12 August 2018

Avionics: Canopy USB power change.

I use a GoPro Hero 6 Black mounted inside the canopy.  To power it, I designed a simple board to provide an available 4 Amps from two USB ports.  I mounted that board to the canopy frame.  However, when connected to that power source, the Hero 6 camera will shut off (actually, it crashes and turns back on in Band-Aid mode), without fail, as soon as I taxi into position on the runway.


Originally, I had a Powerwerx dual USB port between the seats.  It powered the Hero 6 without issue.  However, it created a lot of hash on my GTR-200 transceiver


So I replaced it with one from Blue Sea.  This one did not create hash on the GTR-200.  But, the Hero 6 again would shut off at odd times.


After doing a lot of testing at home, I determined that the Hero 6 is extremely picky on which power source it can accept without crashing.  It even won't accept power from my computer's USB port without crashing.  Since the Powerwerx socket originally worked, I decided to replace my USB board with the Powerwerx socket at the canopy frame.  Using some spare aluminum and angle, I made a quick mount for the socket and attached it to a tooling hole on the C-01405-L Aft Canopy Frame with a nylon screw.



Now the Hero 6 stays on the whole flight and there is no hash on the GTR-200.  That may be because the ground wire for the Powerwerx socket goes to the main ground bus, whilst the ground wire for the Blue Sea socket goes to the aircraft chassis.  So perhaps when the Powerwerx socket was originally between the seats, that grounding setup was the cause of the hash.

View from camera in daytime:


In the nighttime:

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