Afternoon People...

I was curious as to if there was some un-said thing to where one should NOT run any wires between the FC & the ESC????

Also, The wires that Im going to run & extend, Im going to re-use some non-conductive aluminum foil that was used to wrap a pair of wires that came in one of my X-Finity HDMI Cables. I was digging around looking for some of the same sized wires around my shop and had a bright idea to strip back an HDMI cable to see if in fact some of those wires were the same size, And to my surprise "They Absolutely Were".... And ironically enough they even were the same colors that I needed... So I used my meter to see if this "Tin Foil" was conducive, and in fact it is "NOT".

So I was like Hell Ya... I'll use that stuff to run my TBS 69 to the FC, and use the same to run the camera, and then un-peel the "Tin Foil" if you will, and wrap the wires for my New "HGLRC M100-5883" GPS...

Stupid Idea??????

What's your opinion on the GPS I just bought???  Garbage????

Any thoughts on using that non-conductive aluminum foil, (if you will) to encase the above wires, and probably the GPS and other misc wires??


Thanks for the Input...

I'm not sure about wrapping wires in a non-conductive metalised foil. I doubt it'll do much good. I use micro coax for my camera feeds and I simply twist thin power wires. I don't do anything special with things like uarts etc. I do shield my VTXes if they are not factory shielded and I always have an extra small low ESR cap for them.

I think the biggest source of interference in quads is not the radiated interference (except for the GPS, and VTX), but conducted interference from the ESC. Using nice low ESR capacitor is to me much more important than shielding FC-ESC wires. One pro tip is to use hot glue on plugs and pads, then use a drop of IPA to detach it when needed.

About the GPS, I'm interested in opinions too. M10 is supposed to be pretty fast and resilient.If it gets good reviews I might buy some for myself.

You might be able to do shielding with ground wires, but I honestly have never considered it for a quad.  

A post on this thread from RCG has one pretty good post about isolation and shielding.

Electro 2 Wrote:Yes. I shield *all* flight electronics from all other flight electronics, without fail. Includes FCs, ESCs, GPS RX, mag sensors, RC RX, camera(s), VTX, TM TX, lighting controllers, and whatever else you've got onboard. I generally fab shelves for all items from copper-clad circuit board material, or CF sheet, but the AL foil will work, too. Keep in mind this is is a effective shield for an electric field, and not a magnetic field. If you want to kill any mag-compass-effecting magnetic fields, you'd have to use Mu-metal of some stripe, but sheer distance is more practical due to weight considerations.

One thing you can do, which Luk5569 touched on, is twist your power wires together.  Also decent caps is a thing.  I like Panasonic caps.  I tend to use micro sized 8-25V 100uf caps for power smoothing on 2-3S quads, mainly on the XT30 connector, not the FC side.  But I have done them on the FC side too, but would probably go with a 470uf if doing that.  On a 6S, try 35V 1000uf or round about there.

In days gone by with single esc modules (wired to a PDB), you could run a cap on each ESC, as well as the power lead side.  Something else I suggested to someone the other week was dropping a really small cap on to the 5V BEC circuit and seeing if that smoothed the power, but his issue was a lot of interference through his VTX.

Anyway you have some ideas to experiment with.  If you get bored, this presentation is worth a read.

https://www.ti.com/lit/ml/sllp108/sllp10...7360926353

(07-Feb-2024, 03:09 PM)Luk5569 Wrote: I'm not sure about wrapping wires in a non-conductive metalized foil. I doubt it'll do much good. I use micro coax for my camera feeds and I simply twist thin power wires. I don't do anything special with things like uarts etc. I do shield my if they are not factory shielded and I always have an extra small low ESR cap for them.

I think the biggest source of interference in quads is not the radiated interference (except for the GPS, and VTX), but conducted interference from the ESC. Using nice low ESR capacitor is to me much more important than shielding FC-ESC wires. One pro tip is to use hot glue on plugs and pads, then use a drop of IPA to detach it when needed.

About the GPS, I'm interested in opinions too. M10 is supposed to be pretty fast and resilient.If it gets good reviews I might buy some for myself.

"and I always have an extra small low ESR cap for them"....

Im a tad confused, When mentioning adding a small ESR cap, Are you sayying you add an "Additional" cap to the equation?
or
Are you just referring to using a 1000uf 35V Cap inline with the XT90?

And I also am looking for ANY & All feedback on this GPS I picked up (HGLRC M100-5883)

Thanks....

ALSO - Dose Anyone have a TPU file that has the Cap along side of the XD90 plug????

