Hobbyking PDB fried 2 Pixhawks

PX4 Autopilot Flight Controllers đź’»
1

Hi,

I have a Hobbyking PDB which includes a power module on it. It’s been working fine for a week but today it fried 2 of my pixhawk clones. Upon closer examination, the power module is outputting raw battery voltage and since I had a 4s battery plugged in at the time, the power module was outputting >16v to the pixhawk. Before I knew this, because my first pixhawk wasn’t working I decided to plug a second pixhawk in to see if I could figure out what the problem was… Bad idea. Magic smoke appeared.

This is the offending PDB: https://hobbyking.com/en_us/hk-pilot-power-vi-module-distribution-board-and-dual-ubec-all-in-one-120a-and-10s.html

The partially good news is that both pixhawks can be powered via USB and I’m wondering if there’s something I can replace on the pixhawk PCB to get these pixhawks back in action again? I’m assuming that a fuse has blown?

Here’s a video of the power module outputting 16v: https://youtu.be/LZousFKWpgs

Here’s a photo of my pixhawk clone:

Obviously I’ve been in contact with Hobbyking and I’m seeking some kind of compensation but it would be a shame to have to throw these in the bin…

I’d really appreciate some assistance if possible.

Cheers,

John

2

If these are pixhawk “clones”, you need a schematic and layout from the manufacturer to answer this question.

3

Should not Pixhawk be able to bearing over voltage up to 20V?

Smoke is good, means that usually not the CPU was fried out.

4

I thought the reference voltage was 5v? I opened both of them up and one unit has some charring marks and burnt out modules and I can’t see any damage on the other one but it can only be powered via the USB port.

5

It is really time consuming to fix this kind of burned out fault, even you have all needed design documents, as maybe more than one place the board was burned. You need to have spare elements, and more important you need to have some real skill of soldering.

I will not put much hope on it when above things are missing.