any merit in running dual battery packs ?

[J.Oddino]

Two packs and two switch harnesses are good from the standpoint of eliminating single point failures and they would minimize voltage drops between the battery and receiver buss as the current in each would be cut in half thereby reducing the voltage drop by a factor of two.  The down side is the added weight and cost.  I'm using two in my third scale plane but have stuck with single packs in my pattern size planes.  If you go with one battery and one switch I'd recommend a solid state failsafe voltage regulator type switch harness and a Li-Ion pack.  The higher capacity of Li-Ion takes care of the added current we see with the digitals and the higher voltage allows better regulation at a higher voltage resulting in more servo torque and speed (more power).  With the voltage regulator you don't need to worry about voltage drops between the battery and the buss.
Jim
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Hitesh Gajjar 
  To: discussion at nsrca.org 
  Sent: Monday, January 24, 2005 4:13 AM
  Subject: any merit in running dual battery packs ?


  Hi,

  Now that we all using high powered digital servo's with incredible holding power etc - is there any merit in running 2 battery packs, say 1 Ah each as opposed to 1 high capacity pack thereby eliminating the single point failure ? If I did want to run 2 packs, is a diode necessary to prevent 1 pack from possibly charging the other if 1 pack were to go bad ?

  Cheers,
  Hitesh
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