The drive generates heat on the side opposite the logo engraving. If attaching the drive to a heat sink body such as a metal chassis, heatsink, water block, etc. the heatsink should attach to the side opposite the logo. If attaching the drive to a thermal insulator such as a plastic chassis, the drive should be mounted with the heat generating side out so air will flow over the hot side. In this case the logo should mount to the plastic body. The drive mounts using 3mm hardware which is included with the Arc200.

Thermal paste or quality thermal pad should be used for proper thermal transfer into the heatsink.

If you need additional mounting hardware you can find many options here

3D model of Arc200 (STEP file): ARC200_Block.STEP

Hot side (Mount this to a heatsink or metal body through thermal pad or paste - preferred mounting method):

Cold side (Mount this to a plastic enclosure or any thermally insulating material if no heatsinking surface is available and leave the other side exposed to air):

This page covers some common installations of an Arc drive. Before you even worry about hooking these up, it is highly recommended to get your motor spinning successfully through the GUI. Get that done first, then start thinking about setting up control inputs and sensors.

Before you start setting up the throttles, it is recommended to set the Control Mode to 'No Control (Safety State)' until you are happy with the throttle configuration. Otherwise the motor may receive commands mid-way through throttle setup! After you have setup your throttle and motor wiring, go to the Control tab of the general setup helper for more information on setting up your throttle, then launch the throttle wizard.

Sensorless With One Analog Throttle

This is a popular configuration for something like a scooter where you want to have just one hand throttle. This can be a bit awkward for regenerative braking as these hand throttles usually spring-reset all the way one way which would put you in full braking when you take your hand off. It works out alright though if you want to get started with one throttle or really want to keep one hand free!

Sensorless with Independent Analog Throttle and Brake

This is the easiest to control and makes your electric vehicle behave much like a typical car. One hand controls throttle, the other controls braking. If you let off both hands, then it coasts much like when you take your foot off the gas in a car.

Sensorless with PWM Control

For PWM control, you can use the included PWM cable. This connects to the 'PWM' wire on the drive and converts it to the industry-standard hobby servo connector. This can be connected to something like an RC receiver, or really anything that outputs a PWM with high-time controlling the signal (not duty cycle).

If you want to do your own wiring and not use the provided adapter cable follow this diagram. There are two possible ways to hook up a PWM cable, select whichever makes the most sense for your wiring! In a very poor EMI environment, using the 'Encoder PWM Input' option will be somewhat more robust (this is what the provided adapter cable uses).

Adding Sensors

With any of these configurations, you can always add a sensor to the motor if you want true zero-speed torque. Although you can usually tune sensorless to give you great performance, it's not the same as a real sensored configuration for low speed torque performance.

Most people running an electric vehicle will want to add hall sensors. It is industry standard within the hobby ESC community and many motors can be purchased with sensors already built into the motor.

The Arc200 was conceived as a universal motor drive that allows a variety of use cases. Our priorities in designing the Arc200 were:

• Robustness

• Performance

• Ease of setup

• Ease of integration

Arc 200 features sensorless field oriented control which allows for low torque ripple over the full speed range, and most importantly no 10-16khz screeching!

Powering On

When powering on the drive, if the USB cable is connected to the drive and a computer, the drive will enter bootloader mode indicated by a solid blue LED. This mode will exit within 10-15 seconds if no firmware update command is received and enter normal operating software. If powering with the USB cable disconnected, the drive will immediately bypass the bootloader and enter normal operating software.

After first power up, you will need to connect to the GUI using the supplied USB cable. The drive needs to be configured for your motor and application before it can operate. See the ARC GUI section for information on this software.

Throttle Disconnect Safety

The Arc200 handles a disconnected or broken throttle input in the following ways as a safety measure:

• PWM: If no PWM edge is detected in the timeout period of 50ms, the drive will command 0A if in torque mode, or 0RPM if in speed mode (keep in mind in speed mode, going to 0RPM may involve high torques and a rapid change in motion!).

• Analog: If an analog cable is disconnected, there is an internal pull-down resistor that will make the drive think the throttle is set at 0. Make sure this is a safe state! This could present hazards if the drive would start accelerating in either direction for this throttle command.

• GUI/QX API: If no QX packet is received in a 1-second period (any QX packet, does not need to be a command packet), the drive assumes the user has disconnected and commands 0A if in torque mode, or 0RPM if in speed mode.

After configuring your drive, you should test out the throttle disconnect safety! Get the motor spinning then manually unplug the throttle and make sure you are satisfied with what happens from a safety standpoint.

Connecting The Drive

Always connect the motor and any wiring with the DC power disconnected! Never attach or disconnect a motor when the drive is powered up. Damage to the hardware may occur.

