Power Distrubtion board, the age old question.... What's everyone using?

helloman1976

Ziptie Relocation Expert
I'm going to be building a UAP-2 Y6 copter starting this week. I'm having some trouble finding a suitable power distribution board. I need to be able to pull 20A max through 4S batteries though it, maybe 1200W maximum and 900W sustained again on 4S. What's everyone using? Thanks!
 

Dewster

Member
I use Photoshipone's power distribution board. Every now and then you'll see them sell a kit with capacitors to help keep the power flow nice and even. I don't know if I actually needed it, but all of my craft have used it. It survived a very bad crash and it's still good as new. Fear of brown outs from lipos was the reason for its purchase. Its small and has several contact points for an Octo.
 



helloman1976

Ziptie Relocation Expert
Thanks all!! Some of those are 60A and that's too low for me and I'm not so sure on the "solder pads". Has anyone used anything with solder pads on them versus holes you can run your wire through, bend and then solder? That seems like the ultimate hold to me.
 

R_Lefebvre

Arducopter Developer
Thanks all!! Some of those are 60A and that's too low for me and I'm not so sure on the "solder pads". Has anyone used anything with solder pads on them versus holes you can run your wire through, bend and then solder? That seems like the ultimate hold to me.

It's ultimate until you need to rework it for any reason. Try getting that wire out, and then getting another wire back in without destroying the board.

I simply used some solid copper washers, and soldered the wires to it. It takes a LOT of heat to do this (260W gun) but it's super solid and can easily transfer a virtually infinite amount of power.

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Bartman

Welcome to MultiRotorForums.com!!
Irisaerial tried that a while back and had a problem with the whole washer getting hot and adjacent spots desoldering. did you experience that?
 

R_Lefebvre

Arducopter Developer
Irisaerial tried that a while back and had a problem with the whole washer getting hot and adjacent spots desoldering. did you experience that?

It was tricky, no doubt. The trick was to keep the washer cool as possible, and get the iron as hot as possible. Then just hit it with the heat, get it soldered, and be done with it. If you lolly-gag, it starts to melt adjacent sites. But I never had them actually pop off. I think it helped that I was using short pieces of wire that were not yet attached to the ESC's, so they had no stress trying to pull them off. It might help to actually drill holes in it, stick the wire in, so it's mechanically retained. Then it won't matter how hot you get it. But as I stated above, it sort of becomes a 1-shot thing. Which is fine, if you have to replace an ESC, you take the wires off at the ESC side.

Overall, the layout was tricky and time consuming the built. But it was really compact and reliable, IMO. You see I cut away windows for the heat sinks. The motor wires were wrapped in anti-abraision sleeve before going in the tubes. I put hot-glue as strain-relief where the wires come out of the heat-shrink on the board. Etc.
 

DucktileMedia

Drone Enthusiast
I did make it work but it was a real PITA. I wouldnt do that agin without making some sort of clamp to hold all the other wires down. I even pre tinned the whole thing. What I ended up using were lugs, crimped and soldered to each esc wire. I then stuck a bolt through all the lugs with di-electric grease and a nylock. I have 0 worries about this being a failure point. The fact it weighs twice as much as a PDB is of no concern on an octo IMHO.
 

R_Lefebvre

Arducopter Developer
I did make it work but it was a real PITA. I wouldnt do that agin without making some sort of clamp to hold all the other wires down. I even pre tinned the whole thing. What I ended up using were lugs, crimped and soldered to each esc wire. I then stuck a bolt through all the lugs with di-electric grease and a nylock. I have 0 worries about this being a failure point. The fact it weighs twice as much as a PDB is of no concern on an octo IMHO.

That would be another good way to go. We don't see that a lot, but in industry, that's how it's done.

I've had enough copper layer delaminations on circuit boards that I really just don't think PDB's are a good solution.
 


helloman1976

Ziptie Relocation Expert
It's ultimate until you need to rework it for any reason. Try getting that wire out, and then getting another wire back in without destroying the board.

I simply used some solid copper washers, and soldered the wires to it. It takes a LOT of heat to do this (260W gun) but it's super solid and can easily transfer a virtually infinite amount of power.

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Good info thanks!!!
 

helloman1976

Ziptie Relocation Expert
I've flown my PSO board w capacitor on my typical hex for a while without any issue. Just finished ordering parts for my octo yesterday and went with droidworx' board. If you look around you can get it for about $100.

http://droidworx.co.nz/assets/PDB_mounting-02.pdf

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Wow, that's a good size CAP for that little board. I'm sure your ESC's appreciate that :) Your burst current must be up there. I've never thought of creating a CAP bank but maybe I'll try that, not that I need it but it sure would be fun. Just don't ground positive and negative together and you should be good lol..
 

helloman1976

Ziptie Relocation Expert
I use Photoshipone's power distribution board. Every now and then you'll see them sell a kit with capacitors to help keep the power flow nice and even. I don't know if I actually needed it, but all of my craft have used it. It survived a very bad crash and it's still good as new. Fear of brown outs from lipos was the reason for its purchase. Its small and has several contact points for an Octo.

Dewster, did you try your setup with and without a capacitor? If so, where there any noticeable differences? I'm using 12 gauge stranded wire, which is pretty thick stuff, but the leads are around 12" long to the ESCs. I have 18A motors but I never really pull that much, more like 13A and only for maybe a few seconds...say 10 at the most. I use 40A Turnigy Plush ESCs which have 2 smaller Caps already in them and like I said I only pull mayb 13A, or 15A burst max, through them. Do you think I should add a main Cap to the power distribution board to help with the load or to help with power ripple through the long ESC power leads? I have a 1000uF Capacitor just laying around doing nothing and it's 35V rated. Thanks!
 

Stacky

Member
I started out using distribution boards from minsoo kims website http://www.kkmulticopter.kr/index.html?modea=kk&modec=Parts&moded=Center and they worked well on my smaller multis but for the last year have simply been using the old "solder the wires in a bunch" method. I havent had any problems with this but replacing an esc isnt as easy as with a distribution board. The main reason I stopped with distribution boards was simply because a couple of builds made it hard to find the space to mount a distribution board and weight saving.
 

helloman1976

Ziptie Relocation Expert
I started out using distribution boards from minsoo kims website http://www.kkmulticopter.kr/index.html?modea=kk&modec=Parts&moded=Center and they worked well on my smaller multis but for the last year have simply been using the old "solder the wires in a bunch" method. I havent had any problems with this but replacing an esc isnt as easy as with a distribution board. The main reason I stopped with distribution boards was simply because a couple of builds made it hard to find the space to mount a distribution board and weight saving.

That works too, just makes it hard to replace an ESC like you said and to add a CAP :) The HobbyKing PDB's are SUPER cheap so I ordered a bunch of them and if I need to do another one I can. It took me about 30 minutes to do one from start to finish so it wasn't too bad plus I love doing stuff like that. Not sure how big your MR is but these PDB boards will handle 160A max so they aren't going to work for large or very powerful MR's. If I was building a very large MR I'd use copper plates anyway and just drill holes in them and solder my wires through them, a copper plate will handle whatever you can throw at it in the MR world.

I found a Cap bank that Caste Creations sells, it comes on a PDB already and all you need to do is hook your ESCs and battery to it and you're all set. I'm not sure how big the Caps are but they look to be 220uF each. I may use your theory on the Cap bank and just solder them together and solder that to the board :)

http://www.castlecreations.com/products/cc-cap-pack.html
 

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