Newbie wrapped up in wiring

[Rattatouie]

Hi all

First time posting so if I';m dumb don';t be harsh lol

I have just got some new parts but an struggling to understand how to make them all work together

I';m trying to wire a runcam split to the flycolor raptor to use the osd but the wiring is somewhat above my level

I think i have it figured out but would appreciate someone who actually understands this to have a look




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Excuse the child like writing i have a broken finger what it says and i really am trying to find out is:

Because the runcam split board and camera and  transmitter are all powered and grounded through the balance lead, I dont need the power or ground from the camera port on the flight controller board as this would normally power the camera?

Because the power board, flight controller and osd is all powered from the battery i will be able to use the video in on the camera port and the video out on the image transmitter port?

Because the transmitter is powered from the balance lead i dont need the Vbat + or - or the ground as this would normally be to power the transmitter?

And finally do i need to splice a ground cable and add it any where?

Or am i just way off lol

Any input is greatly appreciated

[ched]

I would ';splice'; gnd wires from both vtx and runcam split to the osd side of things.
Just be very careful with the split as it can only tolerate 5v.

[Rattatouie]

Hi

Thanks for the reply

As in like the black dotted line I';ve added





as i say i don';t understand this at all but the only thing that concerns me is that they are both 12V - out thingys i believe is the technical term lol

cheers

[ched]

Yes dotted lines look ok.
One thing to mention, I believe the RunCamSplit needs 5v at 650mA (0.65A) can your 5v on the video transmitter (vtx) provide 650mA?

Must admit I haven';t noticed the audio out on my RunCam Split.
The gnd wires to the osd are to try and eliminate interference. It may not be essential but easier to put them in when you are building than to leave them out and start flying only to find bad images.

[Rattatouie]

Thank you so much after a few days trying to get my head round this i gave up

Cheers

[Two-Six]

That looks about right.  Its hard to say, I am not super-experienced at wiring up multi-rotors, just my own one a few times and its fairly simple.   

What I would say is don';t be in a rush to power things on.  Triple-check everything before putting a battery in the game, especially check for shorts using a multi-meter set at a continuity beep.  There should be no continuity between the batter + and -inputs anywhere...except where there should be.... between + and +..obviously :-)

Then when you are sure there are no shorts, plug in the battery and make sure the voltages for your bits is correct and of the right polarity bufore plugging them in.

Be slow and careful and everything should be fine.

[Rattatouie]

also just checked runcam definitely say has mic and output

[ched]

also just checked runcam definitely say has mic and output

You are right. I just had not noticed as my vtx doesn';t transmit audio.
Make sure you use the little plug for the 5v as the ';batt'; pads only take 4.7V.
The tx, rx by the audio pad are for connection to some flight controllers so you can start stop recordings etc, I think it is in cleanflight and coming soon to betaflight (3.2 coming in October I think).

As 26 said check everything multiple times, don';t just think, that';s ok I have checked that already!!!! It is so easy to destroy components and then you have to wait weeks to get new ones let along the costs. If you don';t already have one get a multimeter and learn how to use it. A basic on is only about £5 and may save you many times that.

[Rattatouie]

Right i see what you are saying about the 650mA my fatshark transmitter only kicks out a Camera Power Supply: 300mA / 5v

so next question where am i gonna get that from lol

the 12v out can be connected to a step down to 5V but i have no idea what that will be at in terms of mA How would i find that out and can i go over that or does that have to be exact too?

Sorry for the barrage of questions 

an I';m looking at multi-meter';s on ebay now

[ched]

Questions are always good. You can bet someone else will at some point have the same questions. S posting them in the forum means the answers are there for others to find.

As for a 5v supply try this http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DC-DC-Step-down-Power-Supply-Module-3A-5V-12V-Mini-UBEC-for-RC-Plane-FPV-VP-/382012911176?var=&hash=item58f1be6e48:m:mq09qf56ev9co85teBgxlgQ
The 5v version will do 3Amps and has a voltage input from 2s to 6s (7.4v to 22.2v). So you can hook straight to battery terminals if you want or feed from your 12v.
I have not used this ebay seller so check their feedback.

[ched]

As  for multimeter something like this would be OK.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Portable-LCD-DC-AC-Digital-Voltmeter-Ammeter-Ohmmeter-Multimeter-Volt-Test-Tool-/222596525579?hash=item33d3c96e0b:g:68kAAOSw~AVYtiRz
It will need a 9v battery.
Again dont know seller so check feedback etc.
This meter has a buzzer for testing continuity (one thing is connected to another), ohms (resistance), DC voltage (your battery and 5v etc) and small amounts of current (MAX 10A so you could see how much current things pull).
The above one is very basic but will do most of what you need.

