup accordingly to your receiver: what receiver and transmitter are you using? OneShot125 is supported by the HobbyWing 15A and it should work perfect. Also what are your minimum max throttle and minimum signal settings?

          1. I use Turnigy 9XR w. DJT module and V8FR-II RX. They worked well with Librepilot. “PPM” setting in the 9XR.

            With Min/Max Throttle and Min. Signal do you mean the settings in ESC/Motor Features? I left the default values, 1070, 2000 and 1000. What needs to go there? The values that appear under throttle in the transmitter tab? Thank you for your help!

          2. OK, so its using the FrSky protocol PPM. In the receiver TAB, check if the bars are moving accordingly to the movement of the sticks. Check if the throttle bar is below 1000us. ESC/Motor settings: I mean the settings just below the dropdown menu for the ESC protocol. Increase the 1070 value to 1150. Always test without propeller pls. In the motor tabs if you move the bars and the motors spin correctly and simultaneous – you are good.

        2. I increased the value, but no success so far. Does FRSky PPM mean I should use PPM RX in Betaflight? The bars only move accordingly when using PWM RX input, and only when using PWM protocol for the ESCs. In Oneshot, the radio bars twitch or don´t react at all, and some motors are beeping or twitching. … Now after some tries I got one motor to work with Oneshot the same way I had with PWM before. ESC calibration issue? However it is always the motor linked to position 4 on the board that works, no matter which one I put there.

          1. It seems the FrSky V8FR-II RX does not support PPM signal… If you have more than 3 wires connected from it to the flight controller, then it should work as a PWM receiver (one wire per signal). Now let´s figure out the ESC/Motor seetings: Set OneShot125. Try to move the bars in the Motor Tab to check if the motors are spinning. Can you make a picture of how you connected the ESCs to the CC3D?

          2. With OneShot, I had one instance where three motors were twitching with the bars in the motor tab down, they started beeping when I moved the bars up. After some on and off with the battery I ended up with one motor moving normally when moving the bar up and three not responding at all. With PPM RX and ONESHOT for the ESCs all four respond normally when moving the bar, but no radio signal is received. Sergey, you rock! Do tell me how I can buy you a coffee! In the meantime, have a very nice day, for today I will have to leave this as it is and to try again tomorrow…

          3. Very strange behavior… I do not have more ideas right now. Thanks for the kind words! This is all that I need 🙂 Best wishes, Sergey

          4. Oh yeah, now I can remember there was such an issue… Thanks for the info Anna! Hopefully it will help other drone pilots. Best, Sergey

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