I've found something similar but its for XT60. I could alter the design using Cure, But was just seeing if anyone had a file handy..

-Thx



     

(08-Feb-2024, 04:11 AM)Pathfinder075 Wrote: You might be able to do shielding with ground wires, but I honestly have never considered it for a quad.  

A post on this thread from RCG has one pretty good post about isolation and shielding.


One thing you can do, which Luk5569 touched on, is twist your power wires together.  Also decent caps is a thing.  I like Panasonic caps.  I tend to use micro sized 8-25V 100uf caps for power smoothing on 2-3S quads, mainly on the XT30 connector, not the FC side.  But I have done them on the FC side too, but would probably go with a 470uf if doing that.  On a 6S, try 35V 1000uf or round about there.

In days gone by with single esc modules (wired to a PDB), you could run a cap on each ESC, as well as the power lead side.  Something else I suggested to someone the other week was dropping a really small cap on to the 5V BEC circuit and seeing if that smoothed the power, but his issue was a lot of interference through his VTX.

Anyway you have some ideas to experiment with.  If you get bored, this presentation is worth a read.

https://www.ti.com/lit/ml/sllp108/sllp10...7360926353

Great Thought Bro.. And Thx for the Input..

Question, You mentioned " but his issue was a lot of interference through his VTX"..

And ide & his a what he was using for a FC/ESC & VTX (Im using that "TBS Sixty 9" for right now)

Also, My 1000uf / 35V Cap is a straight up China MaGill-A-Cutty "HUAHONG CD110".......        

Now you got me thinking about if I need to pick up a better quality cap from Tim-Buck-Too and wait another 4/5 days to finish...
Seems like its always somethiung...

FYI: Evan like at this moment, I watching my UPS Driver's route, waiting for him to make his way to my house to drop off my Antenna Male-->Female connectors...lol

As to your GPS, I don't know, never used one so I only know what I've seen from the likes of Mr Bardwell and various other videos I've watched for no good reason.  If I had to use one I would see what's popular and buy one of those.  I think mainly it's BN180 and BN220 based chips that the vast majority of people use.  But I saw a BN880 that was a little bit more and came with a built in compass.  So I would probably use that one.  It was like £7 more and also Beitian.  For recommendations, maybe ask someone on here who flies long range, like GiantAntCowboy.  People who fly LR demand parts that are reliable, so I would ask someone who has that experience for advice.  Unfortunately the number of LR people on this board seems to be dwindling.  Very few post on any regular basis.

So if you get another cap (and if you do I would get a few in sizes that might suit future builds), you ideally want Panasonic Ultra Low ESR caps.  The guy I use is at this link, but don't order from him unless you live in the UK.  Find someone nearer to you.  But size your caps accordingly.  If you fly 6S, then 35V minimum and 1000uf or 1500uf.  I don't fly anything that big so i mostly use 100uf and 470uf in the smaller voltage ranges, according to what i'm building (mostly 2S and 3S, so 10V and 16V).

The VTX with the interference, no idea which thread, one from a couple of weeks back maybe. I post a lot. He had the dreaded white lines in his video feed. most likely a dirty power issue. i tend to throw at least one cap on when i get that. like on a recent build I was fed up with it all so I put a lead on without the cap and the video feed had a lot of noise in it, especially when hitting the throttle. Throw a 100uf cap on it and the noise disappears. Though this doesn't really relate to a full dropout of signal during short range testing. For me that is a disconnected antenna most of the time. I once had a cheap linear antenna fall out of a vtx and i flew that for another couple of minutes before the signal got so bad I lost it, I was only flying maybe a hundred metres away at most at a complex bando, but normally doing that will burn out a VTX, but that HM VTX still works without a fault.

(09-Feb-2024, 12:50 AM)Pathfinder075 Wrote: As to your GPS, I don't know, never used one so I only know what I've seen from the likes of Mr Bardwell and various other videos I've watched for no good reason.  If I had to use one I would see what's popular and buy one of those.  I think mainly it's BN180 and BN220 based chips that the vast majority of people use.  But I saw a BN880 that was a little bit more and came with a built in compass.  So I would probably use that one.  It was like £7 more and also Beitian.  For recommendations, maybe ask someone on here who flies long range, like GiantAntCowboy.  People who fly LR demand parts that are reliable, so I would ask someone who has that experience for advice.  Unfortunately the number of LR people on this board seems to be dwindling.  Very few post on any regular basis.