[Rattatouie]

ok parts on the way hopefully last thing
the 12v out the flight controller is at 500ma and the 5v that';s supposed to be for the led is at 1A can i just use the 5v at 1A straight to cam for power and then step down the 12v to run the led as the ma fir that isn';t important 

[hoverfly]

Screwfix do a good cheapy

http://www.screwfix.com/p/lap-mas830b-digital-multimeter-600v/75337

[ched]

ok parts on the way hopefully last thing
the 12v out the flight controller is at 500ma and the 5v that';s supposed to be for the led is at 1A can i just use the 5v at 1A straight to cam for power and then step down the 12v to run the led as the ma fir that isn';t important

You can use the 5v 1A to supply the camera. It might be worth running the 5v ubec directly from battery to leds. If you use 12v to then step down to 5v for led you have 2 regulators that are both producing heat and consuming power that is unnecessary.  Although leds are not critical by any means by using 2 regulators you have twice the possibility of failure. Best not to cascade regulators unless you really need to.

[Two-Six]

5 volts for LED';s?  Mine use 12 volts.  Bruce in his review of the Runcam split did mention that its power consumption is relatively high....

[Rattatouie]

u are right 12v leds well that';s a spare bec on the way lol

[Rattatouie]

 

so finaly after days of waiting i got a bec

after trying to attach bec to vbat out off the flight board and having no joy i started to loose my mind

then i came up with the idea to attach the runcam to the bec to a battery connector and it all worked

then i started charging 12 batteries

and set up the my wiring as follows





On this setup that I am (nearly) running: Alien 225mm, Emax RS2205s-2300KV, Flycolor raptor 390 30A, Runcam split, FrSky X4R-SB Receiver, Fatshark 600mw Transmitter, a little buzzer and strip of 3 LED';s






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i waited all day for the batteries i double checked everything all working

i attached my quads to my bag mount




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I rode my mountain bike an hour an a bit to my flying location

i setup all is ok i arm my FPV feed starts to get interference i throttle up an I';m blind

i don';t get it every thing is isolated

I';m thinking I';m still needing to run a negative from some where to somewhere as was suggested earlier in this pos but asi i have changed the wiring since would really like some advice on where

i wanna destroy it with a hammer lol

On a side note the on board OSD that was working 100% when i couldn';t get the camera to work has now failed completely nothing about the setup changed but not really bothered about that as was only for batter voltage and i am used to using timers

[Cheredanine]

Hi.
First thing is check your circular polarised antenna on the quad has the same orientation as the one on your goggles/screen
(I.e. They are both rhcp or both LHCP, not one of each

Next check the channel, that fatshark vtx uses dip switches from memory, pretty naff, if you are on a channel that is close but not the same you will very quickly lose reception

[Rattatouie]

thanks for the reply

the antenna are ones previously used with my other setup

I';m sure its interference from the motors as it gets worse the mor throttle i give but atm at a hover i was at 75% sight with motors at idle 95% and disarmed 100%

As soon as i tried to fly i had to ditch it. It was pure black bars

so far i have more footage of my feet and my counter top than outside although it is high quality footage lol

this is the exact issue i am having https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDCorb5N-e8

[Cheredanine]

Bec isn';t brilliant,
Get a 1000uf 25v low esr electrolytic capacitor, solder it across the same pads the xt60 connects to, should cost you about 40p plus postage, will clean that right up (I normally use a 35v on 5s but suspect you will get away with 25v)
Example shown below on my 4inch build using a 470uf one:



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[Rattatouie]

thank you part is on the way you might have saved my sanity

when you sat across the xt60 pads, do you mean attach one end to the positive and one to the negative where i connect the battery on the power distribution board?

[Cheredanine]

Yes mate, exactly so

The cap is cylindrical, it has two "wires" coming out of it, I say wires, they are more like bits of paper clip.
Either connect them directly or attach a piece of wire to each and attach the other end to those two pads. The latter is easier to do as it lets you put the cap where you want and you can heat shrink the wires to prevent shorts (in the picture above I clipped the legs down to about 5mm, soldered wire to each, added heat shrink the the wires, then put clear heatshrink over the whole thing)

There is a possitive and negative wire, but they don';t label the positive, only the negative side, this is usually done with a stripe down the side of the cap rather than anywhere near the wire, you can see the light coloured stripe in my pic running the whole length of the cap with a "-" on it, the wire closest to that should connect to the battery ground pad, the other to the battery + pad

[Two-Six]

Yep, its your Bluesky UBEC that powers your video TX if that';s the one you bought, if its not the one then the one you did buy doesn';t have good or ANY filtering. 

So that means that all the electrical noise from your ESC';s switching furiously away are being transmitted into your VTX and broadcast as fuzz.  So you need to filter that out. 

I used to use a special LC filter like this: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/UK-RTF-LC-FILTER-3AMP-2-4S-FPV-DC-Power-Filter-Noise-Eliminate-3-5x1-5x1cm-/152576646744?hash=item238646de58:g:zpcAAOSwSzRZN9ff

Then I got a PDB that has an in-built filter for my 12 and 5 volt outputs like this:
https://www.banggood.com/Matek-Mini-Power-Hub-Power-Distribution-Board-With-BEC-5V-And-12V-For-FPV-Multicopter-p-1005549.html

A Cheredanine says you could use a capacitor too which might work better than a proprietary filter but isn';t as pretty.

