Lidar Lite V3 I2C Setup

For the Lidar Lite I was following the manufacture recommendation of powering the sensor separately which means two signal wires and common ground go to the FMU and the +5v from the BEC is only connected to the sensor. I’m not sure why since peak power is listed as 130mW, but, they also recommend a 680uF in parallel to handle spikes which I had installed. I’m wondering though, when the device is first powered on that 680uF acts as a direct short to ground, would that hurt the FMU or possibly devices connected to it since it shares a ground with the FMU through the I2C connector?

I have issues with the Pixyhawk GPS with the speaker hissing and cracking also the LED going out and I’ve narrowed it down to the i2c hub with the Lidar and the capacitor being plugged in as the likely common factor.

from garmin https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=tma27PcpYS2A8etp7EB259

The purpose of including an electrolytic capacitor when wiring a LIDAR-Lite v3 is to ensure that when LLV3 is connected to a power source that may have limited maximum current capacity, such as a computer’s USB port, that the power on current draw of the sensor doesn’t cause the power source to go into an over-current mode and possibly shut down. In some instances, when there is a robust external power source for example, there may not be a need to install this capacitor in the circuit. When in doubt, the capacitor is advisable. The size of the capacitor can be in the range of 330µF to 1000µF.

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