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Need help powering servos for 2-axis gimbal.

Posted by Isaac Medford on October 21, 2012 at 7:38am

I have the APM 2.0 board and currently have the jumper removed.  My power distribution board is feeding the input rail and I have a separate BEC feeding the output rail where the esc's are controlled (the end where the gps is located).  My tilt and roll from the gimbal servos are hooked up to ch10/11.  From everything I have read, this is correct.  I want the gimbal servos to be powered through the separate BEC so that the speed controller is not overworked.  When I pull the BEC powering the output rail and leave the power to the input rail connected I can still control the gimbal, leading to the fact that is is being fed off one of the esc's.  Do I have these two connections backwards?  Do I need to power the board and gimbal servos from the input rail with the standalone BEC and power the output rail with the line coming from the PDB?  One other thing, I have hooked the BEC to the input rail, without any power from the PDB on the output rail and everything still functions and flies.  It seems as if the two rails are still connected, but I have removed the jumper. 

Thanks in advance,

Isaac

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Tags: 20, apm, gimbal, power
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Replies

  • Isaac Medford January 13, 2013 at 10:38am

    Thanks Bill, I have since sold my Hexacopter with gimbal.  But this is good info. 

  • Vince Hogg January 13, 2013 at 10:00am

    Silly me. I assumed that with JP1 removed the 2 gimbal servos would be powered by the output rail (as they are outputs) and therefore would not strain the AMP2.5 power module.

    This is not the case. Brownout – plummet – smashed copter.

  • criro1999 December 1, 2012 at 10:34am

    I am trying also to setup my servos gimbal for my copter. Initially I did power the 2 servos from APM2, ch10 and ch11.

    All was OK until I did notice my servos drain the battery, which is used for APM2 and 4 motors. 

    I found people suggest to remove the power for gimbal servos directly from APM and power those 2 servos from one ESC output. This will cut the servo power if voltage is less than 5v and protect the battery. And this is good, since a mechanical block on one servo could drain fast the main baterry power.

    This is better, but still servos are using juice from battery and this means the flight time could be also reduced, not sure in what percentage. Also powering servos from APM could influence the elecronics (you need to add ferrite to servos)

    I am thinking to use a separate power supply (4 x 1.5 AAA bat) to power the servos seperatelly and maybe other devices like LEDs, etc. 

    Did you find an answer for you? Do you believe powering the gimbal servos from external power is better?

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