So if you get another cap (and if you do I would get a few in sizes that might suit future builds), you ideally want Panasonic Ultra Low ESR caps.  The guy I use is at this link, but don't order from him unless you live in the UK.  Find someone nearer to you.  But size your caps accordingly.  If you fly 6S, then 35V minimum and 1000uf or 1500uf.  I don't fly anything that big so i mostly use 100uf and 470uf in the smaller voltage ranges, according to what i'm building (mostly 2S and 3S, so 10V and 16V).

The VTX with the interference, no idea which thread, one from a couple of weeks back maybe. I post a lot.  He had the dreaded white lines in his video feed.  most likely a dirty power issue.  i tend to throw at least one cap on when i get that.  like on a recent build I was fed up with it all so I put a lead on without the cap and the video feed had a lot of noise in it, especially when hitting the throttle.  Throw a 100uf cap on it and the noise disappears.  Though this doesn't really relate to a full dropout of signal during short range testing.  For me that is a disconnected antenna most of the time.  I once had a cheap linear antenna fall out of a vtx and i flew that for another couple of minutes before the signal got so bad I lost it, I was only flying maybe a hundred metres away at most at a complex bando, but normally doing that will burn out a VTX, but that HM VTX still works without a fault.

Ill definatley keep that in mind, and your LR perspectives. Im also gonna look and see if I cant PM that LR Kat you spoke of "GiantAntCowboy", and pick his brain a little bit...
His screen name has me wondering where he's from...lol (If I had to guess on his screen name alone, Id probably say...... Maybe Arizona, or even possibly Colorado...lol)

Thanks for the Feedback Brother...

-Later

(08-Feb-2024, 11:01 PM)Coleon Wrote: "and I always have an extra small low ESR cap for them"....

Im a tad confused, When mentioning adding a small ESR cap, Are you sayying you add an "Additional" cap to the equation?
or
Are you just referring to using a 1000uf 35V Cap inline with the XT90?

I add an additional physically smaller one right next to the VTX. So lets say your primary cap is 1000uF 35V in parallel with the XT90. 

The small cap I'm talking about will be 47uF 15V Low ESR Laguer, or Jammicon (If I'm powering the VTX with a BEC, up the voltage to 35V if powering directly from VBat).  I have quite a few caps that are 5x11mm and I attach them as close to the VTX power leads as possible.This is especially important with the Chinese TS58XX line of VTXses, tiny lightweight VTXses like TBS unify nano. I found with good quality large power VTXes like TBS Unify Pro HV this isn't that important, but I'm still getting a better picture with it. It is important not to leave the cap flapping in the wind. There are these TPU mounts for your primary cap. I tend to use transparent heat shrink to attach the cap to the VTX. The wires between the cap and the VTX should be as short as possible.

This is by no means a requirement. For example I wouldn't try that on a tinywhoop, but if you have good quality VTX, a nice 1200TVL camera, a high bandwidth VRX and goggles you might see a big difference. I know I do. 

I noticed these days it is very difficult to buy low voltage (15V etc) low ESR through hole high quality caps, but you can buy SMD and add your own leads, but the SMD caps are usually shorter and fatter which is not ideal for mounting.

Hi Cole,

WOW, this is a very interesting thread. So, just thought I would toss in my 2 cents.

Ah, where to start? How about the GPS shielding. Yeah, I tried all different forms,
types, and methods of GPS shielding. The short answer to it is DON'T. Regardless
of the type or method, it always adversely affected the GPS (in a bad way). So, I
quit that and don't do it. If you want the best reception possible for the GPS,
then mount it high; as high as feasible for you. I generally mount mine to the
rear but use long standoff columns above the top deck plate to raise the GPS
20mm or more. I could have gone higher, but this length worked well for me
and I don't have any issues with GPS reception. 

As for brands, I use Matek the most because they are reliable and durable.
Most brands will work (more or less), the Beitian brand does work, but it is 
not very durable. A couple of good crashes and you will likely be replacing it.
I did a lot of research before I started using GPS modules and keep coming
back to Matek. Yes, they are not cheap, however, they work well. I guess it
depends on how you view it. 

Now, I run all analog gear and that stuff is affected by electronic "noise".
I do twist the camera to FC wires and sometimes the FC to VTX wires.
In reality, I can't seem to tell the difference with twisting them or not.
I do run a "big" capacitor on the battery leads. I don't run any gear that
will take more than 3S so that is my max cell count. For these quads, I 
use a 35V 1000 uf capacitor on the main battery leads. That is all. It seems
to work fine. I have thought about adding a second, smaller, capacitor on
the 5V rail which powers the VTX, Camera, and GPS, but have not yet tried
that. 

