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Permalink Reply by Andre K. on October 12, 2015 at 11:40am

No

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Permalink Reply by Justin on October 12, 2015 at 11:47am

Thank you and no doubt...this needs to be clarified. I'm not kidding when I tell you I've asked 50 people, 4 drone shops, and countless hours of research. Half the people said, "Yes!"

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MR60Permalink Reply by Hugues on October 12, 2015 at 12:10pm

The answer, yes or no, depends on what you have connected on your servo rail. Did you connect a BEC on it or any other electronic components, apart from your ESCs signal+ground wires ?

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Permalink Reply by Justin on October 12, 2015 at 12:14pm

Since my ESC's are OPTO I have a BEC connected to rail BUT that's it. Just ESC's and a BEC.

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Permalink Reply by Justin on October 12, 2015 at 12:19pm

I should probably add I have all wires from ESC's in rail. I was informed since OPTO I can do that. The quad is flying and well but I spent a fortune on it and too nervous to fly unless get this resolved.

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DeveloperPermalink Reply by Bill Bonney on October 12, 2015 at 9:41pm

That's ok as you have only one power source on the servo rail from the BEC Each Opto ESC is a sink for power. ESCs with built in BEC source multiple power, so can conflict, hence only one should have the power line connected (at most), the others should be all disconnected.

As for the requirement for the Zener, read this http://copter.ardupilot.com/wiki/common-powering-the-pixhawk/#power...

What it's saying is that if the voltage spike on the servo rail above 5.7V it will disconnect power to the pixhawk. If you have both PowerModule and BEC connected, it will have redundancy. Solution would be to have the power module connected, or another 5V BEC connected to the Power Module port. (i'm guessing you need a PM that is more than 4S capable)

Hope that helps:)

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Permalink Reply by Justin on October 13, 2015 at 6:52am

Thanks for clarification and I have read the link about 50 times prior but there was no direct answer. I do understand if I have a spike the rail will lose power and I'll crash. I guess the question now is how likely is it I'll have a 5.7 volt spike? I am using the power control module to power the actual autopilot since I am only running 4s.

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DeveloperPermalink Reply by Bill Bonney on October 13, 2015 at 12:12pm

If you are using the PM you will be fine.

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