When the flight controller, current sensor, and power-distribution hardware share a compact or partly sealed bay, which measurement points give the most reliable bench-to-flight thermal correlation?
My current validation plan is to log:
- power-stage case temperature and the nearest PCB hot spot
- enclosure or conduction-plate temperature at the interface
- ambient temperature inside and outside the bay
- transient current and dissipation over the actual mission profile
- a degraded-airflow case, plus vibration after the thermal run
I am also treating interface flatness, clamp pressure, and TIM thickness as controlled inputs rather than assembly details. This thermal design and validation checklist is the fuller version I am working from.
For Pixhawk-based aircraft, have you found housing temperature to be a useful proxy, or do you still need device-level thermocouples for acceptance testing?