Everyone seems to have this problem...we've tried a few things, have some ideas and next steps.

The Problem

The Wii-Mote cuts out at high power / high load like going up a steep hill but is otherwise a great controller. The VESC works best with the Wii-Mote interface/app because it has many controls for acceleration/braking. We already have a working NRF remote, but it's big and clunky and because it talks to the VESC via PWM, the controllability suffers. We'd really like to fix the Wii-Mote problem.

Background EMI & ESCs and cut-out.

Not all radios are able to successfully operate in the electrically noisy environment near an ESC (VESC). ESCs produce high voltage/currents and broadcast energy across a wide spectrum in very close proximity to radio antenna and the wires connecting to them. EMI (Electromagnetic Interference) can take several forms. 1) Radio EMI can affect over the air signal between the remote and the receiver. 2) Wire EMI can affect the I2C comms between the ESC and radio receiver. Radio interference can be mitigated by physically separating the radio from the ESC. However the longer wires need to create a separation increases the likelihood of degrading the I2C comms. At this time, it is not known which effect dominates the problem specifically for the Wii-Mote though our experience with the NRF2401 puts the blame squarely on radio EMI. There is also the potential that neither radio nor wire EMI is not the problem at all, and that either a low supply voltage from the LIPO batteries to the VESC is created under high load or that the VESC is not supplying a steady 3.3v supply to the wii-remote receiver.

What has been tried

We've already built an EMI tolerant remote using an NRF2401 connected to an Arudino Nano via I2C. The Arduino was then connected to the VESC via PWM/PPM. The wii-mote however is directly connected to the VESC using I2C. At first, the NRF implementation was also failing under high load. We fixed the problem by moving the receiver about 15cm from the VESC. This would suggest strongly that the NRF problem was dominated by radio related EMI, not wire EMI. Can we make this same assumption for the Wii-Mote? Maybe. The I2C comms between Arduino/NRF is not necessarily the same as VESC/WiiMote which may have different voltage drivers, pull-down resistors and ADCs, any one of which could impact noise tolerance.

Ways to determine what is happening.

Option 1: Sniffing the I2C bus may provide a clue. The I2C protocol to the Wii-Mote receiver is a very simple 6-Byte payload with 2 commands (init and send-data) so viewing and interpreting these packets on bench logic analyzer should be easy. However observing garbage data would not rule out either radio or wire related EMI. Bad data could be the result of either one. Observing "good data" on the other hand would be very interesting as this would point to something internal to the VESCs I2C ADC. Lastly, it would be difficult to even make this measurement with bench-top logic analyzers as the cut-out condition can only be repeated while riding under load or using a bench load which we don't have. We'd really love to have that actually.

Option 2: Move the Wii-Mote radio far (30 inches or more) from the ESC. If this works, the problem was clearly Radio EMI and no I2C EMI. If it doesn't work, it suggests I2C could still be the problem. It would be a good idea to provide battery power to radio during this experiment to isolate the experiment from any 3.3v power supply problem.

Option 3: (3.3v Power problem) I've added 300uF cap the receiver VCC/GND but it didn't resolve the problem. This really only rules out small power droops. A definitive test (that I have not done) would be supplying an independent battery supply. 2 or 2 AA batteries for example.

Option 4: Emulate Wii-Nunchk Remote I2C Slave. Convert our working NRF radio to emulate the Wii-Mote I2C slave protocol and connect via the VESC's Wii-Mote I2C port. This would take some time as I disassembled the hardware...pretty much all day. We might end up doing this...but not the first thing I'd try. The current remote is pretty big and square and not much fun to use. Long term, we want to finish our NRF/ATTINY84 remote that fits in a gutted out Wii-Mote, but we'll probably re-start that effort after the rains come in full force to the Oregon winter..

Option 5: A low main LIPO supply voltage problem. The VESC cutting out under load could be related to the LIPO power supply but some experiments show this to be unlikely. Lowering VESC low voltage cut off setting has no effect and fully charged batteries exhibit worse cutting out behavior. The latter suggests that the added energy of a fully charged battery contributes to EMI which decreasing the likelihood of low-voltage condition.

> I think we'll try Option 2 and 3 next (10/9/2016)