Retract Servo Powered By Separate Battery

[SteveR]

Would like to power a sailplane retract servo with a separate battery. Does the negative terminal of the separate battery have to be wired to the negative of the RX battery so they share a common ground or is this not necessary? (I understand about wiring the signal lead.)

TIA,

Steve

[scalebldr]

Would like to power a sailplane retract servo with a separate battery. Does the negative terminal of the separate battery have to be wired to the negative of the RX battery so they share a common ground or is this not necessary? (I understand about wiring the signal lead.)

TIA,

Steve
Talk to Dennis he has done this before
Rick

[bhchan]

Steve,

Do you want to have separate power or just so the retract see the max voltage? What is the main goal behind this exercise?
I had a Futaba retract servo that has a wire to the rx and a female connector to accept a battery pack. I think the power is common.

Brian, an EAJ

[SteveR]

Brian, I want to insure that if the retract mechanism ever jams, I didn't want its servo to pull down the main battery pack as it tries to either retract or extend the main wheel. By using a separate battery pack to drive it, any problem is localized to the retract servo only. Sounds like Futaba has this all set up in advance.

I finally finished all the wiring for this new sailplane including the separate pack for the retract servo which shares a common ground with the main pack. Everything works well and it will maiden at JR. Will post some photos shortly.

Steve

[bhchan]

Steve,

If you want to separate the system, you can always run a separate receiver, retract servo and battery just for the retractable LG.

Brian, an EAJ

[SteveR]

True enough, but still more complexity. Just the extra pack works great.

[NitrosharkiiiI]

the interesting this is I just lost a plane to this.... retract jammed and my rambler flew into the ground at full speed.... toast now... I was able to prove it by the fact the servo had a large amount of stripped gears