A word about capacitors. The voltage rating can be anything over the 
voltage of the battery, so if you can't find a 15V then use a 25V it will be
just as good or better. Also, the uf value is NOT locked in stone. This is
merely a measure of how much electrical energy that the capacitor can
absorb. Of course, bigger weighs more and we all like lighter weight, 
Right? There is much more information, but that is beyond the scope
of this post. I think there is a thread just on capacitors.

Also, there is the concept of keeping the capacitor leads as short as possible.
Well, if they are too short, the casing of the capacitor which has negative
polarity gets too close to the positive battery lead connection and can cause
an "arc" or even a short circuit. The leads CAN be extended with wire, just
use a heavier gauge wire; 20 AWG is normally fine. How long of wire? Well,
that depends on who you ask. My leads are generally from 1 to 2 inches
(or less than 50mm). Again, I am not locked into that and have used wires
that are longer and even put the cap on a connector. Anyway, use a cap 
and a big one if you are comfortable with it. 

Besides the above, I do NO other attempt at shielding. So far, nothing that
I have tried has actually done any better than not having it. If it does not
have a positive effect that I can actually see and benefit from, then it is
simply NOT worth doing. 

I did read that long, technical, link. There is a lot of information there, 
however, I struggle to find the relevance to quad building and shielding. 
For me, it is less about being technical and more about being both effective
in our use case and practical. If there is some tiny little "noise" that I can
not see or "feel" then, it doesn't really matter to me. I weigh the actual
effect and value. Does it make a real difference?  Just me, I guess.

Later, iFly  

(10-Feb-2024, 01:35 AM)iFly4rotors Wrote: Hi Cole,

WOW, this is a very interesting thread. So, just thought I would toss in my 2 cents.

Ah, where to start? How about the GPS shielding. Yeah, I tried all different forms,
types, and methods of GPS shielding. The short answer to it is DON'T. Regardless
of the type or method, it always adversely affected the GPS (in a bad way). So, I
quit that and don't do it. If you want the best reception possible for the GPS,
then mount it high; as high as feasible for you. I generally mount mine to the
rear but use long standoff columns above the top deck plate to raise the GPS
20mm or more. I could have gone higher, but this length worked well for me
and I don't have any issues with GPS reception. 

As for brands, I use Matek the most because they are reliable and durable.
Most brands will work (more or less), the Beitian brand does work, but it is 
not very durable. A couple of good crashes and you will likely be replacing it.
I did a lot of research before I started using GPS modules and keep coming
back to Matek. Yes, they are not cheap, however, they work well. I guess it
depends on how you view it. 

Now, I run all analog gear and that stuff is affected by electronic "noise".
I do twist the camera to FC wires and sometimes the FC to VTX wires.
In reality, I can't seem to tell the difference with twisting them or not.
I do run a "big" capacitor on the battery leads. I don't run any gear that
will take more than 3S so that is my max cell count. For these quads, I 
use a 35V 1000 uf capacitor on the main battery leads. That is all. It seems
to work fine. I have thought about adding a second, smaller, capacitor on
the 5V rail which powers the VTX, Camera, and GPS, but have not yet tried
that. 

A word about capacitors. The voltage rating can be anything over the 
voltage of the battery, so if you can't find a 15V then use a 25V it will be
just as good or better. Also, the uf value is NOT locked in stone. This is
merely a measure of how much electrical energy that the capacitor can
absorb. Of course, bigger weighs more and we all like lighter weight, 
Right? There is much more information, but that is beyond the scope
of this post. I think there is a thread just on capacitors.

Also, there is the concept of keeping the capacitor leads as short as possible.
Well, if they are too short, the casing of the capacitor which has negative
polarity gets too close to the positive battery lead connection and can cause
an "arc" or even a short circuit. The leads CAN be extended with wire, just
use a heavier gauge wire; 20 AWG is normally fine. How long of wire? Well,
that depends on who you ask. My leads are generally from 1 to 2 inches
(or less than 50mm). Again, I am not locked into that and have used wires
that are longer and even put the cap on a connector. Anyway, use a cap 
and a big one if you are comfortable with it. 

Besides the above, I do NO other attempt at shielding. So far, nothing that
I have tried has actually done any better than not having it. If it does not
have a positive effect that I can actually see and benefit from, then it is
simply NOT worth doing. 

I did read that long, technical, link. There is a lot of information there, 
however, I struggle to find the relevance to quad building and shielding. 
For me, it is less about being technical and more about being both effective
in our use case and practical. If there is some tiny little "noise" that I can
not see or "feel" then, it doesn't really matter to me. I weigh the actual
effect and value. Does it make a real difference?  Just me, I guess.

Later, iFly  

Super Valid......