Bluerov2 Modified source of power

Third Party Products Power Supplies
1

Hi there.

I’m using a Bluerov2, and I replaced the battery with a 500W / 15V power supply (RPS-500-MEAN WELL Switching Power Supply Manufacturer). It works fine, but when I get to 50 or more GAIN and I use the hole motors, it shuts down itself and then recover…

Have some advice of how can I solve this issue?

I’m using 4.0.3 and companion 0.28

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2

Hi @Anrriu,

There are two possible causes for this:

  1. insufficient powering of the onboard computer
  2. regenerative braking from the ESCs

Even if only one is happening right now, I would recommend reading through both links because they are both important to know about when using a custom supply and high thrust levels.

3

Hey @Anrriu
That’s a good power supply and a common problem in that power range. It is indeed a lack of maximum power. 500W is enough power that a normal battery would be depleted in 20 to 30 min. However, there is almost no “buffer” in the system and as soon as you try and pull over 500W it will reset the supply.
Here are 4 things you can do to mitigate the problem:

  1. Put in a smaller separate power supply for the raspberry pi/pixhawk/Fathom-X only. About 20W such as the following will do the trick https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/mean-well-usa-inc/IRM-20-5/7704667 The ESCs will reset if they lose power, but they automatically come right back up a second later after the load is removed and the power supply comes back.
  2. Drop the power supply voltage. Just running 4 thrusters at full power, you’ll need over 1kW at 15V. Replace the 15V supply with 12V and consider adjusting the voltage up or down slightly as needed (maybe about 10 to 11V).
  3. Add some super capacitors to the 5V power for the Pi/Pixhawk/Navigator/Fathom. This is another topic, but it’s possible to get a good 10 to seconds of telemetry power easily and we have used this in the past.
  4. Get a bigger power supply. We used to run 500W supplies on modified Blue ROVs, but then switched to 600W 12V and it’s much easier to control it. We comfortably fly with up to 70% gain, no problem. To get to 100%, either buy a larger supply like the Outland, or go to a very low voltage like 10VDC.
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