Runcam Split Power Source

[ghainjr1]

How is everyone powering the Runcam? Have mine on the Scout, do I use a separate battery or use the flight battery? Thank you in advance, Greg

 

[ElectriSean]

The split needs 650mA at 5V, so you'll need a BEC to power it. Depending on your ESC, the built in one may be able to do it, or you can go with something cheap like this: https://www.banggood.com/DC-DC-Conv...lane-FPV-p-981978.html?p=HR290766671852016094

 

[Scott594]

Most flight controllers with F3, F4 and F7 processors (made in the last year or two) have inbuilt 5v regulators (BEC), and will do fine as long as it's capable of supplying adequate current. Most have a 3a rating. To be sure (add up all things you have connected to the 5V supply (Video camera, VTX etc, but most of those run on battery voltage either directly or thru a filter) and allow about 25% safety margin.

Even the older designs utilize a PDB (Power Distribution Board) and these typically have 5 and 12v regulators. Even older (going back to F1 Naze & other F1 designs, quite obsolete for a while now) were usually used with a generic PDB which has a 5V output.

Make sure you read up on the SPLIT, as it has the unfortunate tendency to backfeed power from your 5v source into the USB connection. It CANNOT be connected to USB with a battery in the quad. (be careful not to confuse USB connectors when plugging in your FC, it's easy to do - I painted the split connector Red) This problem has been fixed on the new (V2) Split, which addresses a lot of the problems with the 1st version. Also make sure you install the newer firmware which fixes some issues including the full screen "Card Full" warning

I've got one running on a Kakute F4 and it works great this way, it stops and starts recording when you connect and disconnect the battery, so it's very convenient. Video feed HD and sound are great.

A separate BEC is rarely needed on a miniquad if it's F3 or F4

 

[makattack]

Since you're using this on a fixed wing plane, and assuming you have a ESC with a built-in BEC that's connected to your RX and servos, if you check to see that ESC's BEC is rated high enough (say 3A for example) you should be able to just connect the power from the BEC (5V) to the Runcam Split.

You'll just want to make sure that the BEC is beefy enough, as I mentioned earlier, especially since you'll be powering your servos from it as well.

You could either rig up a wiring harness to connect the 5V and GND from any extra pins on your RX to the camera.

Also, if you have FPV equipment such as a VTX, some of them have regulated 5V output designed to power 5V cameras.

 

[LitterBug]

I prefer a separate 5V BEC. Last thing you want is to have a brownout on your FPV video feed and also loose your HD recording if you have a stalled or rogue servo. Better safe than sorry. I also don't want to overload the BEC on my FC. 3A on a FC is probably the MAX rating, not the sustained rating. again, better safe than sorry.

Cheers!
LitterBug

 

[ghainjr1]

Thanks for all the info everyone. Really appreciate it. Greg

 

[sprzout]

For those of you using the RunCam Split - anyone have a problem with lag? The only person I know who's used one was a guy at my field that I ran into a few weeks ago who said that he was running the Split and it had slight lag compared to his RunCam Eagle...Considering I'm not doing racing with it, but more using my FPV camera for freestyle, it might not be that bad for me, but I kinda wanted the opinion of others on it...

 

[LitterBug]

I have not noticed lag, but my eyes and reflexes are pretty old. I wonder if it is dependent on the camera firmware version, SD card, or recording mode being used.

Cheers!
LitterBug


EDIT: Here is a writeup with mention about latency and comparison to Eagle : https://oscarliang.com/runcam-split-camera/

 

[ghainjr1]

I haven't been able to test it out yet. Sitting on the bench with everything right in front of me , I see no lag. But thats the as far as I have got so far.