Never power the rfd900 from the autopilot

Hardware Radios
24

Hmm, this is an interesting thread.

I do understand the desire for simplicity (least possible components) and redundancy in power supply.

My primary concern with my devices (15+kg TOW) however is safety of the primary flight function. If one of those things hits somebody…

So my design philosophy has always been a) to separate primary flight control from secondary functions as much as possible and b) have redundancy where possible.

My solution to power redundancy has been the Mauch PowerCubes. Not cheap but very solid and availabe with up to 4x redundancy. I use two power feeds from the Mauch cube to redundantly power the cube and then the two others to power ESCs, radios etc.

Christian

3 Likes
25

So with everything stated above. Can someone point me to the best standalone BEC or power supply to power the RFD900x on a xuav Clouds Plane mounted in the tail? Thank You…

26

Not sure how much room you have but you also don’t need anything super fancy. The Mauch Powercubes are very good but also very pricey.

In the past I have also used these simple 5v BEC rated for 3A and had no issues for a very small fraction of the price.

27

I’m not doing anything fancy, but I’ve used small DC-DC converters like the one listed immediately above in multiple RC planes (with multicopter ESCs) to power servos with no problems.

Note that if you want redundant power to the telemetry radio you will need something fancier than simply connecting the outputs of multiple BECs. Something like this: Simple Bus-Tie Circuit using Schottky Diodes - RC Groups .