Howdy... So, I have my FC sitting on top the BL PWD with the normal standoffs, but there is VERY little room with all the motors wires running between. In fact, I believe the motor wires are actually 'squished' in a few places between the FC and the BLs. When I look at the BL board from the side, there is a slight depression towards the middle, which makes me think it may be under some stress. I'm wondering if you've noticed this issues of tightness, and whether it might be appropriate to use a 2nd set of stand-offs to increase the FC's height above the BL. Also, I would assume you'd then need to raise the battery tray so it doesn't hit the now-higher FC board... Has anyone done this? Am I worrying over nothing? Would this offer any problems that I'm not seeing? Thanks for the responses! Best, Ben
I've noticed the same thing and I'm debating between either (a) adding another set of standoffs or (b) routing the wires outside the booms so that the wires approach the PDB from the outside not the inside thus not encroaching into the space below the FC. The primary concern I have is that the motor wires are transmitting vibration into the FC and that's a Bad Thing. So, to answer your question, Ben, yeah, I think it's a valid concern. Andy.
Ben when I had my MK stack with the OcktoXL PDB I saw the same issue. So what I did was soldered the motor wires (the QC3328 female plug wires) onto the BL's so that they all pointed towards the outside. Looked like this:
...and did you still run the wires through the booms? Did that give you more room between the boards? Or did you run outside the booms? Ben
This board was on my original build with the wires inside the booms. The wires came out of the booms and then under the PDB which was on the standard standoffs and hooked up. Made plugging/unplugging a bit easier. And kept them away from pushing on the FC board. I don't know about running the wires on the outside of the booms using the MK PDB. With individual ESC's like the Castle I don't worry about the wires coming loose in the ESC. There is also more wire to hold when plugging and unplugging. The wires in the case of the MK PDB in its standard build arrangement are pretty short and I would hate to slip and knock off a component. Also there is more chance of mechanical damage as they are more exposed than in the case of the individual escapes. Would be interesting to hear if anyone else has done the external wiring using the MK PDB.
HI Andy what about removing the stock stand off's and getting standoffs that are just about 1/2" longer? Just large enough extra space for the wiring? I think that if you did this you could retain the stock battery tray standoff's and not worry about moving the copters center of gravity higher. Since my copters apart and I don't even have my boards I can't measure the existing clearance between the FCB and the battery tray. Can anyone measure? If I know the clerance I can see if longer M3 standoffs are available. Also are the standoffs for the flight controller m3X15 or M3X10?
Dave depending on how you have your stack setup you will likely run into the battery tray. I remember on mine that with the Navi on top it was close and if you add the smartOSD you don't have enough room. I had to go to 65mm standoffs for the battery tray rather than the standard 50mm to get the clearance required. If you move the Navi, SmartOSD out under the GPS on the front boom then you might have the height needed. The shift in vertical CG position seems to be minimal with height. Just look at Jeff's video flying the Red with a double height tray stack with dual batteries on top.
Gary I think most of us have the GPS and Navi out on boom. The standoff's for the FCB are 15mm, and if you stacked it with another 10mm like you originally did you would have 25mm to play with. IF you remove the 15mm and used the 25mm standoff you would get another 0.39 inch of clearance which I believe would be enough. IF you really wanted to push it you could use a 31mm standoff to get a total of .063 inch of extra space under the FCB. I think I'm going to order both and see what works out best.