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This small and lightweight UBEC features a high efficiency switching mode BEC, providing better heat dissipation when compared to linear voltage regulation. The shielded PCB design and output EMF coil provide a stable, low noise voltage output. The HKU5 also features built-in reverse polarity protection.
RX and servos need 5V~6V to operate but LiPo voltage is higher than this. UBEC is used to convert LiPo Voltage (7V, 11V, etc...) into 5V, so you can operate your RX and Servos using LiPo batteries.
You wont need a special UBEC / BEC in most small Models, the Speedcontroller (ESC) mostly has a BEC with 5V and 1 or 2 A. But for larger Models and servos 1 or 2 A can be not enought, so you should use a seperat UBEC with higher Ampere output.
I agree with EDDFOO, I do not think this UBEC will handle a receiver and 6 servos. I wish I had bought a 10 amp for ma Radian Pro. I've had brownouts. I'm going to link it to my esc's bec with a shottky rectifier bridge to combine their output.
Really depends on servos and load, I would group 4 servos to one of these ubec and run the rx from the bec from one of the esc. So for 12 servo you will need 3 of these. If servo load are not that high, might be able to do with 6 to 1 ratio. Would still run the rx independently.
Hello Harnjoo. I am useing this BEC on my E-Flite P-38 powering 6 9gram servos and the reciever and I am w ell within the power ratings. Doubleing this amount as you are planning to do I am sure wound surpass 5 amps. I would go with the ten amp version.
I just received mine, and it outputs 5.5V verified by 2 certified meters. Before I discovered this, I think the extra 0.5V corrupted the firmware on my KK2* rx test stopped responding. Luckily reflashing fixed it! I installed a diode to get 4.8V. Has someone opened one of these up to see if there is an output adjust pot inside?
Quadcopter does not require a lots of current to drive the FC and Rx, just use the bec on one of the ESC. No need to spend extra on this ubec unless you have something else in mind. THks for the credit. :-)
Hi eddfoo, actually the reason why I'm adding a voltage regulator just for the electronics, is that the motor and the Rx/FC board are very different load and the motor I suppose would get much more power from the ESC than the control electronics. About this there is an interesting post here: www.link there user "Rdemptioner":
Don't ever drive you flight control boards from the onboard BEC's in the ESC's, they are all typically linear and this means the voltage output will change with the battery voltage (not a good thing to do to a gyro or microprocessor), they also add extra heat to disapate and will normally be the first thing to die in the ESC taking out the rest of the ESC with it. Get a good SBEC with a clean output (PRODUCT ID: 5AUBEC also a rebrand of another decent SBEC) and use this instead to power your flight control board, just make sure you remove the red wire from the output of your ESC's.
Actually I would keep all the motor ESC in balance in terms of load and keep safe the Rx and the FC board.
Your thoughts ?
Thanks.
Stefano.
Here is my 2 cents : Most regulators on ESC are the 78xx type reg and they have a dropout voltage of about 3v, Low dropout types are around 1V. For the input voltage to have any influence on the 5V output, it had to drop below 8V. At that level your motor would have lost power and your craft Terra bound. As for HEAT, I would worry more about heat generated by the Fets driving the motors. An Esc with a 5v/3a bec normally have 2x 5V reg in parallel, each rated at 3A. So you are talking about 50% loading. You will also notice the the Reg are on the opposite side of the PCB to the Fets. Actually Switching Regulators generate more noise than linear Reg. That is why they are supplied with ferrite ring. The circuit itself also have noise, good pcb design and proper shielding is needed to tame it. All that said I use the 5V from the ESC to run my 2 Quads (KK2) and TRI (KK5.5). Never had any problem. The only time I use the ubec is with my plane with a gyro stabiliser. High Servo load. The supplied ESC is rate 5V/2A Only.You decide.
Ok, the explanation satisfy fully my doubts. Thanks eddfoo, to this I would add that another BEC is carry some more payload for the quad, so if it is not necessary, it is necessary wrong.
Thanks.
I know I can directly use a 4.8 Nicad thats what I have been doing....but I have to charge that battery every second flight....what I would like to do is use 22OO MAH LIPO runnubf through some kind of a voltage regulator so it pts out 5 volts.....of course it wll have a switch to turn off and on....and I was curious if this unit would do the trick.
I am very new to this electric stuff.....I have a airplane with a 20 CC gas engine which requires a 4.8 battery for the ignition......can I use this unit with a 2 cell lipo battery to power my ignition.
