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The smoke came out of the wires..

Discussion in 'Electronics' started by Morgan Friedland, May 17, 2014.

  1. Morgan Friedland

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    Doing a shoot yesterday and getting the drone all setup. When I plugged in my gimbal 1200 mA 3S battery the wiring harness (Power and Video wires) from the Iftron 5.8 Ghz stinger immediately started smoking along 8 inches of length. The entire 8" of wire length melted within 3 seconds. Yikes!

    I immediately unplugged the battery and assessed the damage. Only the wires coming off the Iftron were affected. I checked all wires on the gimbal for correct configuration, looked for any short circuits or exposed wires. Everything looked correct. Since I was on deadline and weather was going to change I had to get the photo that day so I removed the iftron vide transmitter and replaced it with my Readymade 1.3Ghz transmitter for the Pilot cameras. Once I got it installed on the gimbal and everything connected correctly, I plugged in my battery and the new wiring harness from the video transmitter smoked as well.

    I'm perplexed. I thought maybe the Iftron was somehow passing the voltage through to the video wires and creating a short but can now rule that out. My only thought now is that the FF HDMI converter is passing the voltage.

    Has this happened to anyone else?

    I'm going to rewire the entire gimbal and cover all wires with some kind of chaff material as well as test every component while I connect them.

    Morgan
     
  2. Gary Haynes

    Gary Haynes Administrator
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    Morgan any chance of reversed polarity on the battery connector? What type of connector are you using? Also was it the same battery?
     
  3. Morgan Friedland

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    Good question but no. No chance. Deans connector.
     
  4. Andy Johnson-Laird

    Andy Johnson-Laird Administrator
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    Morgan: Can you chicken-scratch out a circuit diagram showing what was connected to the LiPo and how -- then take an image with your iPhone and post it?

    Thanks
    Andy.
     
  5. Gary Haynes

    Gary Haynes Administrator
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    Were you using the same battery each time?
     
  6. Morgan Friedland

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    Andy: I will diagram the wiring and indicate where the wires fried

    Gary: same battery both times. The same battery worked the day before so something clearly changed. (Obviously)
     
  7. Gary Haynes

    Gary Haynes Administrator
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    I would suspect the battery. If you have a 12v bulb of some size available you might try making a quick test setup. Similar size wires that. YOu have downstream from the batter hooked to the bulb and use that Asa dummy load. Andy might have a better suggestion for a dummy load.

    If this is a viable test then do it ouT side in case of a further conflagration.

    As Andy mentioned photos would help.
     

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