past few days I been developing the ability to power the st16 series controller with multi third party power sources. first word of warning before embarking on this .1 after building it never attempt to use it in the field with out fully vetting it out yet. 2 You do so only at your own risk not responsible for your actions only you are. 3 make sure you under stand the basic electronics objectives that are required to make it work correctly.4 use a spare controllers not your primary controller for each air frame you want to use this on. 5 Big one here tape shut the micro usb port on the bottom of the yuneec controller for it will no longer be able to be used when using this project on your yuneec controller anymore.
now on to the basic setup
primary motivator for this.
after 2 melt downs with the h520e battery I had vertigo change the main power connector to first gen h520. Doing so I am secure to know I got a reliable power source for the craft. However that left me with 4 good flight batteries with out ability to use them. Also the st16e was a power hog and can only use 1 st16s/e battery for 2 flights with the 3rd pushing the st16e current power source. That and I did not have enough st16s/e batteries to cover all the flight batteries I have which is 24. I only have 10 st16s/e batteries down 2 and did not want to spend about 180 more for adding two.
knowing the flight batteries voltage range 15.4 to up to just above 17 when fully charged with the right buck converter that has constant current and constant voltage outputs that the end user can set at a specific rate. stripped one of mt st16s and st16e batteries by removing the 3 battery cells and removing the circuit board in that battery making it a dummy pass through connector. I went to ebay and sourced 2 buck converters one for use on for spare. Units obtain gave read outs of amps in and out and voltage in and out. first set the voltage on the one of buck converters to 4.2 volts output and reduced the amperage output to close to zero as possible. placed a 5 amp fuse on the flight battery side and the connected wiring up raw (no mounting frame) to the input of the converter the 15.4 to just over 17 volt side. the 4.2volt output side of the converter was wired to the dummy connector. with the amps set so low that it will not powerup the controller I slowly raised the amperage output of the buck converter up until the st16 controller booted up fully stable with out binding to the drone. ran the test where st16 controller remained on until the battery drained and need to be changed out. the controller will say it is drained before it actually is. Using the voltage reading in and out buck converter will reveal it can run much longer than what the st16 says and the controller was still fully functional. after doing 3 full flight battery runs to establish a base line up time. next there 3 more runs of full flight battery running the data pilot program until the battery need changed out to get a base line running time under that condition. after that you will need to increase the amps out slightly so you can now test it with the drone connected to the remote with out the st16 based controller restarting. once that is set you are good to go to start the next 3 test with full battery in drone no props on just sit idle and full battery in the st16 controller. power up both connect to them in data pilot and sit back and observe them as the batteries run down when the buck converter hits 15.1 volts input side it's ready for change out just before that exit data pilot and go to setting and hit battery it will give you a time reading on how long it was running record that time and repeat 2 more times. (with the h520e only) this will need to be done in this order no payload, e90x, e30zx and so on until all payloads you own have been run 3 times with times recorded on each run. after all that next test run is done out doors with props on drone. This is a grey area I have not done that part yet so I do not know what will happen so hold off for now for that part. you might have to up the amperage slightly again on the buck converter.
amps out put required
2.5 to 2.8 amps for st16s
3.5 to 3.8 amps for st16e
you can use a ac to dc 12 volt 5 amp adapter and wire it into the buck converter as well for possibly unlimited uptime for the controller I have not tested that option out yet. will give updates as soon as I do more with this.
now on to the basic setup
primary motivator for this.
after 2 melt downs with the h520e battery I had vertigo change the main power connector to first gen h520. Doing so I am secure to know I got a reliable power source for the craft. However that left me with 4 good flight batteries with out ability to use them. Also the st16e was a power hog and can only use 1 st16s/e battery for 2 flights with the 3rd pushing the st16e current power source. That and I did not have enough st16s/e batteries to cover all the flight batteries I have which is 24. I only have 10 st16s/e batteries down 2 and did not want to spend about 180 more for adding two.
knowing the flight batteries voltage range 15.4 to up to just above 17 when fully charged with the right buck converter that has constant current and constant voltage outputs that the end user can set at a specific rate. stripped one of mt st16s and st16e batteries by removing the 3 battery cells and removing the circuit board in that battery making it a dummy pass through connector. I went to ebay and sourced 2 buck converters one for use on for spare. Units obtain gave read outs of amps in and out and voltage in and out. first set the voltage on the one of buck converters to 4.2 volts output and reduced the amperage output to close to zero as possible. placed a 5 amp fuse on the flight battery side and the connected wiring up raw (no mounting frame) to the input of the converter the 15.4 to just over 17 volt side. the 4.2volt output side of the converter was wired to the dummy connector. with the amps set so low that it will not powerup the controller I slowly raised the amperage output of the buck converter up until the st16 controller booted up fully stable with out binding to the drone. ran the test where st16 controller remained on until the battery drained and need to be changed out. the controller will say it is drained before it actually is. Using the voltage reading in and out buck converter will reveal it can run much longer than what the st16 says and the controller was still fully functional. after doing 3 full flight battery runs to establish a base line up time. next there 3 more runs of full flight battery running the data pilot program until the battery need changed out to get a base line running time under that condition. after that you will need to increase the amps out slightly so you can now test it with the drone connected to the remote with out the st16 based controller restarting. once that is set you are good to go to start the next 3 test with full battery in drone no props on just sit idle and full battery in the st16 controller. power up both connect to them in data pilot and sit back and observe them as the batteries run down when the buck converter hits 15.1 volts input side it's ready for change out just before that exit data pilot and go to setting and hit battery it will give you a time reading on how long it was running record that time and repeat 2 more times. (with the h520e only) this will need to be done in this order no payload, e90x, e30zx and so on until all payloads you own have been run 3 times with times recorded on each run. after all that next test run is done out doors with props on drone. This is a grey area I have not done that part yet so I do not know what will happen so hold off for now for that part. you might have to up the amperage slightly again on the buck converter.
amps out put required
2.5 to 2.8 amps for st16s
3.5 to 3.8 amps for st16e
you can use a ac to dc 12 volt 5 amp adapter and wire it into the buck converter as well for possibly unlimited uptime for the controller I have not tested that option out yet. will give updates as soon as I do more with this.
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