Turboreg on dual RX

[whaturi]

It's late at night and the more I think about the plane I am working on and the new equipment I am installing, the more confused I get.. little help please anyone?

40% plane with dual spektrum RXs. The plane is split down the middle, one side on each RX. I bought the plane like this and want to keep it that way. I have 2 Fromeco 5200s going into 2 switches going to the Turboreg. Then each output from the reg has 3 heavy duty "JR" leads going into open ports in each RX. So I have 3 connectors into each RX.. total of 6 power connectors. I figured why not add more than enough.

I have never seen a plane with a turbo reg setup in this way. Should I have anything to worry about with this setup? One thing I did notice that I had not expected was that the reg will power either RX off of either battery. If I turn off one of my 2 switches, I still have both RXs powered. I thought the Turboreg isolated the batteries?!?

If I understand correctly, it seems I may be losing the true redundancy of a 2 RX setup. If one of my batteries shorted out, could it now affect the other RX since they seem to be tied together with the Turboreg?

[sweetpea]

I'd call Bob........never seen it done either.

[rrritchey]

Hi,
First, I am not sure why you are surprised the TurboReg runs off either battery. The TurboReg has protection on the input so if one battery goes bad it will run off the good battery. You can short one input without affecting the other input. The outputs on the TurboReg are tied together inside. There is only one regulator in the TurboReg with two outputs. Both outputs will be hot when either battery is on because they are tied together. There are two things about your setup that you may want to think about. First, the way you have this wired the power of both receivers (hot wire and ground wire) is common. This can be bad because noise from one receiver can travel over the wires and affect the other receiver. This can cause loss of range in some instances. Second, you have reduced your redundancy since you are relying on a single regulator for your whole plane. I have not lost a TurboReg but there is always a first time. If it goes you loose all your systems.

[whaturi]

From Smartflys website: "The TurbrReg has dual regulation transistors with a common control circuit. The dual transistors share the current through the regulator resulting in a more reliable regulator."

So it is not a single reg.. it has dual reg transistors.. I am guessing because they are the more likely part to fail. They are controlled by the same circuitry, hopefully this part is not as prone to failure as the transistors.. I would think Smartfly built this item from the ground up to be as reliable as possible, since it is aimed at 35-40% planes and Smartfly has an excellent reputation for electronics.

[rrritchey]

Hi,
I designed the TurboReg. The reason the two transistors are in there is support the higher current. Using two puts less strain on each transistor at the high current the regulator can support. It also reduces the resistance across the transistors at full on (these are FETs and they have a finite resistance when turned on fully). But, this is still a single regulator and the inputs and outputs of the two transistors are connected together. The output goes to both Deans outputs. It is not a dual regulator in any sense of the word.

[whaturi]

Well you obviously would know if you designed it!

I flew the plane in question yesterday with good range checks. I will do more testing on range with the spektrum datalogger, unplugging one RX to take the potential "noise from one RX to the other issue" out of the equation. I will post here in the thread once I get that data.

As for the redundancy issue.. isn't this regulator sold with the idea that it is used alone for both receiver batts on the plane? I just wonder why you made the point that if it fails I have no other regulator. Or are you just asking why if I went to the trouble of dual RXs, why wouldn't I do a true dual reg setup? I could always switch over to two good singe regs..

[rrritchey]

Hi,
We feel a regulator should be as reliable as a receiver. I think think the reputation of the SuperReg and TurboReg bear this out. But, if you want true redundancy then having two, completely separate system in your plane is the way to go. This is up to you. On the receiver interaction issue, this may be something really hard to quantify. I still think this ill advised even if you don't think you see any interaction.

[whaturi]

So it seems that the fitting setup in this case would be to remove the turbo reg and replace it with two good normal regs. Like the smart fly adjustable regs maybe?

I also want to thank you for taking the time to help me out. Great support!

[rrritchey]

Hi,
I would suggest you look at the Fromeco regulators for this application. They will handle 7.5A continuous while ours will handle 5A continuous. Using 2 of our SuperReg would work also but would probably be a more expensive solution.

[whaturi]

Nice of you to help me with this. I was also considering the Fromeco regs and just sell the turbo reg to someone who needs it.