Update: Something is very wrong. I tested again and its only the one heatsink closest to the power plug.

Have you tried it with nothing connected? Have you added each item one by one to see if that makes any difference? What power supply are you using?

While the wiring may look OK there could still be a problem with a servo, the ping sensor or the camera. Connection to the computer is irrelevant, if there is a problem with the wiring, a short on the board or a short in any of the accessories it will get hot.

i to had a problem with over heating i fixed it by not powering the cam from the ezb

Ok. Wolfie I think ill try not powering the camera off the ez-b.

Rich, ill try runnin g the ez-b without anything connected, and then without the camera.

With nothing plugged in it didn't heat up at all. will try with everything but camera.

Wolfie, your a genius. it is the camera. I left the camera unplugged and it doesn't heat up anymore.

If I disconnect the cameras power, but leave the signal wire could it still turn on and off the camera with the ez-b?

Charging is possible to do normally.

What I don't get is I wired it up perfectly, but it's causing the ez-b to overheat. What could be the problem?

when you power it from the bourd its charging the bat and powering the cam at the same to but i have not been able to check on its amp drew yet so not to sure as to why it heats so much

intime i will workout a kinda fix for it have a few ideas in mind

Can't wait!

EDIT: can I still turn it on and off via the ez-b but charge it normally(plug it in with the adapter to the wall)?

Check the camera wiring, I would guess you shorted the black and red... also see if you can spot my subtle hint at it being the camera above (bold doesn't show up so well I guess)

Glad it's sorted.

So could I wire the camera to turn on via the ez-b through keeping only the signal cable connected?

Yes and no...

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.

The camera is soldered correctly. So something like this?:

Set(d4, on)
Sleep(7000)
Set(d4, off)

Then for off

Set(d4, on)
Sleep(17000)
Set(d4, off)

Ill leave the signal wire on and the usb end for power I will cut off.

Do you still have the battery installed in the camera? If so, remove it. If your powering it from the EZB you don't need it.

So if I take off the battery and hard wire the camera to the ez-b, it won't overheat anymore and I can keep the wiring pretty well the same? Or would just using the signal wire to turn it on and off be a better choice?

I removed the battery completely and hot wired it to be powered from EZB. I used the signal wire to turn it on and off. I never had an issue with overheating with this setup. Could be your asking too much from EZB to power the camera and charge the battery. Could be something else like needing a blocking diode between the battery and EZB if you want to keep the camera's battery for any reason.

I read on a few topics that leaving the battery in can cause other camera issues too (not sure what, I just saw it as a problem so removed the battery when I did the mod, I didn't exactly care for the reasons behind it).

Does your way cause the board to heat up?

Never had a hot regulator on either of my EZ-Bs and both have the cameras done this way.

Rich has already stated that his EZB does not heat up and he did remove the camera battery.

Ok I'll do this.

Ok so just solder the ez-b +5 and gnd th the battery in and out?

+5V to Battery +Ve, Ground to battery -Ve, Signal to the switch (if you want to use the signal to turn the camera on and off).

I did it and will soon test it.

Have you had a chance to see if this solved your problem?

Ok so I removed the battery and hard wired the camera to a servo extension. This has cleared up the issue.

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.

Glad everything is running cool again. Thanks for letting us know it worked.

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?

The battery is a 3.7v 400mah battery. it says so right on it.

The battery is a LiPo battery, which are labelled 3.7v but can hold 4.2v when fully charged.

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.