Hi all,

I am still really new to drones and have posted a few threads on here in the past. My Tyro 119 currently won't power on, and people in those other threads tend to believe I likely fried my 5V regulator.

I'm looking for some detailed help on how to replace my 5V regulator. I bought some new parts, but not really sure where to solder them to, or frankly, if I even bought the right thing.

This is the part that I THINK has the the fried component on it. Tyro 119 ESC

This is the part I purchased in the hopes of "bypassing" the 5V regulator on the ESC from above. Micro BEC 6S

So my questions for you fine folk are these: Am I even going the right direction here? Can I simply solder on a new 5V regulator and fix my drone? And am I even looking at the right parts? If so, is there any insight on where to solder what to? A wiring diagram or something? Or a resource that you could point me to?

TIA!

The tyro line is not exactly the greatest … most durable components…speaking from experience.. though, I do have a quad with one of the original tyro motors on it..
Even the frames.. delaminates.. it’s a good intro to fpv, but kinda weird it will get u into fpv.. but u will be fighting all ur components ..
Do urself a favor.. get another quad.. with more reliable components..

Hmm, well that's kinda unfortunate. I'll certainly consider it, but one of the reasons I bought this quad is BECAUSE it is a good beginner quad. I mean, I'm at the level where I flew it once and lost it immediately. I potentially fried components because of my lack of soldering skills and other electronics know how. I purchased this quad to be my learning device before I got into better, more expensive stuff.

So, I'm more wondering if this it repairable for the learning aspect of it, rather than for the reliability aspect of it. And nothing to lose if it doesn't work, as I'm in the same boat as I am in now.

Go for it! You have nothing to loose..and knowledge to gain.. The tyro line isn’t “bad”.. it’s like the tinyhawks.. your kinda locked into their “eco-system”… little things that can cause a lot of frustration.
Example: the vtx, if it goes out and u want to “upgrade”.. you may need to practice ur soldering skills AND need a different antenna.. my original came with a rma-r and I didn’t know that until I tried to use the original antenna.
Frame.. light crashes caused the arms to delaminate.. yes, they can be glued.. so I ordered 2 extra arms (Banggood) w/ shipping was over $20… a new source one frame from RDQ is $25 and I have literally fed it asphalt and concrete.. only broke the top plate ..
Get a regulator in that and get back in the air..

Don’t do any of this if you’re not competent at soldering.

On the esc side of the wiring harness, identifying the wire going to “5v/2A” on the esc. Don’t just look at the silk screen and think it’s the wire directly in line with it, you need to actually count- the silk screening is enlarged.

Remove that wire from the plug on the esc side- use an exacto blade to gently lift the plastic tab and pull the wire out of the plug on the esc side.

Triple check that you’ve pulled the right wire. Use a multimeter to check for continuity between that wire and the back of the jack on the flight controller side to make sure it’s the right wire.

Solder that wire onto the “5v/9v out” pad on the bec.
On the bec, connect a wire to one of the “gnd” pads- doesn’t matter which. Run this wire to main GND on your esc- where your black power/battery wire is.
Solder a wire onto the “6 - 30v in” pad on the bec. Run this wire to the main BAT on your esc- where your red power/battery wire is.
Do NOT bridge the 9v pads on the esc. You want it to put out 5v.
You’re going to be left with a spare GND pad on the bec- you don’t need to connect it to anything. The GND pads on this bec are connected, and your flight controller is already connected to the same ground via the wiring harness.

Double check everything for shorts. Triple check everything for shorts. Cover the bec with heat shrink or electrical tape (if you want to use heat shrink you’ll need to slip that on prior to final wiring). Attach the bec somewhere safe with a zip tie or electrical tape.

Connect a short stopper, and plug in a battery. Your fc should now be powering up.

Something important to note is that the original 5v regulator could handle 2A, while this replacement can only handle 1.5A. What this means for you is that you don’t want to try to power everything under the sun from your fc- don’t run a bunch of power hungry leds, a high power vtx, a gps, and a buzzer all from the fc. If you overload this bec it will shut down- and if that happens in flight that means your fc shuts down.

Also, make sure you’re using a decent gauge wire to connect things.

---

Post pictures of your wiring prior to powering anything up.

That all makes total sense! Thank you so much! I'll attempt to get to it over the weekend, and yes, will post pics before powering up. But after reading your description, I have a new found excitement, and looking forward to giving it a go!

Thanks for the heads up about the 1.5A vs 2A rating as well.

Stay tuned!

Here's a photo of my BEC wired up. Can't find any obvious shorts with my mulitmeter (although it does beep at me as a FIRST touch ground to 6-30V in. I'm assuming that beep is due to the capacitor getting charged a bit. But the beep stops when I assume the capacitor discharges)

Is it recommended to plug everything in first while it's sitting on my bench in pieces to see if it powers on properly...or is it better to rebuild first?



