TBS Powercube

nilsen

Senior Member
Hi Folks,

I recently wrote here about my struggles with the 5 broken KISS esc's and 3 fires because of them (and minor crashes) and I am always on the hunt for a cleaner build so when I saw the TBS powercube I was sold.

At ~150$ it's not cheap but that is the F3 based FC, 4 ESC's and the DC-DC converter which powers the VTX and camera for a very clean build.

Powercube stack
MXP230-2.jpg

This along with the MicroRX for the Crossfire have made for such a clean build with small parts, it's fantastic.

SBUS to the FC
MXP230-3.jpg

With the motors and arms attached.
MXP230-4.jpg

From the back
MXP230-6.jpg

Form the top with ESC's connected.

MXP230-7.jpg

The camera and VTX plug directly into the DC-DC converter on the bottom layer meaning VTX and CAM aren't connected to each other but pass through the powercube.

The battery connectes to the powercube directly as well.

This means there are 4 "accessory" wires:
1. buzzer
2. RX
3. Cam
4. VTX

And then of course the Battery and the ESC wires.

I also took the opportunity to change from the Lumenier 2206-2350 KV motors to the 2204-2300KV motors which are rated for 4s and are much lighter (I didn't want to, it's just that the last 2 KISS "outages" killed 2 motors and the other 2 were pretty beaten up).

I haven't had a chance to fly yet but the motors are super silent when spinning, much like the KISS, apparently the ESC's are running a custom version of simonK but can be flashed via cleanflight directly so I could put BLHeli on them if I wanted to.

Here is a blurry pic I took before work with my phone:

photo109029055230225828.jpg

More to come.
 

jipp

Senior Member
each one of them plates i assume are a PDB, ESC,FC, and voltage regulator? looks like a bunch of PDB/FC stacked up.. interesting.

chris.
 

nilsen

Senior Member
each one of them plates i assume are a PDB, ESC,FC, and voltage regulator? looks like a bunch of PDB/FC stacked up.. interesting.

chris.

Hey Chris,

Each plate is another component in the stack, the bottom one is the DCDC regulator which also has the battery input and the VTX and Cam plugs. The next 4 are the 4 ESC's, from the bottom, 4,3,2,1, The top one is the Flight controller.

The smart thing is the interconnecting pins to transfer "data" and the power is carried by the corner pegs alternating positive and negative.
 

Cyberdactyl

Misfit Multirotor Monkey
Looks interesting. I'm always looking for a way to get power and control in the smallest volume as possible for a new type of racer.
 

MototechRyan

Wannabe Jedi
Yeah thats really cool. The only thing I don't like about it is the bare copper nuts carrying the pos and neg batt voltage. I work with alot of plated copper busbars and hqbe seen what the environment can do to bare copper with current running thru it. Not really a problem in a quad, its just me and my preference.

This inspires me to try a different mounting location for the esc's on the qav180 I'm building. Really digging your quad so far Mr. nilsen. Cant wait to see how she turns out and flies:cool:

Edit in: I think $150 is a great price considering what you get and the cost of buying those parts separately.
 
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Tmarter

New member
Thats really interesting...pretty good idea stacking stacking circuits...how is the weight distribution?

I'd almost see if it were possible to just relocate the flight controller to be in the center on like a platform hanging from underneath the top plate, scoot the cube forward a little, and slide a high discharge 3s a little behind it on the lower frame plate...if you could center the mass as close as possible on the lower plate, I couldn't Imagine how agile it would be, being how small it looks. With a 4s it has to be unbelievably fast regardless...

Even still, thats a pretty cool concept.
 

nilsen

Senior Member
So all has been well with the MXP and the powercube but I was one of the early adopters and the first few batches aren't conformaly coated including mine.

I was flying and had a little crash in some snow and I stopped flying and took it home to dry, however after testing it out ESC 3 instantly fried my new 2204-2300kv Lumenier motor :(

So I ordered a replacement ESC, which arrived quickly, it's 25 CHF (about 26 USD) so not cheap, but it was simply a matter of taking out the broken one and replacing with the new one in the stack, I also took the opportunity to confomally coat all of the other parts in the stack.

Anyway, the new motors haven't arrived but I had some 2206-2350kv lumenier motors from my previous QAV build and I really wanted to fly...

YES it works with mismatched motors, probably not the best but I didn't notice any difference. The only thing was that the 2206 gets slightly warm where the 2204 stay cold.

So if you're in a pinch you can always use similar motors, they don't HAVE to be the same :)
 

nilsen

Senior Member
I put the MXP on a diet as with battery and foxeer the thing weighed waaaay too much.

I decided to put it on a diet:

Before
DSC_0077.JPG

After
DSC_0078.JPG

After with stuff
DSC_0079.JPG

I got rod of the bullets, trimmed down the battery lead and got rid of some "misc" stuff.

The thing is that it is still too heavy hence the purchase of the new "graphene" batteries.

Anyway, the powercube.

In windows I just couldn't flash betaflight and also couldn't calibrate the ESC's and I think that the ESC's weren't properly calibrated for the top end, it just didn't have the punch.

I managed to flash Betaflight and also managed to calibrate the ESC's using CF config so hopefully I'll be able to test this weekend if it made any difference.
 

nilsen

Senior Member
I had a chance to fly with the ligher setup this weekend but I was not happy at all with Betaflight when I compared it to the "stock" cleanflight I had before. The airmode was kind of spungy and I think that you would have to adjust your flying style if you wanted to use it more. Anyway it is obviously a tuning issue but I hate doing it so I went back to celanflight with my previous PID's and it's locked in and flies very nicely.
 

Vertigo_FPV

Junior Member
Hi Nilsen,

May I ask how you calibrated the Powercube escs? I'm still new to the hardware, and haven't had any luck calibrating them myself.

Thanks!