Wondering if anyone know what type of indication you get if one battery fails? Are there any lights etc. to indicate a problem?

Thanks
Dave

No there are no indicators other than the loss of power from the output leads.

If you have a smart fly turbo reg with two batts connected and you lose one, the reg will switch to the good batt and power will continue to flow...

I am looking the same devise but it would be nice to know if you had a battery failure/issue on the post flight.

Bob

This is why you have 2 switches and check your batteries with something like a volt meter prior to each flight.

For A123 I'm not sure how you would check them if they failed, unless it was totatly dead

There is a separate charge lead for each battery that you should be using to test your batteries before you fly each flight.

I am looking for a a way to check the regulator function before or after flight. Aside from an inline voltmeter after the regulator, I am not aware of any such "alarm" on the Smartfly. I did like that the Gemini regulator (although for smaller planes) has a light for each "output" so you can tell at a glance if things are working...

I know I can check the battery with a load test, and I do that before each flight to check the batteries....

I wish Jetcat would just put a small generator device on the turbine so we could just switch to onbard power!

Dave

Dave,

Each turbo reg has two charging jacks. If you tap in to these jacks, it will give you the voltage PRE-regulator. I hook up two C-volts (no longer available) to see what the voltage of each pack is.

After switching to A123's I no longer use the turbo reg, as there is no need. The EQ-10 (and the other new Smart-Fly power systems) havea green light that indicates if the battery is hooked up, it will not however give you the voltage status. An on board volt meter, or checking with an external one, will be the best way to TRULY know. Even then, this will be while the battery is not under any true load so take that in to account too.

It's not IF, it's WHEN []

That is why I always check my batts with the 8-ball from Fromeco. It has a no load, 1 amp load and 1.5 amp load on the battery.

I see where Todd and Dreamworks is now offering a dual channel LCD voltmeter, as a replacement for the out-of-production C-Volt unit.

The power coming out of the Turbo Reg on the right and left side come from the same spot. If you have one battery unplugged both outputs are still powered. I am not sure what you want to check at that point.

Would you plug them in at the charging ports for each battery?

If by "them" you mean Voltmeters, Yes.

Dave yes there are input LED's for each battery. i have posted info from the instructions for the regulator.

Servo Power LEDs
The servo power LEDs show the servos are getting voltage greater than 5.4V.
If the regulator output drops below 5.4 volts the LEDs will go out. The most
probable cause of the regulator output going below 5.4 volts is that the voltage
at the inputs (Deans connectors) is going below 5.9 volts. Possible causes of
the inputs going below 5.9 volts would be low batteries, wiring that is not up to
handling the current causing excessive voltage drop or bad solder connections
on the connectors.


Receiver Power LEDs
The receiver power LEDs show the receiver is getting voltage greater than
4.75V. If the receiver regulator output voltage drops below 4.75 volts the
LEDs will go out. There are two possible causes of the receiver voltage going
below 4.75 volts. First the load the receiver is presenting to the regulator is
greater than one amp causing the regulator output to droop. This could be
caused by directly plugging something into the receiver that is overloading the
circuit. The second cause of the receiver regulator going below 4.75 volts is
the input voltage to the receiver regulator has dropped below 5.4 volts. This
means the input voltage on the Deans connectors is probably below 5.9 volts
for some reason.



Alan

He is asking about the trubo regs, not the power expander with the turbo reg built in...I think[&:]

Yes, I was thinking of the Turbo regulator in particular....but thanks for the continued information!
Dave