Asked
— Edited
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.
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.