seperate ubec or esc's built in bec?

Posted by Vincent van Schijndel on September 25, 2012 at 10:47pm

Hello All,

i bought a second hand apm 1, to use with ardurover. looking forward to it, it should arrive in 1-2 weeks. 1 have 1 question. the owner told me i could never use the esc with bec, according to him i always have to take out the red wire from the esc and use a seperate ubec. this because if you plug in the usb without first powering the esc with a battery, there was a chance the esc pulled some power through the usb, causing the bord to blow.

is this correct? are you all using seperate ubecs? i cant find something about it on the forums, thats why i ask:)

thanks in advance!

greets vincent

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Replies

  • Vincent van Schijndel November 24, 2012 at 5:20am

    i posted it in the gps section, but still didn.t get a response. i just ordered one, hope it wil be here in 1-2 weeks:) then i wil test it!

  • Vincent van Schijndel October 31, 2012 at 10:12am

    is there someone who knows if this gps would be better then the original, and if so, is it possible to use this one without having to reprogram anything? so i just plug it in, wil it work immidiatly?

    http://www.rctimer.com/index.php?gOo=goods_details.dwt&goodsid=...

    thanks in advance

    http://www.rctimer.com/index.php?gOo=goods_details.dwt&goodsid=763&productname=
  • Vincent van Schijndel October 1, 2012 at 11:48pm

    installed my apm, and loaded the apm rover firmware with the mission planner. so far so good. but only now i cant see the compass value's in hud moving... does anybody knows why?

  • Serge September 27, 2012 at 1:31am

    Hoi Vincent,

    I am not a rover user, but I think this is the same for all vehicles. I ordered a separate BEC yesterday because I want to use 7 servos on my plane and my built in BEC only provides 3A. I think that would be the only reason to have a separate BEC. Having a UBEC (or switching BEC) provides the additional advantage of having less heat produced if you have higher input voltages (3S lipo and up I would say).

    The problem you describe regarding having just USB power is not a problem I believe. I have used my ESC's built in BEC, also for quite a while now with a first generation APM 1. If I connected USB only, it caused my servos to jitter and my motor to beep, but did not do any damage; however, I would recommend disconnecting them when you power through usb. I now have a second generation APM 1 (1.4 I believe), and with the same setup, the servos and motor just do nothing if only powered through USB.

    What I did in my first setup (first gen APM) was usually to connect the battery when I also connected the USB. 

    Hope this helps!

    Groeten! Serge

  • Vincent van Schijndel September 26, 2012 at 10:40pm

    nobody? how have you guys hooked it up?

This reply was deleted.