Harness or Power Distribution board ?

[steve fh]

I';m collecting parts to upgrade from a quad to a Y6 using my Tiger Motor 2814/10';s and TBS 30A esc';s

Question is do i use a power distribution board or just make up a harness ?

Any one got any strong opinions one way or another, or any comments from their experience?

Cheers
Steve

[ChrisH]

Personally I prefer the board approach. The F450 has it inbuilt and I bought one for my Tarot build. Biggest advantage I see is the relative ease of adding yet another power take-off to a board for that gadget you';d not planned for. Not always easy to add to a harness!

My ten pennyworth anyway!

[Biffa]

Biggest advantage I see is the relative ease of adding yet another power take-off to a board for that gadget you';d not planned for. Not always easy to add to a harness!

+1 If you have the room on/in the frame than it';s a no brainer especially if you may add to the build later.

[Hands0n]

I ended up buying a 6-way harness precisely because of what ChrisH said. The build didn';t have a built-in power board, I didn';t have one spare, so used up a 6-way because I needed 5 connections (4 x ESC and 1 x Naza UBEC).  Wasteful and carrying a bit more weight than I need to. 

[firey1]

I have experimented with both on my alien quad and had no determinable difference in compass mot or declination I think the biggest cause is having the compass in the middle of 4 motors

[fruitsalad]

case of ones preference really..
ive used both,both do the job easily enough..

[guest325]

I';m using my own design bus bar system with my scratch build, 2 pieces of copper with holes drilled in strategic places into which I can solder each wire - the advantage of this being that it will handle high currents without getting too hot and has next to no resistance.     

[steve fh]

The only thing I was wondering is how do you know when you have reached the limit of power you can put through a board as they are vauge with the specs.

[Hands0n]

The only thing I was wondering is how do you know when you have reached the limit of power you can put through a board as they are vauge with the specs.

I don';t think there is a simple answer as it all depends on the thickness and width of the copper traces on the power board.  There calculators on the web that might help work out ... for instance http://www.referencedesigner.com/cal/cal_06.php

I had one DJI F450 clone that had it';s copper trace formed with a "fusible link".  During a crash the "fuse" blew, rendering the board useless.  Temporarily I soldered across the link and used it like that until I could replace it.

I';ve noticed that my latest F450 clone (Firefly) doesn';t have such a fusible link in its construction.

[guest325]

The only thing I was wondering is how do you know when you have reached the limit of power you can put through a board as they are vauge with the specs.

It certainly isn';t going to be as much as a piece of 6mm square section copper for sure, this is the thing that worries me having seen a few nasties happening with overloaded wiring.
Some smart Alec decided to run an extension lead at one of our demo shows not completely run out and decided to put 2 x 2kW fires on it instead of the one it was rated at  - when there was an unpleasant rubbery smell in the air the error of their ways was realised  ; fortunately it didn';t get to the stage of complete melt down but the look on his face when he tried to run out more cable was a picture  . When we took the reel apart what was left was more or less fused together total SCRAP     

[ChrisH]

It certainly isn';t going to be as much as a piece of 6mm square section copper for sure, this is the thing that worries me having seen a few nasties happening with overloaded wiring.

Agreed but making a harness from bits of 6mm or 8/10swg cable with spurs coming off requires some careful work and insulation! Digging around there are a few boards around and the ratings given is around 20A per outlet. If you want to use a board, calculate the maximum load you';ll possibly put through it, add a bit and find a board that has that capacity! If you are building a Y6 that';s a lot of cables to get to a common point. The ESC rating is the absolute maximum capacity and will run well below normally. Horses for courses, good luck whichever route you take, let us know how it goes?

Have a look at this: http://www.tarot-rc.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=65_90&products_id=261
Not the cheapest but seems a solid way to link multiple cables!

[QuadBod]

Question is do i use a power distribution board or just make up a harness ?

My approach is to minimise weight at every opportunity to maximise flight time, so I go with a wiring harness (I call it a spider ) with the leads soldered directly to the ESCs, so no distribution board and no connectors at either the centre, or at the ESCs.

Equally, I';ve come up with a battery arrangement that doesn';t require the carbon battery mount, and is more secure than with it.

Boards are fine for beginners, or if you';re not confident in your soldering, but they really shouldn';t be necessary.

[dirtyharry]

I make my own from copper pcb. I did use double sided board but have changed to single sided and just scratch the tracks with a vernier. This one has 4 rails so I can have a dirty 12v and clean filtered 5v+12v. Just need to add my ubec+ ferrites/capacitors  etc.

[steve fh]

Finding this de lamination on the power board (-ve pad in bottom of shot) as i stripped the quad has made my mind up that the Y6 is having a harness for power distribution to the ESC';s



I';ll probably then use a distribution board with a feed from the harnenss to make adding accessories easy

[steve fh]

After a frustrating evening making a power harness with a soldering iron that on the blink i concluded that the harness was too messy. I';ve tracked down a distribution board that can handle 8 ESC';s at 20A (my motors pull around 16A at 75% on 4S) to which i plan to add a positive bridge just to be safe

IE like this  www.uavshop.co.uk/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=50&products_id=267