tinyPEPPER2 4in1 ESC — Are you ready for 2S on a sub 40g quadcopter?

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By | May 16, 2017

I am happy to announce that the next generation tinyPEPPER 4in1 ESC will be available shortly. The folks at Furious FPV are manufacturing and are going to sell the 2S version of my tinyPEPPER design soon, see their product page: FPV-0252 Fishpepper 4in1 ESC.

You might be yelling what has happened to the open hardware spirit. Well… My recent experience with Chinese copycats got me thinking. I was not asking for much, just proper credit. But it got even worse, they claimed my tinyPEPPER to be their own invention. You can find my tinyFISH FC relabeled as “their” invention F3D8.

So I am going to try a different approach this time. But wait, do not stop reading — you did not get the best part yet:

The design will be opensourced in some months!

So back to the topic: This flea weight can run on 1S or 2S and is great for tiny brushless quadcopters. The 38g 2S pepperFIISH that I have test flown previously used an early prototype of the same ESC design. With lighter motors and some optimizations I am comfortable that we will see 30-35g copters running on 2S in the future!

27 thoughts on “tinyPEPPER2 4in1 ESC — Are you ready for 2S on a sub 40g quadcopter?

  1. Tim

    I’ve been flying two rigs equipped with these for a while now, I’ve got an issue with one where motor 3 is producing really low torque and a re-flow of the fets and drivers for that part of the board didn’t fix it. I’ve been unsuccessful searching for the parts after reading the numbers off the SMD components, is there any chance this will be open sourced soon or could you maybe share the part details for the fets and drivers?

    Cheers
    Tim

    Reply
    1. fishpepper Post author

      Yes, of course it supports DSHOT 😉 It’s plug and play, no special settings / calibration needed.

      Reply
    2. Ricotchet

      So I can use a switch on my taranis to beep with the motors? I don’t need an external buzzer?

      Reply
      1. fishpepper Post author

        Ah sorry, I got you wrong. But yes, this should work when you flash a blheli_s firmware that supports that. Not sure which version is the newest one. My changes for this esc have been merged into blheli_s so there should be a matching target and the updater should detect that 🙂

        Reply
        1. Kyle Wineinger

          Last time i flashed my TinyPepper, there were targets for the main branch of BLHeli_s, but not the one on the multishot branch that supports full DShot commands. if you go with the latest target that supposedly supports commands the motor beeping will work, but turtle mode is not functional. Fishpepper, do you have any plans for adding the target to the multishot branch so we can get turtle mode? they hopefully will also fix the merge back to trunk so that the multishot branch is unnecessary. This was about a month ago so idk if things have changed since. having the motor beeping is super handy for finding the quad in the grass. Love your work! (PS, Turtle mode on my big quads is awesome, and I would love to have it on my pepperfiish too!)

          Reply
  2. Tullyo

    Thank you for your hard work. Just ordered two fishFC’s from FlexRC… my FC that was on my dustx58 was crap, so I ordered the 3.1V regulator to fix the Failsave issue.. Is the FishFC compatible with 2s? or will you bring out a new FC for this 4in1 ESC? Thank you for clarification ( before my boards smell like magic smoke ) Gruss

    Reply
    1. fishpepper Post author

      The original tinyFISH FC design works on 2S and should do 3S as well. I have no idea which voltage regulator the chinese manufacturers used. 2S should work, 3S probably not when they used cheaper voltage regulators.

      Reply
    1. fishpepper Post author

      Yes it should be save to use HV Lipos 😉 The FETs are good for up to ~12V (So unfortunately no 3S 🙁 )

      Reply
  3. Ashade

    I’m going to start building your setup pretty soon, but I want to put it a deadcat frame. I haven’t had a lot of time lately, but once it’s designed, I’ll release it as opensource for you guys, as a personal thank you for all the hard work you’ve put into th you this. I’ve learned a lot form your blog. Good job!

    Reply
    1. fishpepper Post author

      Thanks for the link. Looks like a different design to me. The tinyPEPPER2S design is not open yet. It will be open in some months.

      Reply
  4. Ricotchet

    Hi is there a EU or german shop for this ESC?
    the shipping cost from FPV direct or Furious FPV are horrible

    Reply
    1. fishpepper Post author

      I do not know about an european store yet…

      Reply
  5. John

    Yep your design work is inspirational! Ive been put off of the Chinese made knockoffs since i found out that they have been just stealing others hard work with not even a small mention to the rightful designers made. The truely should be ashamed. Wish you the best of luck with this new effort, and will be keeping an eye on future offerings!

    Reply
  6. Dom

    First of all great work you have done with the 1s version, love my pepperF1SH.
    Two questions i have regarding the 2s setup which i will definetly preorder (is a german dealer already setup?)asap.

    1. are you still suggesting the 8000Kv 1103 motors for the 2s setup
    2.How you manage the powering (5V) of the aio cam with the 2s setup as there is no BEC on the ESC or FC

    Thanks for your fantastic work .

    Reply
    1. fishpepper Post author

      1) I like it. But I will test some other motors shortly — stay tuned 😉
      2) There are three was:
      2a) I was flying the first 2S Lipo without any regulator (cam on 8.4V!) — It survived (maybe just luck)
      2b) Cheap stepdown: cam drops out on empty battery and it melts the hotglue
      2c) I will test a better stepdown soon (D24V5F soldered to give ~4V)

      So i would recommend 2c for now, but it is untested 😉

      Reply
      1. Nick

        I’ve used a pololu S7V8F3 3.3v step up/down regulator to power both a vtx camera combo and a tinyf1sh fc before. Works well for me but I lose out on voltage sensing.

        Reply
  7. Tim

    This is good news, I guess it’s time to order a flight controller from one of the reputable sellers so it’s here ready for when I can get the 2s ESC.

    Hopefully it’s all quick to arrive!

    Reply
  8. Ethan

    Is it 5A per channel or total current for all 4?
    I now need to find a frame to plan my 8:1 trust ratio build!!!

    Reply
  9. Luca

    Looks like you found a similar fet to what I was looking at! And then finals hit 🙁

    The capacitor line looks crazy

    Reply
  10. CesiumSalami

    Fantastic! It’s a harsh reality, but you deserve more what the previous cycle brought you, I think. I, for one, think the plan that you’ve laid out for the 2s version is awesome!

    Thanks for your hard work!!

    Reply

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