Using state of the art devices and PCB design we've made a reasonably small and lightweight isolation switch capable of switching high current batteries directly. Advantages we think this offers:
- Isolation of all electronics on the ground for safety
- No connection pitting compared with using large switch based isolation solutions
- Minimization of EMC radiation as connectors are plugged in and out
- External electronics can be used to switch the power system on / off
- Auto Off in case of aircraft incident. A pull out cable can switch power off automatically
- Simple very low current toggle switch can be mounted more or less anywhere for easy power isolation
Isolation (switching) normally happens when very low current is drawn, however the switch still needs to pass the full current when ON. This switch will happily pass through the heavy currents required by many large multi-copters and electric aircraft. (70A continuous. Much higher for few seconds bursts).
Some testing at 140A:
We think this is a unique solution on the market today, please do tell us if this is not the case.
Please come to see more details on our site:
Bluelight Technologies
Comments
Of course! Thank you.
Hi Hein du Plessis, You can connect the switch in series mode but then you'd need to split the battery. e.g. for a 10s you'd need two 5 cell batteries instead - with the switch in the middle. Please see page 4 of our user manual here
Hi Sergios, yes it will remove this spark effect. With our solution the pins would work the other way. ie you can replace the toggle switch with dual pins, then a connection would mean ready to fly and taking it off would mean safe. Another way would be to use our electrical interface. In this case you'd need to have a small, say 9v battery. Ground to LiPo ground and to one side (pin) of the electrical interface. The other electrical connection would also go to a pin. Then you can connect for safe mode and take off for ready to fly mode.
Thanks Mark,
I am not 100% sure how that would work, but that is probably due to a poor understanding of things on my behalf. It seems that using +ve for local ground of second switch would work for series, but not allow the batteries to be placed in parallel. Please excuse my ignorance on the matter.
Previous to seeing your product I was planning on simply finding a suitably rugged DPDT switch and throw it with a servo. See below for example circuit:
Hi Mark - I see you only support 8S. Would it not work for 10S? Large planes?
will this prevent the much dreaded spark from connection of 6s packs ?
I would like it to have a pin style on off switch with remove before flight badge ...
.. RC Rx to RC to DC converter, then connect to our BL-Smart70SW electrical input
Hi Chris, the electrical input only takes a fixed DC level to do the switching. If you want to switch from the RC Rx then you'll need to get an RC to DC switch such as from here, or use the pico switch, eg from here. Our unit weighs around 0.9 Oz
Hi Quadzimodo, Yes you should be able to do that but you'll need two switches. I'm not in the office right now, but will check and confirm details later on. For the second part I guess you're referring to page 4 of the user manual, the switch is actually placed between two batteries and so it's only actually switching half the full series voltage so no problem to go up to any voltage. In other words the unit is switching one battery in / out of the circuit and using the +ve of the first battery as its local ground.
This is cool. Having just chopped my finger (school boy error) on my new quad I quite like the idea of dedicating a channel on the receiver to isolating ESC power. How much does it weigh?
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