See the Sample Configurations for some diagrams showing connections to the drive for a few popular configurations you might find on a typical electric vehicle, RC car, etc.

Ground Loop Warning

If you are connecting any drive to a controller that is externally grounded and/or powered (might be typical for a flight controller), make sure to read the section titled "1+ Drives connected to a receiver that is externally grounded or powered:" on the Multiple Drives page to avoid damaging your motor drive!

Freefly Supplied Wires

• USB Cable

• PWM Cable (accessory purchase, not included with drive): Connect this to the PWM port on the drive and use 'PWM Throttle on Encoder Line' as the input mode

• Flying Lead (accessory purchase, not included with drive): Available accessory cable to allow connecting to any pin on the drive for a custom integration into an application

This sections provides and overview of the components and concepts that you need to understand in order to use the Arc200 successfully.

Basic Concepts - Brief introduction into Freefly Robotics and the Arc200

Drive Mounting - Mounting the Arc 200

Wiring Quickstart - Wiring process and diagrams for the Arc200

Powering On and Throttle Safety - Tips for 1st power on

Sample Configurations - examples of how we have used Arc200

Check out the bill of materials below to build your own like ours!

Bill of Materials

• If the battery is fully charged and near the drive's over-voltage limit, there will be a limited amount of regenerative braking current available. If you use the regenerative braking for long, it will charge up the battery all the way to the absolute over-voltage cutoff limit and you will lose all regenerative braking. This is a safety feature to avoid over-charging the battery and potentially damaging or overheating it but presents a safety issue to be aware of. If you went to the top of a huge hill with a fully charged battery, by the bottom there would be little to no braking available (even at the top you may notice significantly decreased braking capability depending on your over-voltage foldback start and cutoff configurations). You should always have mechanical brakes installed on your vehicle in good working condition in case the electrical system is unable to brake due to battery charge, incorrect configuration, or hardware damage.

• Always test what happens when your throttle becomes disconnected in case the wire becomes unplugged or the throttle breaks while you are riding your vehicle. For more information on what to expect, see the Powering On and Throttle Safety page.

If multiple drives are connected to the same DC power source, care must be taken to avoid damaging the drives when setting up the control interface.

The one rule that must always be obeyed is that you cannot connect ground or power supply output pins of any of the drives together! Doing so may cause permanent hardware damage to the drives and voids your warranty.

This naturally makes controlling the drives slightly more difficult because the PWM and analog inputs are ground referenced. Two solutions are outlined on this page.

PWM Networking:

For PWM input, you can connect the PWM controller to each drive in parallel but you must use the correct cables for each drive.

Freefly sells two PWM accessory cables: primary and secondary cables (store links coming soon). The primary cable connects opto-GND and GND together so that you can still get BEC power output to power a receiver, steering servo, etc. The secondary cable leaves the input opto-isolated (opto-GND and GND are not connected), but there is no BEC power available on the connector.

By using either zero or one primary cables and all other drives using secondary cables, you can safely wire the PWM lines in parallel to the receiver, flight controller, etc. as long as that receiver/controller is not grounded anywhere else in the system! Never use more than one PWM primary cable in any network of drives, and never use any PWM primary cables if the receiver/controller is externally grounded, or hardware damage may occur to the drives and your warranty will be void.

2-Drive network with receiver not externally grounded or powered

1+ Drives connected to a receiver that is externally grounded or powered:

If the controller receives external ground connection, then you cannot safely use the master cable as you would create a ground loop that may damage the drive. In this instance, all drives must use the secondary PWM cable.

CAN Networking:

If each drive will be receiving the same command (for example, a skateboard with one hand controller and two motors) then you can use CAN networking to safely command two or more drives from a single PWM source.

If only two drives are in the network, you can use the Freefly CAN link cable (not yet released for purchase as of 9/21/2018, link coming soon). If connecting three or more drives, you will have to wire up your own CAN network following the directions below.

2-drive using CAN link cable:

3+ drives using your own CAN network wiring:

Do not connect the ground wires between the CAN ports! Only CAN-L and CAN-H.

In either case, setup the drive that connects to the controller (master drive) as you normally would if that were the only drive in the system. In the Drive-Specific Functions section of the Configuration, set "Retransmit Commands via CAN As Primary?" to "Yes". This makes any command received over its standard input mode (PWM, Analog, etc.) get re-transmitted over the CAN network:

For all the other drives that connect only over CAN, this retransmission flag should be left at 'No'. On these drives, just set the "Input Throttle Mode" to "CAN Secondary". On these drives, there is no need to setup the throttle configuration as values are transmitted over CAN in their native unit (amps, RPM, degrees).