I believe that I have searched every post on the internet related to the Power Brick Mini, and there are two questions that I can not seem to find the answer to:
1.Will the PB Mini provide current sensing to the Cube? There are multiple threads on this forum that dead end with this question, but never an answer…
Additionally- from what I understand an RFD 900x can not be run at full power (1 Watt/30dbm) through the telemetry port on the Cube, regardless of the power supply feeding the Cube. RFD 900x draws ~800ma at full power. Can anybody confirm.
I have Mauch v-regs and sensor hardware, and I understand that is a better way to go. But as I have a large pile of these PB minis ( I have purchased several dozen cubes at this point). I would love to know what the specs are and why I have never been able to get a current reading out of them. Another strange behavior that I see is increases in voltage readings (from PB mini) displayed on Mission planner and QGC when under load.
Any thoughts on this would be most appreciated. Thank you for your time.
Note: params as follows
Batt_Monitor, 4
Batt_Curr_pin, 3
Batt_Volt_pin, 1
First of all what Cube because the Pin’s are different, at the bottom of the power module selection you can Select the Cube Model is Black or Yellow/Orange.
Yes it will read both voltage and current and should just work as long as you select HV module and then the correct Cube, Voltage and Current. .
Ian,
Thanks for your reply.
I have both black and orange cubes. I understand there is a HW type field in the setup>optional>battery monitor screen.
With the Black cube, I’m able to set the following:
Monitor- Analog Voltage and current
Sensor- 7.Cube HV Power Module
HW Ver- 4.The Cube or Pixhawk
This does not provide accurate voltage or a current reading
With the Orange, I attempt to set the following:
Monitor- Analog Voltage and current
Sensor- 7. Cube HV Power Module
HW Ver- 8. Cube Orange
This leads to a frustrating situation where those setting refuse to save. Every time I click over to flight data tab to see if there is a V and C reading, there is no battery data at all. After clicking back over to the Setup tab, the battery monitor config has reverted to:
Monitor- Analog Voltage and Current
Sensor- 0: Other
HW Ver- blank
When I look in the parameters the config is correct, but the setup>Battery monitor will not retain the correct settings. No battery data is ever displayed in the Data tab.
I have seen posts describing this same scenario, but can not see any resolution described anywhere.
*Mission Planner and Arduplane firmware are current from a few days ago.
Thanks again for any input you may have
Also, I have tried rebooting the cube after making changes in the battery monitor fields, no change.
I was able to get mine working. It will not really show anything until you get up close to 10amps and greater.
It seems like performing a boot loader update made some type of difference for me, although this doesn’t make any sense to me. It could just be coincidence. I was informed of the need to update the boot loader on the Orange Cubes so i went ahead and did this on all my Orange and Black. The battery monitor screen in the setup menu is still buggy, as the hardware type setting won’t stay populated, but the info does seem to retain in the param file (voltage and current pin).
*Note, I’m able to connect to power 1 and get readings now, still not sure what was going on before…
Jake,
I believe the purple is the same as a black without the redundant sensors. If you select the pins for the Black voltage and current sense, I think that will work for you.
Check this thread for more info on the battery monitor for the black:
It seems like there is some weird stuff going on, lot’s of folks are having trouble getting this to work. Maybe somebody who knows the details better than I do will chime in.