I know the 4.8 battery fully charged is over 5 volts so I am sure 5 volts will be ok.
I just not sure this item is what I need. Thanks for any help on this matter
Hircflyer, you don't need this at all. Your battery connects directly to the ignition control unit. You should set a 3amp rated on off switch or remote cut off switch in between.
Happy Landings
Jimbolina1, while that is OK for some ignitions, I know the ones that come with RCG engines are very particular about no more than 5.5V being supplied to the ignition. In this case, battery through switch then to this voltage reg and then to ignition module (you could stick a remote cutoff between the switch and the voltage reg for further airborne safety).
Muttsyflier, I was refering to his 4.8 battery being connected directly to ICU. Yes a voltage regulator is what he needs if useing a higher voltage battery.
Someone suggested I use this in my new Turnigy 9x* however, I notice it is identified as 5a/5v.
My Laser sailboat servos require 6 volts for best operation. If I understand the ID this only delivers 5volts. Is that correct? If so, I need something that can give me the 6volts.
Suggestions?
Thanks.
The hobbyhing HKU5 5V5A has an output of 5V. Most of the servo works 5v to 6v. at 6v it is more powerful and faster than 5v. you can used this UBEC (Product ID: SBEC-26V). With this UBEC, you can choose the output voltage you want 5V/5A or 6V/5A by moving a jumper in your case 6V/5A. This is a Turnigy, $ 4.55
Hello friend,if you are using a ESC without BEC, this BEC supply with 5V with 5A. It is sufficient to supply the servos (micro or standarts) and the receiver in this plane. If you will use a ESC with BEC ( I recommend 3A or more ) an external BEC may not be necessary, *)
If I am bit mistaken I believe this model came with a esc and bec. Either way just to play it safe I will install this on all my models. Is anyone else having brown-out problems using a ar-6210 specktrum 6 channel???
My multimeter displays 5.52 volts when connecting to a 2S Lipo (not 5.0V as stated here). Is this normal or is mine defect? I wanted to use this for a USB-charger, but 5.52V exceeds USB specifications, so it's pretty useless to me.
i don't think that a multimiter exceeds 0.5v, you can try by mesouring with another multimiter, anyway i dont think that 0.5v will affect your usb, probably the bec isn't that precise
Mate, this UBEC would be more than sufficient for your needs.
I use one of these to power my flight controller, gps, receiver, telemetry radio, and a load of other stuff.
Hope this helps.
I'm here to help mate QuadSB : ) . For anyone interested to buy the TURNIGY Voltage Booster for Servo & Rx (1S to 5v 1A) for $0.94 check out my post on the Forum Home > Hobby King Forums > Buddy! Buddy! Buddy! > International Warehouse buddy codes > 13/Jan/2013 at 7:33pm.
please is good for bike rc nitro 1/5 ready to go, bike on your website?, whit lipo 2s 1500mah, voltage 7.4 to 4.8 volt is good this ubec?? thinks for reponse, im french sorry for my english
it s a very trusted device i have 5 peace of it and all works very well even in a very bad situations and yes it will work very good in your 1/5 nitro on 7,4 and even on a 11,1 pack cheers
Hi, I'm using this ubec to power my 5 servo plane but the ubec is getting warmer then my other brands/models ubec... is this normal? Anyone can clear this
Your voltage might be lower with this UBEC and therefore you might be pushing more amps through. Really does depend on the specs of each. This item is not an high spec component.
i have seen countless posts regarding the validity of the 5A claim for this ubec. many stating that it falls far short. Lots of "inflated" specs out there in the hobby industry, all i can say is read the reviews, trust your guy and don't always buy the cheapest.
I can't tell you if it is normal, but I can confirm that it does in fact get very warm even with minimal loads. Being a low end product I wouldn't be too worried, as I have used mine close to its limit and it didn't get much hotter than with a lower load.
I would, however, advise you to have proper airflow around it or use something else if you can't. You know the old saying "you get what you pay for".
Can someone explain "cutting" the red wire on my ESC's when hooking this up? All my current ESC's have built in BEC's - but i've had some failures/crashes lately with the 35 degree weather, and losing my control surfaces with it. I want to put a UBEC in all my aircraft so I can bring them down if the ESC shuts down - but I don't want to "cut" the wire if I don't have to, as I'll be using them in other planes in the future! Thanks!
