ORIGINAL: opjose
I ordered the "Type 3" one as it purports to have a jumper to enable/disable the external power. It should arrive any day as I did receive a confirmation of sending, e-mail.
Given the 300mAh rating of the internal battery and that LiPo's should never be fully discharged, I think it would be safe to say that the camera draws between 120 to 180mA which is in line with the two servo comment...
I was able to get the camera to record for well over 35 minutes the other day, at which point I lost interest.
The USB transfer is painfully slow though and from now one I'll merely pop the SD card into a reader instead.
Re: Standby
That would be a show stopper. I'll have to check mine as I've not really looked at the timeout.
Hi there guys
Just noticed this thread - your interface should be with you in the next day or so Jose :-)
Regarding the FCO2 power consumption when fed with 5V on pin 4 (relative to pin 3 which is GND) I did some bench test measurements here with the FCO2 and the current drawn is between 250mA and 350mA depending on the state of charge of the internal LIPO and the mode you are in. Strangely, the FCO2 current draw in standby mode (ie display reading 'VR') is only 20-30mA less than in record mode (display blinking). Either way, 350mA worst-case is a fair bit extra for a lightweight radio ESC and you should definitely be sure your BEC in the ESC can supply the extra current on top of the normal servo load or you risk the chance of losing your Rx supply with obvious consequences...
As you correctly point out, the CurveRC interface type 3 has a jumper so you can enable/disable the power to the FCO2 via the servo red wire. This way you can choose whether to load the Rx supply or not. Alternatively, the type 2 interface has a separate wire pair to allow you to connect your own 5V supply (ie separate BEC off the main Lipo or perhaps simply a 4.8V flight pack in a glider). If you're happy to just charge the FCO2 first and keep things simple then the standard interface (type 1) is the one to go for.
Have been getting some nice results with my FCO2 setup and the remote interface over here in the UK with some unusually nice weather this week - have a look at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4j3ORmk5go
Jason
www.curverc.co.uk