All posts by Steven Brown

3DR Solo XT-60 Battery Power Connector Board

For a project we’re working on, we bought a bunch of connectors for the 3DR Solo Battery Power contacts (we don’t need the signal portion). Since the minimum order quantity was larger than we needed, we figured we would create a carrier PCB and maybe some other Solo owners would be interested.

The carrier board takes an XT-60 connector for a standard LiPo and connects it to the Solo’s power contacts.

Since we didn’t buy the version with the signal contacts, the Solo will NOT be able to read voltage, current, % battery remaining, etc., and will not be able to initiate an RTL when the battery reaches a critical level. Because of this, you should use a low voltage alarm and time your flights (if you fly with this module). The store page has links to low voltage alarms and batteries that can be used with the Solo.

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3DR Solo Accessory Bay Breakout Board

This small and lightweight board breaks out all the connections from the bottom port of your Solo. The 3DR Solo Accessory Bay port (details here: https://dev.3dr.com/hardware-accessorybay.html ) has many connections a DIYer could find useful. From simple battery and regulated 5V power, to CAN signal connections, our breakout board provides an interface between the special connector on the Solo to normal headers that make it easy to connect to. Additionally, our board labels the headers with the signal that is on that pin, rather than leaving you with just the pin number.

There are a few versions of the board:

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SyncLight LED Boards

This high-power LED board is lightweight and tiny, a perfect fit for RC planes and quadcopters for extreme visibility during dusk/nighttime flights. We’ve tested visibility out to 5 miles in darkness, and it can be spotted very easily from that distance.

A CREE LED outputs around 2300 lumens of 6500K brilliant white light, making it very easy to spot in the air. A microcontroller onboard controls the LED driver and blink pattern, synchronizing with up to 7 other SyncLights on the same signal bus! This module accepts a wide voltage range, give it anywhere between 10-42V and you’re good to go!

Here is a video showcasing how bright these are… the left SyncLight is running at 40% brightness:

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