Once again, my barely used ez-b is overheating. All the wiring has been checked, the ez-b is sitting on the back of the battery case so no shorts can happen, and all the wiring is tied together held away from the ez-b. I have the following plugged in:
4 standard servos
2 continues rotation servos
1 ping radar
1 camera(hacked)
What could be causing it? Its been working fine before! *confused*
Note: with out even connecting the ez-b to the computer its heatsink heats up to untouchable temperature. Not even moving the servos!
I tested twice, the second time with my fan blowing on it and still nearly burnt myself.
Asked
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it's complicated as timings need to be correct and I've had little success with it on Melvin (it works but not all the time)
The best way I found is to power it with the EZB by soldering the red and black wires of an extension to where the battery connects (after removing the battery). Once powered up and switched on it remains in the "on" state even after powering down, at least it does on Melvin.
But if you wanted to use the signal to turn it on and off then you need to use a script, have it Set(digitalport,on) for roughly 5 seconds then Set(digitalport, off) to change it's state. Timings are a bit of a mystery and sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. Search the forum and there is a discussion where it was mentioned.
This is assuming the signal wire is soldered to the correct place on the camera.
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Ill leave the signal wire on and the usb end for power I will cut off.
how ever the camera runs at 3.7v so to directly put 5v into it is hard on it.
What I think is causing ez-b's to overheat is the micro usb plug. I believe the plug creates resistance in the servo extension and that resistance moves to the ez-b's regulator. the micro usb has to adapt the 5v down to the 3.7v that it is built for. that is hard on the ez-b. Using regulators I think will be able to solve the micro usb issue, but unless you have a spare regulator laying around, I see the hard wire way to be much simpler.
However I don't agree with your theory of the USB adaptor causing your heating issue. The micro USB pins are very small but the power-carrying connectors, pins 1 and 5, are rated to carry 1.8 amps at 5 volts DC. That means that the maximum charging power that can safely flow across the connector is 9 watts. I haven't put the amp meter on the camera but I really don't think it will draw anywhere close to 1.8 amps even with the battery still installed.
Also an extra 1.3vdc should not cause the camera to over work and be "hard" on it. Where did you find info that the camera runs at 3.7 vdc?
I have to agree with Dave, wiring the camera via the USB or direct with 5v has not been an issue for many people. 5V to the camera has not been a problem either and poses no cause for concern, I have done this to two cameras and many others have done it also.
Wiring via the USB also poses no problem, this is another common method and also the method DJ uses and made a tutorial on.