coffeemug

My Feedback: (6)

The 10 amp Align esc I have indicates I will be pushing it by using 3 servos with a 3 cell lipo. The amperage that the HS55 servos that I plan to use (according to Hitech) go like this;

IDLE CURRENT: 5.4mA / 5.5mA
RUNNING CURRENT: 150mA / 180mA

Align 10 amp...
ā—¸BEC output: Max current 1A
2 cells Lithium/6~7 Ni-Mh cells=>3servos
3 cells Lithium/8~9 Ni-Mh cells=>2servos

I'd like would like to stick with using a 3 cell lipo. Is this too risky?

Matt Kirsch

My Feedback: (21)

I am sure there are people successfully using 3 servos with such a small ESC. From the sounds of it, even with all three servos moving, you'd hardly be using half the capacity of the BEC (not counting receiver overhead). But, who knows if that 1A rating is with 2 cells or 3. Who knows if that's regulated or pre-regulated capacity...

The reason for the limitation is that the higher voltage requires the regulator to burn off more electricity to get the voltage down to 5V. It's using more of its capacity for regulating, which means less is available to provide power to the servos.

It's a tough call whether you want to buck the system or not... All I can say is that I've done it in the past, and it's worked, but who knows what kind of damage I'm doing...

coffeemug

My Feedback: (6)

Thanks Matt. I hear ya about doing damage, and I kinda hate those grey areas... I hadn't considered the possibility of doing damage to the electronics. I was only thinking in vague terms of crashing.

There is a lesson in this for me anyway; Had I not tried to save money and bought a product from a manufactuer such as Castle Creations, (they make themselves available to the public) I could have gotten direct support. Thank God there are these forums to bounce questions around (and people generous enough with their time to answer them.)

-Nick

coffeemug

My Feedback: (6)

As an afterthough I posed my question to C. Creations just to see and here's what I got (and permission to quote, and this pertains to their Phoenix-10);


Nick,

With a 3s lipo pack you can run up to 4 HS-55s with a P-10. You might be able to get away with 5 but I would test the system on the ground by putting a load on all control surfaces and cycling them all for a couple of minutes to see if the BEC overheats. The only problem you would have with 4 servos is if you were using cheap Asian servos which can draw three time what an HS-55 draws or if you use digital servos which are power pigs.

Bernie