Hoverfly 5s and 6s with hfp

[kloner]

how do you power hfp with 5 or 6s? does it take a regulator? how many volts is best if you gotta pick one?

 

[Webheadfred]

The HFP has built in voltage regulators on board. I think the manual says 16.8 volts max which would be between 4s and 5s. I know some have used 6s. The problem is that the excess voltage is disapated as heat. I'm sure Hoverfly doesn't recommend any higher that what's in the manual. I know other have indeed done that. Using a BEC to power the HFP with larger lipo's should work fine.

 

[DucktileMedia]

Kloner, you should talk to Bart, he mentioned tapping off the balance plug to get the appropriate voltage. 5s is ok, 6s is pushing the limit.

 

[tahoelight]

The reason for tapping the balance plug was to maintain the ability to monitor the packs voltage via the OSD. I am not sure if anyone actually went through with that technique. I've been running 5s for a long time, no problems. For 6s there was also some talk of adding a heat sink somewhere on the board.

 

[Webheadfred]

I'm at work and I don't have the HFP in front of me but the picture attached is the HFP with the two arrows pointing to the voltage regulators. I AM IN NO WAY SUGGESTING THE FOLLOWING. DO ANYTHING AT YOUR OWN RISK

A heat sink could be placed on each of these or one over both. Careful not to short anything over the board. Write down the numbers on them and search the Internet for the specs. Just a quick search on SMD voltage regulators I found some with a absolute max input voltage of 20v and some with 16. Depending on the current draw, the power dissipation (heat) could be more or less.

I have not done this nor do I suggest doing anything against the manufacturer's recommendations.

Be careful.

 

[kloner]

i'm on green board HFP, does that matter?

 

[Webheadfred]

Same cautionary advisories.....disregard the little red circle in the lower left. It's from the manual and doesn't apply to this discussion..

 

[workshop]

6c Solution

Use a string of diodes to drop the battery voltage down and use the result to power the FCB. Then go to the OSD voltage calibration routine in the HoverFly Setup program and use a value that will scale up the voltage back to the actual battery voltage.

1N4001 rectifiers are rated to 1A and drop forward voltage 0.20V. One will need 10 or more to make a difference (unburden the onboard regulators).

Jeff

 

[Bartman]

kloner,

i'm using a harness to take power from both balancing taps and from that, 3S power will go to the flight controller. I may also pull 4S power for my LED's but that's up in the air. I haven't done this for the big XY8 I"m currently building but the harness is ready to use for a 4 motor XY4 I'm trying to finish for FPV so I can maybe field an entry (even if it doesn't count) in the contest we're trying to organize. Not much time for details with the little quad so I may just strap a small 3S lipo to it to power the FC, we'll see. So far the harness looks promising.

Bart

 

[kloner]

Think ill run a bec. My balance leads have alarms hanging off em when it flies

So 16 volts is fine? Less stress on the bec I wanna use the higher can run it

 

[Stacky]

If you are on the green board what are you doing for a line filter to the boards power supply with the 5s and 6s batteries?
The green board needs a line filter on the power supply.

 

[kloner]

I run l-c filters on all my FPV gear, got em on the boards etc. even though one of these hfp employee guys swears up and down you don't need it