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From 0.23.0 the panel is the 7-inch ESP32-P4 display board from Waveshare (ESP32-P4-WIFI6-Touch-LCD-7B, 1024 x 600 pixels, MIPI DSI (Mobile Industry Processor Interface, Display Serial Interface), ESP32-C6 for Wi-Fi). Up to 0.22 it is the 7-inch ESP32-S3 display board from Waveshare (ESP32-S3-Touch-LCD-7, 800 x 480 pixels).
- 0.22 is the last release line for the ESP32-S3 panel; its newest release is 0.22.1. An ESP32-S3 panel is offered 0.22.x patch releases only.
- 0.23.0 is the first release for the ESP32-P4 panel, a testing release. Its user interface is laid out for 1024 x 600; it is not the 800 x 480 layout scaled up.
- The ESP32-P4 board needs chip revision 3.2 (ESP-IDF v5.5.5).
- Both panels use the same IOmcu, IO board and CAN link.
- On the ESP32-P4 board the heartbeat is IO28 and the rotary knob is IO30 (SDA) and IO31 (SCL), all on the 12-pin header P3.
A motor, ESC (electronic speed controller) and servo test bench on two processors. The panel is an ESP32-P4 touch panel, the Waveshare ESP32-P4 7B: user interface on a 1024x600 MIPI DSI display, settings, SD (Secure Digital) card and Wi-Fi through its ESP32-C6. The IOmcu is an RP2350 (input/output microcontroller): measurement, outputs and every protocol with timing requirements. CAN (Controller Area Network) at 1Mbit/s connects the two.
Releases up to 0.22.1 run on the ESP32-S3 panel. What each panel's update check offers is in Screens: The release line.
Status. The panel and the IOmcu run together over CAN at 1Mbit/s on a bench with a PD mini supply, servos and one ESC, and a beta tester runs release builds. Output timing (bit widths, frame periods, reply delays) is not measured on an instrument. STATUS.md records what is built, what is open and what is not planned.
This bench drives motors and servos. Keep clear of the propeller plane whenever the bench is ARMED.
Switching to ARMED is deliberate: a two-second hold on ARM, with the command sent when the hold completes rather than when the finger lifts. DISARM and STOP are a single press and act when the finger comes down, not when it lifts.
Three stop mechanisms are designed in: a heartbeat whose absence removes
the outputs, the IOmcu's own link watchdog, and a STOP command over the
link. The heartbeat line runs from the panel's IO28 (PANEL_HEARTBEAT_PIN,
on the 12-pin header P3 of the 7-inch ESP32-P4 board) to the IOmcu's GPIO 3.
No board carries the heartbeat's retriggerable monostable. Firmware at both
ends gates the outputs, and no hardware backstop sits behind it.
Safety specifies all
three.
Nothing here has been through a safety certification. The MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) licence's "without warranty of any kind" applies.
| Screen | Function | State |
|---|---|---|
| Motor & ESC | voltage, current, consumption, RPM (revolutions per minute) and temperatures plotted live | screen built; speed, voltage, current and ESC temperature from an ESC's bidirectional DShot telemetry; simulated values while no IOmcu answers |
| Servo | commanded and measured position; installed-limit search; two-servo synchronisation; servo types with their frame rates, a warning for those that can destroy a servo; a sweep through a square, sine or triangle run by the IOmcu; the supply's live power; an automatic test stepping the supply's voltage, with a CSV (comma-separated values) file and a text report; a programmer for KST and Chaservo servos with backup, limit checks and a write switch | screen built and commanding over the link; drives the pins bound as surfaces, timing unmeasured; the limit search, the synchronisation and the programmer are host-tested against a modelled servo |
| Supply | the PD mini, a USB-PD (USB Power Delivery) supply: voltage and current limit set, output switched, V, A and W plotted and logged | screen built; the IOmcu drives the PD mini on a PIO (programmable input/output) UART (universal asynchronous receiver-transmitter) when SETUP enables it, and the panel runs a model otherwise |
| Receiver | sixteen receiver channels with history, the digital channels, LIVE / FRAME LOST / FAILSAFE / NO SIGNAL | S.BUS decoder built; PIO (programmable input/output) receiver not written |
| Motor & ESC > Program | ESC programming profiles for throttle-stick menus: 72 families, 451 models; parameter tables for ESCs with BLHeli_S, AM32, ESCape32 and VESC firmware and for Hitec servos | task built. Profiles built in and read from /BENCH/ESC/CONF/ on the card. Stick programming runs 24 of them from ESC STICK, asking for a Kontronik ESC's jumper or button at its moment, against the panel's simulated ESC. The parameter tables are data: no protocol on a wire, no row on a PROGRAM list |
| Balance | blade count, correction mass and angle, sensor placement guides | screen built; the accelerometer and the index sensor are not fitted, so nothing is measured |
| Battery | per-cell spread and verdict | screen built; drawn from a model |
| Logs | browse, import and plot CSV from the card; runs are recorded to BENCH/LOGS while ARMED or while the supply's output is on, tests to USER/LOGS (the default folders), each switchable and set under SETUP > SD CARD |
built |
| Files | the SD (Secure Digital) card in two panes: copy, move, rename and delete files, make folders and empty text files, file information; writes only while the bench is SAFE and no log file is open, and refuses the bench's own folders and the files the logger writes | screen built and host-tested; opens from Logs and from Setup |
| Wi-Fi | the panel's radio, on only while the screen is open and for update checks: its own access point (WPA2 (Wi-Fi Protected Access 2), 2.4GHz channel 6, 1 client) or a kept home network (WPA2 or WPA3 personal); a browser page downloads every file of the card or the whole card as one ZIP file and uploads a panel firmware image, installed by a 2s hold on the panel | built and host-tested; a 16MiB download ran at 688-757kB/s on one home network; range not measured |
| Updates | asks GitHub for the newest panel release (STABLE or TESTING), reminds once per start, downloads it over HTTPS and installs it on a 2s hold; installs the IOmcu image the panel carries on the IOmcu on a 2s hold | built and host-tested; the duration of a check and a download on a real network is not measured |
| Outputs | the protocols bound to the IOmcu's pins and the pins each drives, behind the OUTPUTS tile; PICK A PIN draws the IOmcu board to scale and shows where the lead of a pin goes | built and host-tested |
| Setup | settings in the dark and the light theme, stored in NVS (non-volatile storage) | built |
| Setup > Panel | Time zone (10 zones, BERLIN by default) sets the zone that file dates are written and shown in. The clock starts unset at each power-on and is set from pool.ntp.org by SNTP (Simple Network Time Protocol), once at each join of the home network, within 30000ms. Screen rotation turns the picture and the touch by 180° |
built and host-tested; the board has no RTC (real-time clock) chip; a turned frame on SERVO LIVE sweeping took 3.8 to 4.8ms (TURN) at 30.2fps against 39 to 45fps unturned, 180° at rest is not measured |
The host suite needs a C compiler, CMake and Python 3:
cmake -S test/host -B test/host/build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug
cmake --build test/host/build
ctest --test-dir test/host/build --output-on-failureThe panel firmware needs ESP-IDF (Espressif Internet-of-Things Development Framework) v5.5.5 or newer on the v5.5 line; the IOmcu firmware needs pico-sdk 2.0 or newer. Building has the toolchains, the commands and the CI gates.
