Servo Power

Hardware Multirotors
1

OK, I am a very new guy. But I put together a frame kit, installed a Ardupilot flight controller, added a Ublox Neo-7 GPS and a small driver board to power external LEDs. I connected the controller to a 6 channel 2.4GHz receiver and connected the drone to my computer with a USB cable. I went through every initial setup and watched many related YouTube videos. I am very afraid of adding the props but everything seems to work correctly including LED indications motor spin-up without props. Now I have some questions before proceeding further:

  1. I am using one 2A BEC (other 3 disconnected) to power the controller. Is there any reason I can’t use a different BEC to power some FPV camera servos if I disconnect the jumper on the controller?
  2. I am using a 6 channel receiver connected to the controller with 5 male-to-male servo cables. Is there any advantage to changing to a 8 channel receiver?
  3. I assume the plus and minus rails on the receiver are common. The single BEC powers the Flight Controller thru the Output ESC cable and the receiver receives power through one or all of the servo cables. Can I remove the power and ground wires on all but one of the cables to simplify?
2

@lrw1940,
You might want to review the Wiki instructions concerning powering your APM http://copter.ardupilot.com/wiki/common-apm25-and-26-overview/
Regards,
TCIII GM

3

Thanks TCIII GM. That was a great link. Looks like I have two options. Right now I have my controller powered by a single ESC BEC connected to the appropriate output pin. I pulled the other three ESC positive wires. I don’t see any reason to pull the ground wires. Now I want to add two servos to control a camera gimbal. I think the best answer is to pull the jumper and plug both servos’ power leads into the output rail. Then plug only the signal wire of each servo into the signal connector of the analog pins designated for servos (AN9,10 or 11). Then connect the power leads only from one of the remaining BECs into one of the input pins to power that part of the rail. Pulling the jumper prevents conflict between the two power sources. See if that sounds right?