BD10BL-CAN rotary actuation product

The BD10BL-CAN-DroneCAN (part number 31010C) is a brushless rotary actuator from Hitec Commercial Solutions for small unmanned aircraft. It is a 10 mm class servo actuator with a magnetic encoder that takes commands over a CAN bus or the DroneCAN protocol and turns them into a controlled angular movement of its output horn, typically for flight control surfaces, valves, latches and other light mechanisms.

The actuator pairs a brushless motor with a magnetic encoder instead of the potentiometer found in conventional servos. The maker lists a mean time to failure of 500 hours and a life of 1.2 million cycles, and the Super Engineering Plastic (SEP) case and gear train keep mass low. The construction is described as sealed, although the IP rating is not specified.

Key figures for an integrator: supply voltage from 4.0 to 8.4 V, with the model optimised for 7.4 V. Stall torque is 2.2 kgf-cm (30.55 oz-in) at 6.0 V and 2.8 kgf-cm (38.88 oz-in) at 7.4 V, which defines the largest control-surface hinge moment the actuator can drive. No-load speed is 0.12 s per 60 degrees at 6 V, with a maximum speed of 0.09 s per 60 degrees, a measure of how fast it can respond to a control loop. Running current is 120 mA and stall current 1,000 mA, which sizes the power rail and wiring. Mass is 11.8 g.

Mechanically the case measures 25 x 10 x 28 mm. The output horn gear has a 21-tooth spline, and the gear and case material is SEP. Spare case, gear and horn sets are sold through the maker's sales team.

For control, the actuator supports CAN 2.0A and 2.0B and DroneCAN (listed as UAVCAN v0.0) as command protocols, with 32-bit digital programmability. Hitec supplies a protocol manual, a register header file, a configuration application and firmware. The DPC-20 and DPC-CAN programmers set parameters such as end points, direction, fail-safe, dead band, speed limit, soft-start rate and overload protection, and data can be saved and loaded. One programmer serves any number of actuators.

Hitec is certified to ISO 9001 and describes the product as compliant with the NDAA, which matters for buyers on US government programmes. Typical uses are small UAV control surfaces, gimbals, payload release and other light actuation on DroneCAN-based aircraft.