ESC beeping behavior

KDE Direct ESCs, like most ESCs, will emit safety tones from the motor when the DC leads are connected to power. The ESC will beep the motor once per second, this indicates that the device is working properly and is powered on but does not have an arming signal. The ESC must be armed before it will spin the motor (Safe Start). To arm the ESC, set the throttle stick to the low position to send the arming signal via the throttle control lead (white, red, black wire). There are three different arming tones that can be set from the KDE Direct Device Manager PC software. Standard, Arm Only, and Initialize.

When the arming tone is set to Standard the ESC will emit the safety tones, the number of LiPo cells that it detects, and the final arming tone. The final arming tone is two beeps, a low-pitched tone followed by a higher tone. When other settings are enabled, such as Propeller Hold, the ESC will emit the final two-note arming sequence again "low-high", "low-high". When Arm Only mode is selected, the ESC will beep the final arming tone and the safety tones only (the ESC will not beep the number of LiPo cells). When the arming tone is set to Initialize, the ESC will only beep the final arming tone.

The Throttle Calibration Mode on the ESC can be changed to Manual and will beep during this process. Connect the ESC to power and set the throttle stick on the RC radio or servo tester to the highest position (full throttle). The ESC will then beep the success tone indicating that the ESC has successfully saved the max throttle value. Next, decrease the throttle stick to the lowest position and the ESC will emit another success tone followed by arming the motor. See here for a demonstration.

Finally, there is the failed motor start-up tone and programming tone that are explained below. If the motor fails to start spinning when commanded, the ESC will cut power to the motor and emit the "no signal" tones until an arming signal is present. To fix this issue, verify that stall protection on the ESC has been set to Disabled and try again. Safety tones will sound if a Device Manager Adapter (DMA) and battery is connected to the ESC (at the same time) and settings are sent to the ESC from a computer. The safety tone is three quick beeps which indicate that the ESC is powered and throttle should not be sent while the ESC is being programmed.