ST16S question - will it run off of just AC power?

[Archilochus]

Hi all,
I recently ended up with a Yuneec H520 drone with ST16S controller. It was free. Had been crashed, with some broken bits. It's barely used, the owner got aggravated after crashing it, stuck it back in the box and left it to sit for years.

The broken stuff looks easy enough to fix. The drone batteries take a charge, and the drone itself powers up (I've since read that you're not supposed to turn on the drone power without the controller being ON first - oh well).

Question is about the ST16S controller. The battery is dead (2.46 volts). I found replacements available for ~$70 or so.

So here's my question - should the ST16S power up with no battery (or a dead battery) - just the USB micro connector hooked up to a charger (typical cell phone charger cube)? This one does not power ON when hooked up to a charger and switched to "ON". If it is supposed to, then I guess the controller is dead, and I probably shouldn't spend any $$ on it.

Thanks!

 

[DoomMeister]

There has to be a good battery in the ST16S for it to power up properly. With the current battery at 2.45V it is too low for the charging circuit to kick in and recharge the battery. The cells in the controller battery are Li-ion so you might be able to apply 5VDC to it for 30 seconds at a time until you can get it up 3.2V. The charging circuit may then work to get it up to full charge.

With it being in a depleted state for a lengthy time it is probably a good idea to replace it once you verify the ST16S is good.

 

[Steve Carr]

The drone batteries take a charge, and the drone itself powers up (I've since read that you're not supposed to turn on the drone power without the controller being ON first - oh well).

Yuneec drones are not damaged by being powered on without the controller powered. So you're safe to turn it on. If it has a camera, the camera can get pretty hot while just sitting on the bench while powered on, so limiting the time to 20 minutes is a good practice.

The 520 LiPo batteries should be stored at about 15.2 volts. I don't allow mine to sit fully charged for more than 24 hours. If I'm not going to use them, I discharge them to storage voltage. This prevents damage to the batteries.

You can charge the ST16s battery the same way as @https://yuneecpilots.com/members/ty-pilot.8195/ has done:

Post in thread 'ST16S Charging Issue'

Apr 1, 2020

How did you do that? I'm talking about the ST16S with the pack with the tabs like a camera/recorder might have.

BY THE WAY, thanks to Steve Carr, it turns out to be the cable. Found my Yuneec USB cord and both packs charged fully. So now I have plenty of transmitter packs too!!

I just soldered some Dean's connectors to the ends of wire leads. The outboard slots of the battery are where the contacts are, Inner most is Positive and Outermost is Negative

• Ty Pilot

• 

 

[Archilochus]

Thanks for the replies! I'll try and see if I can revive the battery enough to test out the controller.

Good to know I didn't mess anything up turning the H520 on without the controller on.

 

[DoomMeister]

The controller on first is a hold over from RC planes and the limited channels that were available. If the aircraft was powered on first it could pair to another controller on that channel. Flying fields had strict rules controlling the channels in use at any one time to add another layer of protection against this.

The Yuneec aircraft use a digital pairing system on the 2.4GHz band with the Zigbee protocol using ST24 transceivers. I have flown several times with multiple Yuneec aircraft flying at the same time with no control interference at all.