radio recievers run of main battery's

I want to run my radio reciever off of my ships battery. I am run 6 volt batterys for my boat. can I run my radio reciever off this batery. my reciever takes 4 AA batteries so thats 1.5 voltsx4=6 volts. I know it cant be that easy what am I missing?

I dont want to fry my reciever. so is it better to run off you boats main batteries or off a seperate radio battery pack?

thanks

 

If you're running Fast Gun ships, where your propulsion draws a whole @#$%load of amps, then do not run your receiver off the main battery. You'll get voltage spikes that could paralyze your ship. If you're running a Big Gun ship and your main drive runs closer to 2-4 amps, then you should be perfectly safe running your receiver off your main battery.

 

Running your RX off main power is a common practice in the MWC. Put a diode inline with the RX to protect against reverse polarity and keep the voltage under 6 volts. Some poeple also install a cap to eat some of the voltage spikes. If using Team Deltas put a diode in line with them in addition to the one at the RX. Also put a diode across the solenoids.
I only know of one failure using the main batteries for RX power. It was from reverse polarity, captain pluged in backwards. The RX was fine but the servos all died. He put in Deans connectors and a diode to prevet it from happening again.

 

Of course you can. You can add a couple of 1N4001 diodes in series to drop the voltage, or get a 5 volt voltage regulator from radio shack, which is what I do. Very easy to hook up. Its part number is 7805, a couple of bucks.

I have never had any issues using a regulator. It has 3 pins. Looking at the front with the writing, pins down. The left leg is the 6 volt input, middle leg is the return to both the battery and the receiver, and the right leg is the 5 volts out to the receiver.

Yet I have seen many times people asking to borrow receiver batteries at the battles, I guess they are easy to forget to recharge.[]

 

I just use a large seperate pack. I currently use a 2000 nimhd pack. This has outlasted my TX battery.

Curt "It's not the size of the ship that matters..it's the salt of the lads that man it"

 

Or ... if you happen to be using an electronic speed control, then don't worry about it. The ESC will supply the power to the receiver.

 

thanks for all the help guys.
will try the two diodes and think I will look into the radio shack voltage regulator.

 

Just keep in mind that if you're using rechargeable AA batteries for your receiver, you don't have 6 volts going to your receiver. You have 4 x 1.2 volts = 4.8 volts.

However, be that as it may, I've been involved in R/C for 26 years, and with receivers manufactured in the past 12 years or so, have never had or seen one that had a problem running off 6 volts. The downside to running your receiver directly off your motor battery is that if you drain the motor battery down below around 3.4 volts, your radio will begin to fail. Your motor battery can drain fairly quickly by stalling from having weeds or fishing line wrap around the propellers. When your receiver doesn't have enough voltage going to it, it begins to send erratic signals to your servos, and your guns may fire on their own.

Rob