The wiki is generated from
docs/ in English and German. Edit the files, not the wiki.
| Page | Content |
|---|---|
| What this is for | requirements and how each is met |
| Bench configurator | web page, English and German: select functions or parts, get the parts list, a list to buy with maker pages and web search links, the wiring drawing and the pin-to-pin table of that setup |
| Panel help | web page, English and German: every screen of the panel with screenshots of its states, what it shows and what it lets the user do |
| C API reference | web page, English: the application programming interface of shared/, protocols/, both firmwares and the touch injector core, generated by Doxygen from the comments in the source |
| Building | toolchains, commands, CI |
| Bringing up the link | wiring the two boards and verifying the bus |
| Screens | operating the bench |
| First run on hardware | the checks for the first power-up of both boards |
| Interface language | English or German on the panel |
| Balancing · Servo procedures · Receiver buses | the measurements |
| Safety | stop mechanisms and the required external circuit |
| The link · OpenYGE · Performance · DShot and the output drivers · ESCs with BLHeli_32 firmware | firmware reference |
CONTRIBUTING.md has the rules and the checks CI runs. Two of them cannot be corrected after the fact: protocols are implemented from specifications, not from other implementations (a licensing rule), and coverage has a per-file floor as well as a total.
Host-suite line coverage of shared/ and protocols/: 98.1%, 60,532 of 61,735 lines in 265 files. CI fails below 94% in total or below 85% in any file. STATUS.md has the table per file.
Security and safety reports: SECURITY.md.
rcbench is MIT licensed: LICENSE.
- DejaVu Sans Mono. The seven font tables under
shared/gfx/are glyph bitmaps rendered from DejaVu Sans Mono bytools/gen_font.py, under the Bitstream Vera Fonts Copyright (NOTICE). No font file is redistributed. - Protocols are implemented from published specifications; the programming protocol of KST and Chaservo servos, which has none, from wire captures of hardware the project owns. Permissive reference code (PX4's receiver decoders under BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution); MIT reference code for SRXL2, JETI EX Bus, DShot and DroneCAN) was read for confirmation only.
- Design references: ArduPilot's IOMCU (the two-processor split and the watchdog ratio); YGE's OpenYGE material, from which the specification is written; the published protocols and configurators of BLHeli, AM32, ESCape32, VESC and Hitec.
- Third-party code in the tree: none.
test/host/greatest.his a test harness written for this project; it is not thegreatestlibrary.
KST, CHASERVO and Hitec and their logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective manufacturers. The names are used in this project in a purely descriptive way, to document compatibility with the respective servos. This project is not affiliated with the named manufacturers and is neither supported nor sponsored by them.
Every other name of a maker, product, protocol or firmware in this repository is a name or trademark of its owner. Each appears only to describe compatibility, to identify a part, to credit the source of a font or to name a design or protocol reference. This covers:
- the servo makers and brands Futaba, Feetech and Dynamixel;
- the ESC (electronic speed controller) makers YGE, Kontronik, Hobbywing, Hacker, Jeti, Castle Creations, Graupner, Multiplex and Spektrum;
- the protocol and firmware names OpenYGE, S.BUS, S.BUS2, JETI EX Bus, SRXL2, DShot, KISS, BLHeli_S, BLHeli_32, AM32, ESCape32 and VESC;
- the board, module and component makers Waveshare, Raspberry Pi, Espressif, WeAct, Osoyoo, Matek, DAOKAI and Texas Instruments;
- the distributors Digi-Key, LCSC and JLCPCB;
- every other maker, product, protocol and firmware name in this repository. The section "Trademarks" of NOTICE has the list.
This project is not connected with any of the owners and is neither supported nor sponsored by any of them.
rcbench is open-source software and hardware for self-build. Use, replication and the programming of servos are at one's own risk. To the extent permitted by law, the author accepts no liability for:
- damage to servos, for example from a wrong voltage, timing errors or corrupted settings data in the servo,
- damage to computers, microcontrollers or other connected hardware,
- injury or damage that results from operating the hardware.
The licence terms are in LICENSE.