Discussions

Blowing up boards by connecting battery and USB at the same time.

Posted by Limebear (Rob) on October 7, 2010 at 2:30pm

Hello,

I have read in many places on the site that the Arducopter battery must be switched off or disconnected before connecting to the USB, or irreversible damage may occur. Is this still going to be true on the production release and with your own power distribution board? My feeling is that however disciplined one is, sooner or later it's gonna happen that both get connected together.

If so, couldn't this feature be designed out?

regards

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Replies

  • Mark Curry December 5, 2010 at 3:44am
    Yes... it is really strange. I always connect Lipo first, even if I want to program. I connect USB port second.

    Funny thing is I can go into configurator and send a motor command then everything works great.

    I have a full backup APM/OP, I just programmed it and connected it up and it does the same thing...?

    Thanks


    Mark
  • Mark Curry December 4, 2010 at 11:09pm
    How does one know if the MUX if blown?

    I am having a problem where the motors wont start up unless I have the USB cable plugged into the PC.
  • Sebastian Gralla October 8, 2010 at 4:08am
    I use Xbee, so i don't have to connect USB :)
  • Developer
    Randy 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.
  • Öncü Kayalar 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.
  • Paul Jones 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.
  • Developer
    Jani Hirvinen 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.
  • 3D Robotics
    Chris Anderson 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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