Question about power supply and lighting

[Daniel C]

Hey everyone. So I am wondering if it's possible to run lights off of a separate battery but still use a RC remote connected to my receiver to turn it on and off by the controller. If ya ou have any info about it I would appreciate it. Thanks

 

[WickedFog]

Why run off a separate battery? Lights hardly pull any juice, so it's just simple to run them off an auxiliary channel on the receiver.

 

[Daniel C]

Why run off a separate battery? Lights hardly pull any juice, so it's just simple to run them off an auxiliary channel on the receiver.

I installed a really bright bar light on the roof of my truck for jobs. I mounted a camara in the cab looking out the windshield to get a look under houses when people call me about a leaky pipe or a pest problem and noticed a battery drain even though I am using a 6500mAh battery so I was just wondering plus I kinda needed the extra weight. I started a tug-a-war contest with my kids and I have been constantly modifying the truck with the shocks,tires,motor and where it is I do place weight onto my chassis. I almost got all the kinks worked out with a 895 motor onto my gearbox and that will drain the battery also so yea I heard it could be possible so I Wonted to ask the professionals knowing you might answer. You must stay really busy reading all the comments and questions or you find my retarded questions funny. LOL but really what do you think about the situation? I'm all ears if you don't mind helping and thank you for all the questions you have helped me with.

 

[WickedFog]

You could just parallel wire in another battery. That is a really cool way to inspect crawlspaces!

If you go with a parallel battery setup, I would set your ESC's LVC to as high as it would go, since one battery can drain faster than the other, and I'd probably throw battery alarms on each battery just to be extra safe.

3pcs XT60 Parallel Battery Connector 2-Male to 1-Female Adapter Cable for RC Multicopter Quadcopter(BDHI-31) https://a.co/d/erO0epI

Get parralel cables with whatever connectors your RC uses of course

Apex RC Products 2 Pack Lipo Battery Voltage Checker Alarm LED 1-8 Cell 1655 https://a.co/d/5k2Wjdz

 

[Daniel C]

You could just parallel wire in another battery. That is a really cool way to inspect crawlspaces!

If you go with a parallel battery setup, I would set your ESC's LVC to as high as it would go, since one battery can drain faster than the other, and I'd probably throw battery alarms on each battery just to be extra safe.

3pcs XT60 Parallel Battery Connector 2-Male to 1-Female Adapter Cable for RC Multicopter Quadcopter(BDHI-31) https://a.co/d/erO0epI

Apex RC Products 2 Pack Lipo Battery Voltage Checker Alarm LED 1-8 Cell 1655 https://a.co/d/5k2Wjdz

Thanks I kinda thought about that but I watched a thing on YouTube and they said it's not a good idea to do so. Sounds good to me I just Wonted a second opinion from someone who has obviously spent some time around rc rigs and know what there talking about. Hey thank you I value your inputs and I hope I don't bother you with these stupid questions. I have just heard some horror stories about lipo batteries blowing up and my luck it wouldn't be while out bashing around. It would happen under the house I could never afford. Thanks again take care

 

[WickedFog]

With the lipo alarms, you will have no worries at all. The reason running parallel batteries can be a bad idea is each lipo can drain at different rates. The internal resistance will be different on each cell, and even moreso from one battery to another. And the ESC won't know when one battery gets lower than the other. But the lipo alarms will warn you when one battery hits the cutoff set in the alarm.

Setting the ESC to max LVC setting just adds a second layer of safety, but it is not foolproof. I have had one of my lipo arams fail, but it fortunately started going off saying one cell was low, when it was just fine.

Odds are, if you are just running this to do an inspection, you're not going to go through enough juice to drain two batteries anyway. But this setup will make it safe for you to run the rig til the alarm goes off because the separate alarms will monitor each battery individually.

For inspections when you need to run the light... grab some batteries with a lot of mAh. There are 10,000mAh and up batteries out there

And don't sweat the questions. That's what we are here for