Regulated Power Systems - Page 2
Simon Lockington

What does it all cost?
The following is a table comparing the cost of each component. These figures are in US dollars and are the figures advertised on the respective websites.

Figures taken from www.duralitebatteries.com, www.scottgrayrc.com and www.fromeco.org and are in US dollars.

Products as tested 

If we’re going to be accountants about all of this, it would appear that the Fromeco is cheaper than the Duralite. However, if we were going to do an apples with apples comparison and compare volt testers only (ie not with glow driver), then the following is a more fair comparison.

Product comparison

Best value for money is clearly the Duralite in both initial setup and subsequent per machine costs. The Fromeco isn’t far behind though, given I recommend you don’t buy the Fromeco charger (get another recommended one), that will take a fair amount off the bottom line. However the Reactor is a long away back at $149 just for the regulator…

Installation
I planned to install both systems into my Vigor CS to give them a trial. The Vigor had for years flown with a basic 2400mah Ni-Cad battery with a Futaba Heavy duty switch.

I had always thought the tail was not as invincible as that on some of the superstar’s helicopters. The 601, while being great, could be made to let go with a bit of persuasion. Not really what I wanted.

The old Vigor has done thousands of flights and was on it’s second set of servos which were also coming to the end of their lives (ie becoming sloppy and weaker), so in order to give the regulator systems a fair chance, I ordered some new Futaba 9255’s.

DURALITE
The first system to go into the Vigor was the Duralite regulator. The Duralite is nice and small which makes installation easy. However you’re constrained by the way in which you can mount it. The instructions dictate that you should not use cable ties to mount the regulator. If you’re going to use tape to mount it, you must be careful to not cover the ends of the regulator as this will prevent air circulation which helps keep the system cool.

Using double sided tape isn’t totally straight forward as there’s no dead flat surface on the regulator for the tape to adhere to. Instead it’s a slightly curved surface. However, if you’ve got quality double sided tape then you’ll be fine. That’s what I’ve done and there have been no problems as yet.

The battery was wrapped in foam and secured to the tray where the NiCad battery used to be as did the Heavy duty switch.

FROMECO
The first thing you have to deal with this regulator is it’s size. That big heat sink requires a bit of free space to mount!

After pondering mounting positions on the bench for a while, I worked out the regulator would fit great by mounting it vertically up against the front of the servo tray. I used some double sided tape for vibration absorption and then used cable ties through the mounting lugs to mount the system securely.

The gyro and rudder leads then have a short run from the gyro to the regulator making a nice, tidy install.

Fitting the pin switch wasn’t too bad, I also used some double sided tape and a cable tie to fix that to the frames.

However, disaster struck when it came to plugging everything in. It was my own stupid fault. I was quickly trying to get everything ready to head down to the field and test it out. In my hurry, I was plugging everything in and grabbed what I thought was the switch lead from the regulator and plugged it into the switch lead. As soon as I did it I thought I’d better check it. Checked it and found that I’d stupidly grabbed the ‘Check’ lead instead! The resulting short killed the switch and disabled the battery electronics.

Thankfully, it didn’t produce the small nuclear explosion I was fearing from these much hyped battery packs! This was totally my fault as the wires are clearly labeled too…

With the switch now disabled, we set about making our own from a Futaba Heavy Duty switch by ‘jumpering’ it using the methods described above. So far it’s worked great!

As discussed earlier, the Fromeco regulator is voltage adjustable from 4.9 to 6.25 volts.

Setting the voltage is a very simple exercise. There are two pins that look exactly like ‘jumper’ pins on hard drives. They are two short pins that are sticking out the side of the regulator. You short out the pins to change the voltage. To see the voltage values, you plug the 8 Ball into the regulator output and it will display the current voltage.

To adjust the regulator’s voltage, short the pins and the voltage will increment up until it reaches the maximum 6.25 volts. When it does, it starts decrementing until it reaches the minimum 4.9. Once you have the voltage you want, simply stop touching the pins! Very nice.

The Deans connectors with their heavy gauge wires connect the regulator to the battery pack.

REACTOR
Due to time constraints, the Reactor got installed in Andrew's Millennium. The battery selection allowed it to be packed under the radio tray and made almost invisible, and the reactor slotted in under the 601 controller. We have also installed one in a Vibe and found that the wires provided to carry the swash channels from the rx to the reactor don't reach to many places on the vibe, so some HiTec ones were used in that case.

The battery had some neoprene placed between it and the radio tray, and was secured with velcro. The same switch was used, so this turned out to be quite straight forward.

Regulator Connection Diagrams