Replies to This Discussion

3D RoboticsPermalink Reply by Chris Anderson on October 7, 2010 at 2:44pm

I do that all the time and have never had a problem. I think the only way you can blow up your board is to plug in a RC connector wrong (offset by one pin) so it put voltage on the signal line, or plugging a battery in without an ESC/BEC or some other voltage regulator inbetween.

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JDronesPermalink Reply by Jani Hirvinen on October 8, 2010 at 2:07am

Yes even I connect rather often both USB and battery on same time and only time when I blew by FTDI chip + MUX chip was the time when I accidentally misplaced my ESC connector one pin too up.

Power distro board helps a bit on this due you do not put ESC cables directly to APM inputs and you have separate power cable coming from power pcb to APM.

We are just waiting our new power pcb's to arrive from factory.

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Permalink Reply by Paul Jones on October 8, 2010 at 2:58am

I blew my MUX chip by having the ESCs and USB connected without the battery, so I just replaced it (I have the tools). Having the battery and USB connected together should be fine as long as you don't disconnect your battery or turn off your computer.

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JDronesPermalink Reply by Jani Hirvinen on October 8, 2010 at 3:13am

o_O how in earth you were able to blew mux that way?? I would understand if you would short circuit something but just having ESC and USB I cannot see any possibilities for that. ?!?

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Permalink Reply by Paul Jones on October 8, 2010 at 3:52am

I think it was because power was back feeding from the MUX chip through the ESC signal wire, and overloading the outputs on the MUX chip. The fault I got was that when I connect the battery the ESCs wouldn't always turn on, and the motors would run erratically. It got worse over a few days. I replaced the chip and have not had a problem since.

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Permalink Reply by Öncü Kayalar on October 8, 2010 at 3:33am

I did it many times and nothing happened.

Once I connected a esc to the board when the battery plugged in. Esc connector began to smoke and I pulled it immediately. Luckily both the board and the esc was not damaged. Only the connector was slightly melted.

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DeveloperPermalink Reply by Randy on October 8, 2010 at 3:45am

I've heard this as well and so I try not to connect the USB and battery at the same time but as you say, invariably I forget sometimes and then notice, "oh shoot, they're both connected!!" and frantically remove one or the other. But in any case, I haven't blown anything up.

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Permalink Reply by Sebastian Gralla on October 8, 2010 at 4:08am

I use Xbee, so i don't have to connect USB :)

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Permalink Reply by Gunnar Forsgren mobimation.com on December 4, 2010 at 6:06pm

Unaware of any possible risk I did a lot of experimentation with the Configurator today
with the laptop connected over USB to the Arducopter while at the same time
having either the Lipo Battery commected or unconnected. In none of the cases did I see any dimmed LEDS
and communication with the board worked. I was able to exercise the manual motor control commands from
the PC over USB to spin the motors and also via R/C while monitoring status in Configurator. No issues.

Have any seen this happen with the production ESC versions ? Maybe the earlier type was different ? If I´m too ignorant maybe I´ll find out the hard way, we´ll see.

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3D RoboticsPermalink Reply by Chris Anderson on December 4, 2010 at 6:10pm

We tested a huge number of combination and were never able to replicate/confirm the reports of a blown board. The worst we see is a temporary brown-out if the ESCs are connect but not LiPo is connected (this is the "dim LED" issue, which will also stop code from executing). Plugging in the LiPos solves it. No damage done.

I think the only way you can blow a board is to plug things in wrong.

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Permalink Reply by Gunnar Forsgren mobimation.com on December 4, 2010 at 6:38pm

This is what I would assume so far also. If I blow my board I promise to not hold anybody accountable.

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JDronesPermalink Reply by Jani Hirvinen on December 4, 2010 at 8:31pm

Like Chris said, we have tested it many different ways. I personally have USB connected all the time and connecting/disconnecting battery often while calibrating ESC's etc.

Only time when I blew output from APM was the time when I had all powered and I accidentally connected ESC connector one pin too UP on APM pins.

Sometimes if using Servos etc same time while no battery power, I do get warning from my USB port if i exceed it's current limits. I've also noticed if I have all xbees etc connected, I might have problems to upload software due power output on USB is close to it's limits.

Different computers provides different amount of current on USB port. My MAC laptop usually never have any problems but Acer laptop has more often.

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