Advice needed for ESC programming

[ztugdriver]

Hello


I'm am trying to reverse engineer an electric fishing reel that uses an RC motor and ESC. The manufacturer is no longer makes replacement parts, but I believe I can repair it with your help. I'm just not sure how they configured the ESC to run on a 12 lead acid battery. The current setup is a 4130-400kv motor unknown brand, eflite 60 amp


ESC, wireless receiver for a remote control dongle(not going to use it in my setup), micro maestro PMW controller and a potentiometer. I will list my components below that I will be using.


My first question is what would be the recommended settings for my ESC to run on a 12 volt lead acid battery charged by the boats engines while being used so voltage will be between 12-13.8.

Second anyone with experience setting up the micro maestro PMW controller with a potentiometer input. Can I hook it up to my laptop and get its current configuration of the one I have? The manufacturer has free software to configure the controller I've just never used it before.

Third is there a better or easier way to control the ESC with a potentiometer other than the


PMW controller they use? Could I reliably use a servo tester?


My set up will use the following components:


Tempest 4130-400 brushless motor


https://innov8tivedesigns.com/tempest-4130-


400kv-brushless-motor.html


BadAss Renegade V2 Series


Brushless ESC, 85A


https://innov8tivedesigns.com/badass-renegade-v2-series-brushless-esc-85a.html


Micro maestro


https://www.pololu.com/product/1350


Potentiometer not chosen yet but off/0-100%

Any input or advice would be greatly appreciated thank you all.

 

[CertifiedMike]

L

Post in thread 'Control ESC with Microcontroller directly?'

Aug 5, 2025

It is a PWM signal.

Yeah, I figured that it is some kind of PWM. More curious about the frequency, duty cycle and logic behind how ESC understands the signal. Like, does more duty cycle mean more speed? how does it know if I want to reverse? etc.

• Lukinho98

I really know not much about pwm signal processing and such but this article might help get you started.

 

[CreepyQuarryCrawler]

That this is cool! I had no idea things like this existed. Looks like a boat ESC in there, does it run water through it for cooling?

 

[majin]

cool

 

[ztugdriver]

Thanks for the link I will look at that. No it doesn’t use water for cooking just air. It is a pretty reliable system the bearings in the motor seem to be the most replaced part. Some models of this reel have two motors for added power. The reels aren’t cheap it’s about $3000 for one plus the cost of the actual reel. So that’s why I’d like to be able to fix them myself since they no longer make or repair them.