Hi. Very easy thing to do. i don´t like cutting mine either so what I do is just lift the small piece of plastic that holds the red conector in the plug and then aplly some tape to the exposed conector and you´re ready to go. PLease credit
My recommendation is not to cut the red off your ESC connector as you may want to use it's onboard BEC again on another build. What I do is to take a spare servo wire extender and cut the Red on that. I then place that between by ESC and Receiver* effectively achieving the same effect w/o messing with the ESC wire directly. I read that trick somewhere online and find it to be the best alternative.
BTW the reason to cut the wire is so that you are not feeding power to your receiver from two sou
Rather than taking a linear voltage reduction with wasted energy lost through heat generation, the SBEC has a switching circuit controlling the output by turning on and off very quickly or slowly as needed to regulate the steady supply of the spec current / voltage. Runs cooler, saves a bit of power. Noisier for the Rx, sometimes.
No experience of the Turnigy product, I'm afraid, so cannot give a fair comparison. All I can say is that I've been happy with the HK item thus far. Good to have a spare BEC handy for when you want to provide a good feed to Rx etc in "many-servo" setups that might suffer brown-out when fed from the ESC.
Basically, SBEC and UBEC should be the same. SBEC is for Switching BEC, while UBEC was a popular trademark of Ultimate BEC, which in time became popular among various other manufacturers as a mark of professional product.
If the spec says it's an switching BEC (and it does, and also it looks like one - though I have not opened it) then it is, which makes it more efficient then an linear BEC.
Had the red wire come off the board (battery side) but I can't see where it came from. Can anyone help me identify the correct terminal to solder it back? [I put a picture of the board under the FILES tab]
UBEC to power elektronoky serves as the receiver, servos, gyro, etc.
Mostly used for remote power or controllers that BEC / SBEC / UBEC not. So there is no need for controllers to powerful SBEC) eg 5.5 V / 4 A) and is required to power digital servos in larger numbers.
The controller supplies the UBEC and receiver and thus connected servos, etc.
"It can be used for a separate power supply Servo more volátžà (HV) for greater strength.
To power everything with 5v (the Servos, reciver and stuff) from your battery. Some ESC don't have SBEC or if you don't trust in the ESC and want a secure power source for servos and other things even if your ESC is gone up in smoke :D
The purpose of these independent BECs is to supply a regulated power feed to your Rx and servos from a lipo pack of higher voltage WITHOUT using the motor supply system. If the motor system gets drained and shuts down, this will carry on and allow you to land, even though you might have it connected to the same power pack! These can be used by gliders and IC aircraft to avoid using the traditional flight packs and instead to use greater capacity lipos.
Simple explanation would be... If you have a larger model with several control surfaces ie: retracts, flaps, lights, bay doors.... Your current draw is higher. So, if your running a model with 6 channels or less, it's not nessesary. What it does is helps balance the flow of current going to each interface to avoiding surging causing mishaps which leads to a pile of kindling, or foam.. Hope that helps!
This UBEC will comfortably play with 6 servos and still have capacity to drive your radio gear. But note that the servos will operate slightly slower than they might with many ESC BECs which deliver 5.5v. You can spend time splitting hairs over this but in practice, there is not really any difference with aircraft.
It deppends of the kind of servo, if you use the HK15138 or smaller the answer would be yes, but if you use a bigger/torquier servo the servos won't work at full torque... but they will still move, I have tried this.
A ubec, or Universal Battery Elimination Circuit, is another way to supply voltage to your electronics. Here is a link to a good explanation of use and why you might use one: www.link
The main purpose of this gadjet is to supply power to your RX from the same power pack that is driving your electric motor. It saves carrying a purpose built Rx flight pack battery. Many ESCs come with in built BECs, negating the need for this product. However, some aircraft fitted with many servos might need a more secure power supply to prevent loss of power to Rx. In such cases, one of these is fitted in parallel with the ESC and the ESCs BEC is disconnected so that it drives only the mot
Put it between the battery and the receiver. It outputs a constant voltage so you don't melt your servo's. This also can handle more amps than your ESC would, so it's more reliable if you have a lot of servo's in your plane. If you use both an ESC and this, cut the centre wire of the connector for the ESC, This stops your ESC from ruining your UBEC and vice versa.
Look at the packaging around the Ubec, if it comes with a heat-sink make sure the Plastic heatshrink they pack around it is not covering the heat-shrink, you can usually cut a fair section away with a hobby knife without ruining the integrity of the heat-shrink.
Also consider just like with a high-current ESC mounting it outside of the fuselage. or alternatively at a section where you can cut a tube/inlet into the fuselage (as long as you have an outlet also to prevent pressure build-up) that w
You need to sold the wires with the battery conector! red with red and black with black and then you plug the other conector to a free channel of RX!Remember, if your ESC have a built-in UBEC take off the red wire (positive) of the plug that goes to the RX...
