Possible to use high voltage servos with Cube Black standard carrier board?

Help & Support Robot Parts
1

Is it possible power with 7.4 volts the servo rail on the standard carrier board supplied with the Pixhawk Black Cube? I know it is possible with current ADS-B carrier board but my question is about the older standard carrier board. I would like to use high voltage (7.4 v) servos.

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2

Hi @MartiSK and welcome to the forum.

According to this datasheet, The Cube Black — Copter documentation, it says:

  • Servo rail high-power (7 V) and high-current ready
3

Thank you. There is conflicting information available.
From this web page: Hex Cube (Pixhawk 2) · PX4 v1.9.0 User Guide

“Normal Operation Maximum Ratings: Under these conditions all power sources will be used in this order to power the system: Servo rail input (4.8V to 5.4V) UP TO 10V FOR MANUAL OVERRIDE, BUT AUTOPILOT PART WILL BE UNPOWERED ABOVE 5.7V IF POWER MODULE INPUT IS NOT PRESENT”

Then later states: “Absolute Maximum Ratings: Under these conditions the system will not draw any power (will not be operational), but will remain intact. * Servo rail input (4.1V to 5.7V, 0V to 20V)”

I think what I will do is test it. I have a spare Black Cube with carrier board that I am not planning on flying and will conduct a long (couple of hours) test to see if the set survives 7 volts being applied to the servo rail.

4

Here is another source that adds to the confusion: The Cube Module Overview - CubePilot

Says “The Cube removes the power management from the FMU, the Servo rail is no longer the primary source of backup power for the FMU, and it leaves it there for the IO last chance failsafe.”

Later says: “Servo Power: The Cube supports both standard (5V) and high-voltage (up to 10V) servo power with some restrictions.”

And: “Servo Rail: The I/O chip takes power up to 10.5v from the servo rail; this is used to revert to manual mode in the unfortunate event that the other two main sources of power fail. This is only useful for plane, and only useful if the I/O chip has been mapped correctly.”

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Hi @MartiSK !

In this case, I would recommend that you contact them directly via email or post on their forum https://discuss.cubepilot.org/.

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Hi Igor_X

That is very helpful. I did not know who is the subject matter expert for this. Thank you.

MartiSK

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You are welcome.