So I’m wrapping up the wiring in my second pack after adding an e-cig and I’m noticing some issues with my batteries. I have 3 switches under my alice frame. each one is wired to its own battery. 2 are wired to CCTV blue bricks and 1 is wired to a smaller Lipo for the ecig. The CCTV batteries are wired ecatly like they are stock, however I lengthened the wires and changed switches. Each battery has its own charge port as well. Also each battery is wired independently. They are currently not connected to a common ground nor are the VCC’s connected in anyway. I also have a master switch which controls power from batteries to the electronics. I did this so I can shut poer off to the devices while charging.
When the master power and the batteries are on and I test continuity across the charge port (+) poles on each CCTV battery, my multimeter beeps. I do not have continuity across CCTV 1 or CCTV 2 (+) charge port to LiPo (+) charge port. If you look at the pictures you’ll see I have an aluminum bracket supporting my switches. All my switches and charge ports have metal threads. Is it possible the bracket is shorting the batteries some how? Does it have to do with the way the CCTV batteries are internally wired? I’m thinking it has to do something with the way the power indication light is wired in the CCTV batteries.
Anyone have any ideas? I’m really at a loss how 3 independent batteries could some how be connected. Is this normal operation? I’m pretty concerned what will happen once I go to charge these things. I dont want to over load a battery if its getting a charge from 3 wall warts at once.
@bishop: Here are the few pictures Ive taken so far. I will draw up schematics tonight and post them. In the second photo you can see that port 2’s switch has exposed wire. I removed the heatshrink there to make sure the posts weren’t shorting out.
@ Jack: If you mean the threads on the charging plugs, yes there is continuity between them. The odd thing is there’s even continuity when they are not mounted in the frame ( touching common metal). I just find it odd that the (+) would be connecting since they should be isolated…SHOULD BE
As Jack said, I have had issues with this in the past. I tend to wrap the threading of my charge ports in nylon tape and put nylon washers on either side of the hole to insulate the charge port(s) from the bracket and/or the motherboard of my packs. I’ve had to do this to my GB1 pack, my friend Luna’s pack, as well as on my game pack build. The other issue that this creates is feedback in my audio set up half the time.
I’ll give that a shot too Matt. I was trying to think of a way to insulate the threads yet still be able to nut them to the bracket. I’ve already got some feed back in my speakers so not really hurting anything I suppose. Do you also wrap the threads on your switches too? I was debating just making the bracket out of plastic so I can eliminate that from the equation. I’m going to take the batteries out of my setup tonight and test them individually then start integrating them back in and see when ( if at all) the issue comes up. Thanks everyone so far !
I just insulate the charge ports. But like I said, I tend to wonder if the switches could be an issue too, but I get away with just insulating the charge ports.
I’m a little confused about how you are using the 2 cctv batteries, are they parallel for more capacity or is 1 a backup
I have tested about 60 of these smoke kits in a setup using 3 batteries with a spengler plate. All of the charge ports negative connections are grounded on purpose conforming to common audio and electrical engineering practice, the motherboard provides a ground plane to reject noise from outside sources. There should be no continuity between pos battery connections unless you have them tied at some other point on your boards.
I charge all three batteries at the same time with no problem and no noise with the gbfans, crix or mighty setups, so if you are experiencing problems I think it has to be in the wiring past the charging ports
1 battery powers the audio, 1 for the lights and the small lipo for the smoke and the 3 sets of wire are wrapped together going down to the spengler plate
I have modified all my batteries to remove the internal LEDs and switches and switch them from the spengler plate
You might get a better idea by hooking one of the ports to a charger and test for voltage on the other ports to see if you actually are connected somehow on the positive sides
I’m using 3 batteries for 2 reasons. (1) I want to be able to turn on/off specific parts of my pack at a time. For instance if I’m in a convention I want to have the lights (arduino) on but I don’t necessarily need audio ( amp). So I’ll shut the amp off to conserve power. (2) In my setup I was coming pretty close to drawing the maximum mAh out of one battery. So I decided to split the load across 2. The third battery is for your e-cig setup which I love BTW !
I Agree all grounds should be connected to a common, but I don’t know how critical it is in a Proton Pack setup. By nature the audio, data, and power lines are in such close proximity to each other. It’s very hard to isolate them in such a tiny area such as a pack shell. I get noise though my speakers whether or not all my batteries are tied to common ground or not. I think if I switched to shielded speakers it would help some but I’m not too worried about it.
I have a feeling something screwy is going on inside those batteries having something to do with the LED light. Everyone who says they removed the LED seems to have no issues yet those that keep it seem to have some sort of anomaly going on.
Anyways Thanks everyone for their advice ! Y’all get +1’S ( what ever that does…) I wound up scrapping my metal switch mount for a plastic one and all my issues went away. There’s gotta be something in those cheap Radioshack switches causing issues when mounted to a metal surface.
!