Can Victors work as ESCs without all of the other electronic components?

[karlcswanson]

i don't think that would be to safe, if the duty cycle(i think that is what it is called) is below 50%, the motor will go backwards. you might want to use a small microcontroller for it, i would recommend an arduino, which is based off an ATmega8

[jgannon]

Originally Posted by karlcswanson

if the duty cycle(i think that is what it is called) is below 50%, the motor will go backwards.

Are you sure about that? If you actually read the Victor 884 data sheet, it definitely sounds like you're supposed to send a 1-2ms pulse with a frequency no greater than 120Hz. A 2ms pulse should be full forward, even though that's substantially less than 50% duty.

Originally Posted by VEN

Is it as easy as buying one of those circuits, attacing a pot to it, on the other end the pwm and to the victor?

It's not quite that easy. You'll need a couple of capacitors and resistors, I'm sure. Search around for 555 circuits, or pick up a copy of Forest Mims' timers and op-amps notebook.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

You can find a wealth of info on the IFI FAQ for the Victors here...
http://www.ifirobotics.com/forum/vie...4742c7 8d25be

From that page...
Here are the required input control signal characteristics of the PWM input signal for the Victor and the PWM Outputs for our RC units:

Period for the Mini RC PWM Output: 17.0 ms.
Period for the FRC Robot Controller PWM Output: 26.2 ms.
Maximun Rate: 120 Hz.
Pulse width: 1 - 2 ms

As the positive pulse width varies from about 1 ms to 2 ms, the Victor will range from Full Reverse to Full Forward. The Victor should be in Neutral at about a 1.5 ms pulse width.