I've recently added a TX and camera to my Arducopter to do some FPV flying. Just wanted to check in with everyone on the best power configuration. Is it better to use 1 battery pack and power everything off of that or 2 battery packs one for the Arducopter and one for the FPV system? Thanks for the help in advance.
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I guess for a quad, the single battery solution makes sense, since if you run out of either video or power system battery, you're going to loose it.
However for a fixed wing, multiple batteries is a good source of redundancy. For instance if you used separate batteries for RC receiver, power system, and video it would allow you to glide the craft to safety even if the power system battery ran down during flight.
Two packs means:
two batteries to charge
two batteries to connect (+ the weight of two more connectors + weight of cables and battery holder)
then you would need two battery warners.
advantage:
-no interference with the APM ...I've used a single battery for the whole summer with no problems at all...
Two packs for the following reasons:
1- No interference between the video system and the APM, since they are on separate circuits.
2- The video system, can run its battery down, and not cause your Arducopter to fall out of the air. Video is not as critical as flight control and motors.
3- You can get a smaller capacity battery that matches the video system and a higher cap one for the copter.
I used 2 packs, a small pack ~1000mAh for separate Bec + RX, Video TX + Led, and main pack for motors only
I use one battery. This 3000mAh 35C Lipo has enough power for copter and video tx.