Old ESCs. Should I upgrade?
Hi Whit, ESCs have advanced substantially in the last 2 years. We have seen their performance get much better over this period. It’s for this reason that we are slowly discontinuing 12A ESCs for the newer 20A escs.
The latest ESCs feature Silabs processors and fast dedicated driver chips, providing excellent freewheeling and exceptional braking capabilities- the main performance benefit of newer hardware. This is worlds beyond what we were flying with a few years ago. On top of that, The Software that is driving the ESCs is evolving at a rapid pace.
Some newer software features:
Oneshot125 -It is a different and faster communication protocol between the flight controller and the ESC on your quadcopter. It allows the flight controller to send control commands to the motor quicker, therefore in theory your multirotor should perform better.
This feature allows your motors to respond to throttle decreases much quicker, allowing for more stable flying, and higher response to throttle decreases.
With the software rapidly evolving, you can also flash the newest firmware using the a 3pin connector and suitable USB adapter or even some flight controllers.
The latest software allows you to enable all esc features such as; OneShot125, damped light mode, reverse motor direction, all on one easy to use screen.
Fast Changing N-Channel Mosfets are what we are seeing on new ESCs, with them getting smaller and more powerful with each new release. This means that 20a escs of today are smaller than 12a escs of yesterday.
So, you might be able to flash your old escs with the latest version of BLHELI firmware to get some of the software features, but the newer hardware certainly has some performance benefits over the old.
We recommend Kiss Escs for the highest performance, or their close contender, LittleBee Escs for the best performance per dollar.
Let me know if that helps to answer your questions!