Hi everyone, Just an update, it wasn't my flight controller smoking, it was one of the speed controllers. Today I installed 4 small strips of LEDs on the arms of my Cinestar 8. I tapped into the 6S (25V) which powers my Cinestar 8 and used a 12V regulator (l7812CV) to power the 4 small strips of LEDs in parallel. The LED strips are designed so you just apply power, no resisters required. I tested the leds in my house and after about 1 minute I noticed smoke coming out of one of the speed controllers. Not sure if it's a coincidence that the speed controller started smoking shortly after I installed the LEDs. Can anyone see something that I'm doing wrong? There were no short circuits, the LEDS didn't fail or dim even after smoke was coming out. I know now that I should probably power these LEDs from another small lipo to avoid such issues occurring in the air. Now to sus out the damage... Cheers Justin
Could you be more specific as to where the LED power supply take-off point is? Is it on the power distribution board? Perhaps if you could post an image if that's the easiest way to show it? Andy.
The connection sequence goes like this: 2 x 6S batteries in parallel connected to a 12V regulator (in a T-junction arrangement) with the regulator output connected to 4 x LED strips (15cm length each) in parallel. At the other end of the T-junction goes to my PowerHungry distribution board. The flight controller is the DJI A2. I'm starting to think the speed controller fault was a coincidence because if there was an electrical fault or short it would probably have damaged the other 7 ESCs. I plugged the 12V reg circuit into an isolated 6S power circuit and I'm measuring 12 volts so it appears to be working ok. How do you guys power your led lights on your platforms? Do you use switching regulators or do they generate too much noise over your video downlink?
I use the 12V taps coming off the Mikrokopter Double Quadro XL power distro board, and they're switched internally to show errors by blinking. And I have quite a few LEDs.
From what you say, Justin, it doesn't sound too terribly plausible that the DC/DC converter would cause a problem unless there was a lot of noise feeding back onto the battery supply connections to the PDB. Certainly that's the first time I've seen such a problem reported. Andy
Thanks Andy and Steve, I think I'll buy a switching voltage regulator to power the LEDs and see how that goes.