In the photo, you'll notice the second wire from the wiring harness has been unplugged wired to the BEC. Hopefully the rest of the solder points are well enough visible in the photo.

I’m not seeing any obvious problems- plug it in on the bench but make sure that no board or wire can fall onto and hit another board or wire.

Make sure you use a short stopper, and cross your fingers.

If it doesn’t work, and you don’t get magic smoke, then we’ll talk about where else you can feed a 5v signal in.

As a side note, invest in some good flux paste.

I can’t tell if that ball of solder is on your desk or on the 5 - 9v out wire waiting to drop on a board.

(31-Jul-2022, 12:59 AM)Lemonyleprosy Wrote: I can’t tell if that ball of solder is on your desk or on the 5 - 9v out wire waiting to drop on a board.

Good eye on the solder ball. It was on my desk, but just verified.

As far as flux goes, I was using MGchemicals 835 Rosin Flux (the little brown bottle in the linked photo). It's more liquidy than pasty. Is that any good?

I'll start plugging things in and praying! And yes, I do have a smoke stopper, so will be sure to plug that in first.

I don’t see a bottle, but that is good flux. Make sure you clean it off afterwards with rubbing alcohol.

If I want liquid, I use mg 836lfnc (pretty damn close, but it’s a no clean lead free version). For paste I use mg 8341. It sits on the board much longer and tends to give me a better joint because of that. Since we’re talking about solder, (I only brought it up in the first place because a lot of beginners struggle with it), if you haven’t already, pick up a roll of Kester 63/37. I know it’s 3x as much as any other solder out there- and I resisted peoples advice for years about it, but good solder and good flux makes all the difference in the world.

Fingers crossed everything works for you.

I don’t know what time zone you’re in, so here’s what you need to know:

If after plugging everything in and powering it, you didn’t get any magic smoke and your fc still didn’t power up:
Then it’s not the 5v regulator on your esc that’s bad, it’s a 5v reg on the fc itself that is bad. So, you’ll want to remove that wire that you had going to the 5-9v out on the bec that you added, and instead run a wire from the 5-9v out on the bec to any 5v pad on the flight controller.

Well, I thought I was making progress...and looks like I probably screwed up again. Dammit!

Plugged the quad in, and it powered up great! Unplugged it, and tried it again a few times! All was good!

As I started rebuilding the quad one of the motor wires broke off its pad. So I soldered it back on. Kept going a little bit, and kept intermittently trying to power on the quad. After I had the motors mounted again, I tried powering up, and my smoke stopper lit up. I quickly as possible unplugged the quad, but a little smoke did come out.

As I look at my solder points again, esp. off the new BEC. Everything looks good. However, when I look at the new point off the motors, maybe this is where my short is.

I'm assuming I'm F'd at this point, and it's time to buy myself a new quad or replace the entire ESC board now? Thoughts? Attached you'll see the photo of where I think the short is.



Upper set of pads, third pad from the right. Is that totally F'd?

First of all, congratulations on a semi-successful repair. You took a board that wouldn’t power up and made it work again, that deserves some recognition.

I’m seeing a few issues that I’ve circled in red.

Going clockwise from the top:

12 o’clock position: that coloring looks a bit bad. Hard to tell from the picture, I really hope you didn’t burn out a fet on the esc. I don’t think you did- I think that might just be residual flux.

2 o’clock position: this is my biggest concern. I don’t know what those wires are going to, but you have a bunch of exposed wire Coming off of what looks like a red positive cable crossing over another Pad/cable connection.

7 o’clock position: are you missing a motor wire here?

9 o’clock position: you’re not using a large enough tip or a high enough temperature on your soldering iron for your main power wires. They take significantly more heat than a typical pad. This is where flux can really help, as well as maxing out the temp on your soldering iron.

I hate hearing that magic smoke came out, because yes, that means something is destroyed. Can’t tell you what without being there in person to test things. If you saw or smelled smoke, then yeah, most likely you’re going to need a new something. Maybe it’s not the esc or the fc, it could be whatever is connected to that 2 o’clock position- but it’s likely that whatever that is also fried something else when it shorted out.

You’ve got nothing to lose at this point by cleaning up those joints and trying to power it up again.

If everything powered up okay on the bench, then something touched something it shouldn’t have during reassembly.

If that is your bec tucked under the esc at the 2 o’clock position, did you remember to cover it in heat shrink or electrical tape to isolate it? I’m willing to bet that whatever that is, that’s what shorted out- because of that excess exposed wire, and potentially because whatever it is isn’t properly isolated from the esc and/or the frame.

You might be lucky and you just fried your bec, supposing that that positive wire just touched the ground and didn’t touch anything on your esc. In theory that bec is supposed to have some short protection, but, you said you saw smoke.

I don’t see anything obviously burnt on your esc.