Hi,
I’m currently thinking of extending the battery life of my quad by powering each motor and ESC individually. I will be using 1 dedicated battery for each motor, and 1 dedicated battery for the flight controller itself, bringing the total to 5 batteries for the entire quad.
My thinking is that by powering each motor with a dedicated battery, given a power draw/consumption, the flight-time of my quad will be increased by 4x as each motor will have 4x the capacity to draw from. Putting the problem of weight aside, would this be a feasible idea?
Also, i am currently using just 1 battery to power all motors, and as such, i only have to plug in the single battery and i can calibrate my ESCs. How would i calibrate my ESCs if i am using dedicated batteries for my APM 2.6 and each motors?Would i be able to get away with powering my APM using the BEC on my ESCs?
This should be no problem as they will all share a common ground to each battery. Only one battery needs to power the Pixhawk and the others can just run the motors. They most all share the same ground lead though.
I believe the weight of all those batteries will be more than the motors can lift and you will need to redesign the motors and props.
Try using the ecalc website and put in your numbers and see what it tells you.
You could just take the five batteries you plan on using and wire them in parallel to the one connector you currently use as it will have the same net effect.
You would be adding the mah together while maintaining the same voltage, but you would have to use five identical batteries.
However given the weight increase you would need to rethink the props, motors and possibly esc’s to cope with the current draw and you may still find that you’re flight times are not much better due to the extra weight you need to carry.