SmartFly PE Pro and Fromeco reg question

[koolaid]

Hi! I have a smartfly power expander pro - cool product by the way. I have a few questions. I have 2 fromeco regulators running into each of the deans powering 14 servos with a JR 10 channel receiver riding on top. Out of curiosity I hooked up a watt meter in between the reg and the deans on the eq10 on one side. I noticed the amp draw to be very low at idle. .05 amps. Removed and placed the meter between the opposing battery and deans and noticed the draw to be significantly higher at 1-1.5 amps. All servos idle. The bulk of the draw rides consistently on one reg on every test. Is this normal? The power of course shifts as expected to the opposing reg when high draw one is unplugged. Operates as expected.Why does one reg consistently take on the bulk of the load? Is this a regulator issue?

When running all 14 servos with one reg disconnected, I see the led's on the eq flash rapidly as if it is starved for power, and the servos begin to jump as if looking for signal. I realize that running 14 servos through one battery as in this scenario is the reason we run 2 batteries in the bigger planes, and this behavior is probably expected. Is it? Could this be a problem with my regs? Just checking to make sure this is normal.

Thanks for the great products I like the technology you guys have come up with. I will be purchasing an EQ10 for my next project.

[rdgood]

Josh,

I can only speculate but - I think the Power Pro has the Smart Sense circuitry - which according to the website may put your regualted inputs on apriority basis.
This why when you disconnected the one battery it shifted the load to the other batt/regulator. I cut and pasted the functional description below::

" When regulators are used it give some indication of the health of both regulators. The “Smart-Sense” inputs provide the same protection against bad cells or shorts that our BatShare provides, with a voltage drop of less than a tenth of a volt."

Below is a description of the Bat Share functionality::

"The Smart-Fly BatShare continually monitors both battery packs and switches for the one with the higher voltage, and routes that to your Rx and servos. You may combine different size packs."

It may be that the regulated input to PE Pro with the higher voltage is the dominate input taking on the load and leaving the lower voltage level reg'ed input as the secondary/backup...

Of course this is my interpretation of the operation...

I would strongly recommend talking to the Smart Fly folks just to be darn sure..


I hope this helps..

Ronster

[dmckeller]

The Power pro is indicating that the regulator outputs are not matched up. It defaults to the one with the higher voltage output. You need to adjust the the other reg to a higher out put.

Doug

[rrritchey]

	Quote: Originally Posted by koolaid
	Hi! I have a smartfly power expander pro - cool product by the way. I have a few questions. I have 2 fromeco regulators running into each of the deans powering 14 servos with a JR 10 channel receiver riding on top. Out of curiosity I hooked up a watt meter in between the reg and the deans on the eq10 on one side. I noticed the amp draw to be very low at idle. .05 amps. Removed and placed the meter between the opposing battery and deans and noticed the draw to be significantly higher at 1-1.5 amps. All servos idle. The bulk of the draw rides consistently on one reg on every test. Is this normal? The power of course shifts as expected to the opposing reg when high draw one is unplugged. Operates as expected.Why does one reg consistently take on the bulk of the load? Is this a regulator issue? When running all 14 servos with one reg disconnected, I see the led's on the eq flash rapidly as if it is starved for power, and the servos begin to jump as if looking for signal. I realize that running 14 servos through one battery as in this scenario is the reason we run 2 batteries in the bigger planes, and this behavior is probably expected. Is it? Could this be a problem with my regs? Just checking to make sure this is normal. Thanks for the great products I like the technology you guys have come up with. I will be purchasing an EQ10 for my next project.

Hi,
I also think your regulators are not matched well but it is really impossible to match two regulators so closely they share current at low loads. The problem is that the regulator that is set for the higher output voltage, and this can be as small as several thousands' of a volt, will supply the current to the system while the other regulator sits by. Only at higher amp loads will the other regulator kick in when the voltage drop in the wiring between the regulator and the unit has dropped the unit voltage below where the second regulator wants to regulate to.

I am really not sure about the flashing LEDs. Does it do this with either regulator connected? Does it do this on both ports? The unit has to have at least 5.5V in for the receiver regulator to work correctly. What kind of wire do you have between the regulator and the unit? What voltage are both your regulators set at? Did you set the regulators with some load on them?

Please let me know how I can be of any further assistance.

[koolaid]

ronster & rrritchey, thank you for the advice. Searching the flying giants site and reading the manual again states exactly what you wrote. I kicked up the voltage on the lower draw reg and they began to balance. I do not know the gage wire being used but it is smaller than some of the newer stuff and I imagine that is my issue as I have deans connected, thus the loss. I will be swapping the wire shortly.

Great product and even better support. thank for lending a hand.

[tavis newman]

I am running the smartfly with 2 Fromco regulators.After 8 flights I noticed that one batery was droping voltage and the other one not droping at all almost as if it was on stand by.I was geting coserned when I did a snap and there was a 1 second delay in response.(Thigs wuz getin' mushy)I tapped the adjustment prongs on the regulator that had the low battery to drop the votage output.I recharged the batteries and took 8 flights checking voltage on each pack after each flight and they drained down at the same rates.(no more mushy manuvers) Thanks for the advise guys!