Hitec Aurora 9 Radio Videos

[maarset]

Can I see you do it on video exactly ten times in a row?

I talked to Mike M on the phone when I lost my Compass Knight because of a blown RX. I was powering the SPC from the ESC so it was getting full 8S voltage. He gave me the idea of just powering off of one of the balancing tabs. I don't think he knows that it matters which balancing tab to use.

Originally Posted by Finless

FYI maarset, I am going to say with 99.9% certanty that if you always plug in the ESC ground side packs balance port to the SPC port it will not short out.

Bob

[Finless]

Maarset, I just shot a video show why if you hook balance port on the positive side pack to the SPC it will short. It will be clear to you once you see this.

Stay tuned for about 20 minutes while I compress it and upload it

Bob

[maarset]

!!!!!!!!?????????!!!!!!!!! WOW THANKS!

You are an Officer and a Gentleman! Can't wait to meet you sometime. I owe you atleast a 12 pack!

[Finless]

OK I posted this video in the first post as well but here it is.


WARNING! Be careful when using the SPC port and using 2 lipos in series with one balance connector to the SPC port. How you hook them up is IMPORTANT! It can BLOW the RX if you do it wrong!

Here is a video showing why. FYI this is also a common problem that can happen to balancers when charging 2 packs in series!
Video Link ->WARNING! Don't short your SPC port with 2 packs in series! (63 Megs)

Enoy,
Bob

[maarset]

DING DING DING. That makes perfect sense. Thanks so much Bob. I will pass this stuff over to RCGroups. Thanks buddy!

[dfrazier]

Very well done Bob. That should clear things up for quite a few people.

[maarset]

Ok maybe you can spot what I did wrong cause I just blew up another RX. Luckily I have a spare. This radio is going to make me broke.

So I marked the negative side of my serial cable with SPC. My pack in the rear is going to my negative side of the serial cable. My SPC harness is going to the lipo in the rear which is on the negative side of the serial harness or ESC.

So far I have roasted probably $170 dollars worth of RX's. UG.

[maarset]

Well I put my Optima 7 in the logo and binded it to my Aurora. ESC still arms fine and the vbar unit does it's swash plate jump and moves the correct way when I move the helicopter so nothing else was damaged except for the RX which is dead.

You can see from the pics that the lipo in the rear was plugged into the negative side of the serial cable which went to the negative side of the ESC. And my SPC port plugged into the same lipo that is in the rear.

It kind of sucks cause the number one reason I got this radio was to monitor voltage in the main flight pack.

I'm not going to get rid of it cause I really like all the programming. I just hope that Hitec figures something out.

[Fierce]

Bob,
A correction on your video about the sticks.

To tighten the spring the screw(hex bolt in my case) need to be turned IN not out. I had to spend an hour and a half taking the back off my TX to put the assembly back together, and finding the spring when it fell on the floor, because mine was so loose that 1 turn out made the screw fall out and loose the spring.

It is a PITA to work in there. Hope this helps someone else.

[Stoats]

Originally Posted by maarset

Well I put my Optima 7 in the logo and binded it to my Aurora. ESC still arms fine and the vbar unit does it's swash plate jump and moves the correct way when I move the helicopter so nothing else was damaged except for the RX which is dead.

You can see from the pics that the lipo in the rear was plugged into the negative side of the serial cable which went to the negative side of the ESC. And my SPC port plugged into the same lipo that is in the rear.

It kind of sucks cause the number one reason I got this radio was to monitor voltage in the main flight pack.

I'm not going to get rid of it cause I really like all the programming. I just hope that Hitec figures something out.

How are you connecting to your SPC port? I see that you made your own SPC harness so that's the main suspect to me since everything else looks ok. I've been running the SPC port on 2S to 6S so far with no issues. Maybe double check that the yellow wire isn't somehow shorting to the red wire inside the shrink tube.

SPC port:
Futaba Connector "Key"/Top
Servo Bus + Pin
SPC + Pin
Common Ground/Negative Pin

[Finless]

maarset, are you sure you are plugging into the SPC port with the correct polarity? Looking at the connector face on, the ground wire is on the far right! Positive is in the center. The pin on the far left is only for the jumper plug.

Also you might want to break out a meter and double check how the balance port on the pack is wired. I have seen some packs where red is not the positive side of the pack. Stupid I know but true.

Bob

[maarset]

I'm out of town right now but I will double check the spc port tonight.

[maarset]

Wait. If I had my spc harness backwards the rx processor would not power up right? The rx binded as soon as I plugged the harness into the balancing tab.

[Finless]

I do not know what would happen and not sure I want to try it

But if you look at the jumper plug it shorts the center positive pin to the far left pin which then allows the RX processor to be powered by voltage supplied by the servo buss instead of the SPC port. I would have to think about what would happen if you plugged high voltage in like that (reversed)....... Might even require taking apart the RX to see how that jumper works. Might just be a jump trace or might have some components involved which may not be able to handle the higher voltage.

Bob

[maarset]

Well the spc port has a groove on one end and the spc harness I made did not. So I had to make sure I was plugging it in the right way, so I looked at one of my futaba servos to make sure I was plugging it in right. And since this setup worked a couple of times I am pretty sure my balancing tabs are not backwards.

I'm tired of burning up rx's. Am I the only one trying to power the spc from a lipo in a serial setup?

Bob have you ever powered up a hitec rx using the spc port with a serial system?

[Finless]

No I have not tried it but it's pretty basic electrical wiring. It doesn't make sense it would not work. The SPC port doesn't know if it is being powered by a balance tap or output leads. Balance taps are wired to the same place the output leads are inside the pack so it should make no difference coming off the balance tap or the first packs output leads.

I will have to try it and see. Wont be this week though.

Bob

[maarset]

Thanks Bob. I'm not going to try it again, but I will double check how I hooked it up and post something tonight.

[Finless]

Again verify your balance tap wires with a meter. Might be something up there.

Bob

[MarkT]

If this is still not resolved by the time I get back from my next business trip I'll make up my version of the wiring harness and take the feed direct from the harness not the tap wires, to take them out of the loop.

I'm prepared to risk one RX for the cause

[dxflyer]

Okay guys I finally got it to work. 12s using spc port on one of the 6s batteries. I was hooking it up just like bob says on the video before the video was up. Long story short I blew 2 receivers and thought that my vbar and jive were toast. Luckily not. My solution was to add a diode to the positive side of the spc. Without the diode the weird thing is if I hooked up the battery #1 the servos were powering up. It should not because the circuit is not complete. But what was happening is the positive side of the spc connector is acting to complete the connection. Feedback?

This work on the bench tonight. I will fly tomorrow to test it. Please see my diagram. Maarset I hope this helps you.

{ The only thing is with this setup I loose my redundancy setup. That might be my next project, if I loose power to the spc then I want it to use the bec power. Prior to using the spc if I loose power on the bec and/or main battery, my nicad kicks in to power the servos and receiver. This has saved me at least once. My main battery connector came loose in the air}