Hello from the Left Coast

[helloman1976]

Thx, Helloman,

I'm a little confused here. I intended soldering the battery wires to the correct spots on the power distribution plate. And then I thought that the BEC ought to be soldered to those same spots.

So do the ESC's get their power from the BEC or from the power distribution board. The ESC's power the motors don't they. Hmm. The motors don't connect to the power distribution plate.

So 8 gauge wires soldered to the power distribution plate and meant to be the direct battery cables is best? You've got me scratching my head again.

As for the charger, $110 didn't seem excessive for something with good features and which can accommodate future needs. And it doesn't need a separate power supply. It's not the Hyperion top of the line expensive one.

helloman your help is invaluable and now I wonder if our talks ought to be carried on in a different thread on a different sub forum. I think this thread might be distracting from the intent of the newcomer's introduction board. Even though I bet many newcomers introducing themselves have learned a tidbit from it.

There are lots of newcomers introducing themselves. The hello from the left coast thread has become too big for it imo.

Best, Rob

Ok let's go from the top because I know it's a lot of information and of course it's possible I'm not understanding you clearly. This is going to be like the "bone" song, the foot bones connected to the, leg bone, the leg bones connected to the knee bone lol....

Ok so the DJI F550 has a built in PCB board that you can run your battery power through to your ESCs. The main connector. where the battery will hook up, to the PCB board should be a larger gauge wire, I use 6 but you can use 8 if you want that should be fine just don't use 12 gauge here. I soldered my ESCs directly to my PCB board so I didn't need any wire and I'd use the same gauge as your ESCs but you don't have to as long as it will flow enough power without burning up, stranded 8 gauge will do that, so will 10 and maybe 12 too. I flow about 15A MAX through each ESC and only for a few seconds or I'm 1,000 feet in the air lol. From the ESCs the next set of wires is the 3 set that comes out and goes into your motors. The ESCs get their power from your battery and should connect directly underneath the arms, one ESC to one arm and one ESC to one motor etc. Hope that clears things up.


So, PCB board main connector can be 8 gauge and this is where you main battery will plug in. Under each arm there is a positive and negative tab, this is where your ESCs go and where they get their power from. The ESCs connect to the motors, if they end up spinning the wrong way then swap any 2 of those wires and the motor will reverse. PM me if you need anything else so we don't flood this thread

The charger is fine, it's not bad or anything like that but you could save some money by going a different route is all I was saying. Just trying to save you some money, this stuff gets REALLY expensive and I didn't want you out buying up "brand name" things because that's what you saw in a magazine or online ad or something like that. And, I was letting you know that the cheaper stuff works too and I personally NEVER use anything other than BALANCE and STORAGE mode and that's it and I've been doing this for 20 years now, R/C that is. Hope that helps you out!!!

PS - I use a voltage regulator that's also soldered to my main PCB board that gives me a constant 12.6V no matter what type of battery I plug into my copter making it universal without any changes and giving my video transmitter maximum voltage. We can get into that part later though and I can show you pictures for clarity if you'd like.

 

[RobertsUp]

Thanks for all that helloman.

It will take a while to digest all that you wrote. One of the hangups for me has been the use of the acronym PCB. In the silicon valley that has always meant "printed circuit board". The power distribution plate from Dji isn't exactly a printed circuit board per se. Even though it's manufactured the same way. Within it out of sight are the electric pathways leading from the power source to the arms.
So it's a power distributing plate. Not a circuit board. I would call it a distribution board. A "DB", not a PCB. Circuit boards are always complicated. The Dji bottom plate isn't.

The ESC's are circuit boards. The Naza is a circuit board collection.

My goodness I'm tired. THG it's Thursday.

Rob

 

[helloman1976]

Thanks for all that helloman.

It will take a while to digest all that you wrote. One of the hangups for me has been the use of the acronym PCB. In the silicon valley that has always meant "printed circuit board". The power distribution plate from Dji isn't exactly a printed circuit board per se. Even though it's manufactured the same way. Within it out of sight are the electric pathways leading from the power source to the arms.
So it's a power distributing plate. Not a circuit board. I would call it a distribution board. A "DB", not a PCB. Circuit boards are always complicated. The Dji bottom plate isn't.

The ESC's are circuit boards. The Naza is a circuit board collection.

My goodness I'm tired. THG it's Thursday.

Rob

Well in that case I can talk technical to you, I use that term because Hobbyking uses that term and I think DJI does too so I figured it would be something everyone could understand. It's more like a solid run through a sandwiched board but whatever works as long as you get my meaning. I think it's rated at around 900 or 1200W but I've run 2400W through it and it only got up to 88.1F, had a thermal probe on it. Let's call it a PDB, power distribution board.

 

[RobertsUp]

Hi again, helloman.

I want to respond to your replies thoughtfully so here goes. I'm snipping your sentences so as to reply carefully to your helping answers. Let's see if it works.

"Well in that case I can talk technical to you" Yes you can. :02.47-tranquillity:

I understand your explanation about the wire gauges. My batteries came on Saturday with 10 gauge wires. The leads seem to have quality connectors already attached to the ends. Females. I ordered matching male connectors to add to the PDB wires. Lengths of 10 gauge wire are on order. The connectors are EC3's.

"PS - I use a voltage regulator that's also soldered to my main PCB board that gives me a constant 12.6V no matter what type of battery I plug into my copter making it universal without any changes and giving my video transmitter maximum voltage. We can get into that part later though and I can show you pictures for clarity if you'd like.

That's intriguing. Yes I want to learn more about that but it's way out in the future.

"The charger is fine, it's not bad or anything like that but you could save some money by going a different route"

I need to tell you more about myself. I'm an old guy less than 4 years from retirement. There's a lot of advice out there about the false economy of finding the cheapest components. Many have advised to buy the best quality in the beginning. (if one can afford to do that). I was in a position to skim a hunk of money out of my 401K savings to begin this hobby right. (financial people say to not do that but I decided I could. - there's a pretty good amount of change there). But I also bought a brand new car and it's costing too much. So you see I needed money right now to get off to a good beginning in this hobby. When I got the money I was still thinking I might buy an RTF S-800. Further reading set my head straight. Thanks to the stickys Bart put up on the forum and all the replies on those stickys meant to advise newcomers. I chose the path of learning to build. And learning more about each step during my first build. I haven't received my ESC's as yet. Tracking says my motors will arrive tomorrow.

Helloman I think this thread has become too big for the newcomer's introduction board. I've posted questions on the Dji board and it would be better if we could connect again over there.

Happy Tuesday nite. -Rob