Also, I noticed that you don';t have any heat shrink on the terminals of your XT60 connector on the quad side...That not good, it could be a biggly problemo amigo (as Trump would say).   Sorry but re do it and get some heat shrink on them.  If the positive terminal touches the frame things will go all bangy and sparky. 

[Rattatouie]

heat shrink is on the check list lol

using the example by Cheredanine can i attach the 1000uf 25v low esr electrolytic capacitor directly to the back of the xt60 connector at those connections then i heat shrink it all at same time ad then tape the capacitor to the xt60 plug thus just having a fatter plug

the capacitor i got is http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Low-ESR-105-C-Electrolytic-Capacitors-10uF-to-2200uF-1st-Class-UK-Post/261505096876?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&var=560384168330&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649

i brought spares lol

[Two-Six]

I don';t think thats a good idea as the capacitor will be "flapping about" on the end of the battery wire won';t it?  It would be better held as close as possible to the battery input pads and secured to the frame as Cheredanine did. 

How does that work anyway, using a capacitor to filter out noise in the camera and VTX, especially putting it there, before the power "goes anywhere near" the VTX or camera..If you know what I mean...

[Rattatouie]

i dont get it lol

why does it make a difference which end of the cable its at
i have been reading up on capacitors all day and am no closer to understanding

if the power is coming from the battery to the connector then down the cable to the capacitor and power distribution board why will that make any difference if the capacitor is at the other end of the cable, either way the power gets to the capacitor before the power board or anything else or am i completely missing something?

Also Two-Six said " using a capacitor to filter out noise in the camera and VTX, especially putting it there, before the power "goes anywhere near" the VTX or camera..If you know what I mean..."
im sorry mate i dont know what you mean lol

The power for my vtx comes from my balance lead to the FatShark Filtered Balance Power Lead to my either 200 or 600mw immersion vtx

the power for my camera is coming from vbat connector to the 5v bec to the camera board then the signal lead from camera is going straight to the vtx

thats why i dont get it

both things that have power running to them have separate becs to get the required voltage so how is there still interference and how does the capacitor help this?

sorry if being very noobie lol but i just cant get my head around it

   

[ched]

Make sure the grounds from both becs are connected together. i.e. the grounds need to be tied together so neither ';floats';. So solder the camera and the vtx grounds together.

As for the capacitor. A capacitor is acting as low pass filter. So it ';removes'; high frequency oscillations and spikes caused by the esc giving out pulses to the motors.
If I remember my electronics theory (25 years ago) it is best to place the filtering at the source of the noise. The problem with that is the noise is that it generally comes from esc so a capacitor should be on each power supply wires to the esc as close to the esc as possible.

Saying that having 4 capacitors is a bit of a pain and in reality doesn';t make much difference to just having 1 capacitor on the power wires.
I would try and connect the capacitor to the non battery end of the xt60, i.e. where it connects to your power distribution board. That way you can cable tie it to the frame to keep it from moving. If you mount it to the xt60 end each time you connect the battery or disconnect the battery you will be flexing the leads. The leads from the capacitor are not very good at flexing as they are solid.

Hope that helps a bit. If not ask again.

[Cheredanine]

Lol you remember your electrical theory correctly, ideally the cap should be on the escs, however I have never encountered, or heard of a quad where this is necessary. It is fairly standard practice to use the xt60 pads, and this is what is in the BF wiki (I know cos I wrote it )

An LC filter is an inductor (the L) and a copacitor (the c), again generally a capacitor by its self is sufficient provided it doesn';t get swamped

[Rattatouie]

Thank you so much all you guys are amazing thank you for giving up your time for me

parts are on the way hopefully i will be updating with a fully working quad and a first flight video in the next few days

[Rattatouie]

We got it a bit of a mix of everything lol

I tried the capacitor to the battery terminals improved quit a lot but something still wasn';t right so i brought a Eachine TS832 Transmitter after seeing that this had Vbat out to go to the camera

so i wired it from battery terminals through a home made lc filter to a 12V bec to the transmitter to a 5V bec to the camera board 

Nailed it

So the only thing i can see that could have been causing the issue is that i was running the cam off bec from main battery power and the immersion rc off the fat shark filter box thingy from the balance lead

I read something about not running stuff in parallel  so maybe that';s it who knows

Excuse the broken blades met a door frame in testing 










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So im still waiting on heatshrink and the rear ends not so pretty..... but meh neithers mine lol

I am FPV capable again   ::) ::) ::) now i just need the weather

Again thank you all so much i didn';t even know what an lc filter was at the start of this now I';ve got em on both quads an as for wiring a capacitor to it i swore it was gonna blow up as far as i understood a capacitor filled up to specified voltage and then let it out in one go, I have done tons of reading and still cant work out how it does what it does

Props off to you guys!!!!!