The red and black lead go to the same place the ESC battery leads go. I hope this helps. The 3 pin plug goes to your receiver. I take is you battery voltage and regulates it to the voltage the receiver needs. I hope this helps.
i want to connect this ubec to a separate battery. and suggestions how big the battery pack should be for this ubec? if i were to connect to the main battery, any suggestions on how to connect this to the main battery? thank you
This UBEC handles up to 5A, in the worst case a 5000mAh battery dedicated to it will give you 1 hour of run-time but its almost impossible because what do you connect that will drain 5A full time?? Connect it to the main battery, soldering it in parallel to the battery connector and have fun :D
Connecting UBEC to main battery (in parallel to ESC) seems the most common way* you will unplug both ESC and UBEC so battery will be less likely drained. At any rate, per description of this UBEC, any battery 2s-5s lipo would be good to use. Connecting this UBEC to separate battery (2-5s) just needs to make sure the battery will not be drained after flights. Maybe use the same battery/Amp ratio as your vehicle to decide how big battery capacity for UBEC: say 40amp draw with 2200mah battery (main
A 5V BEC will be suitable for all radio systems except those specifically designed for 1S LiPo use. The 5A output should also have no problem with a 450 helicopter
The 5A is only the max amp it can be drawn. If your servos electronics only draw 3A that it will give you 3A, but if it draws 8A - than the BEC may get too hot and shuts down which will result in loss of all on-board electronics. Also make sure that your servo's are powered as 5V - some servo's may require 6V. Most UBEC's can switch between 5V and 6V. Receivers usually can take both. If you want to be absolutely sure, you should go with a 10A UBEC.
This BEC is capable of powering many servos, normally through the receiver. It could equally be used to power servos or undercarriages direct when wired as directed (if the instructions show it). When used as an indepenent supply the negative lead is normally connected to the negative of the receiver* the positive connections must be left unconnected.
Yeah it will power the servo, but it will not do anything. An UBEC doesn't have a control channel that would allow the servo to move to a certain position - you need a servo controller (like a receiver, servo tester, etc) to get the servo moving. The only reason why we use UBEC/BEC's is to convert the LiPo Voltage to a servo-compatible voltage - Usually 5V or 6V. Example: 3 Cell LiPo Voltage is 12.6V - Way too much for a servo to handle, plus the LiPo will go down in Voltage (down to 10.9V at mo
Make sure you don't have this AND an esc (red wire) connected to the receiver or bad things will likely happen (getting hot, magic smoke release, etc).
this doesn't directly connect with the esc, unless you are only using one battery, in which case you wire it in parralel with the esc. the red and black wire go to the battery and plug plugs into the battery port on your receiver, if you have an esc with a built in BEC (they usually do) then disconnect the red wire on the esc that goes into the reciever
These are connected across the battery terminals the same as the ESC (in parallel). The most common way of connecting them is to solder the ESC and UBEC leads to the same connectors
How do you know that ? What is the peak amp ? In description of another sbec (SBEC-26V) it's rated 5amp also but it's 5 amp peak. So, I was wondering...
I tested it this summer. It can give a glow plug driver enought amp. One time, I forgot to put the glow plug driver off and it glowed 5 min while I was flying. The ubec was warm but not too hot. It's a good ubec.
99% of the time you can't use them side by side, one of them will suffer damage due to feedback. You can however use it in lieu of a smaller BEC (2A or 3A) by clipping the middle (red) wire on the ESC.
I wouldn't think you could you might damage one or the other. You can however move (dont cut, might need it later) the middle wire so it cuts off the BEC.
I killed a Castle PHX-80 in exactly this way. I was originally flying the plane on three cells and using the ESC's built-in BEC. Went to 4 cells and added an external BEC, but forgot to pull the red wire. It worked for a couple of flights... then the ESC died. :^(
Don't make the same mistake I did. Pull that wire out of the housing, fold it back and secure it with a bit of tape or heatshrink. Your ESC (and quite possibly your airframe!) will thank you.
Purchased three of these for ignition voltage regulator duty in my large scale gas planes, when paired up with the turnigy 2100 Lipo receiver pack, you can run an engine all day versus the 4 cell NiMH packs. Working great in my planes, the 3A version works great too, but is a little longer and slightly heavier, but cost less. Next order, I will order more for spares for future projects.
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