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Help! I think I fried my adsb-in

Tankerpilot75

Tankerpilot75

Well Known Member
I have the old Open Flight Solutions ADSB-In (now Falkin Avionics) unit and I wanted to hard wire power to the Flightbox instead of going through a USB plug on the panel for power. Unfortunately I didn’t realize a USB plug output is only around 5.4 volts vs 12 volts at the 1 amp CB I was going to use for power. When I tried to power up the Flightbox I didn’t get the expected Wi-Fi signal therefore I think I fried the unit with the 12 volts I directly connected.

I called GRT and asked them about their Discovery ADSB-in product and found out they’re build to order” with about a two month delay for product delivery. I really don’t want to go through spring without adsb weather so I’m checking the VAF brain trust to see if someone has a no longer used adsb-in unit that can be hardwired to my EFIS units for data input and hardwired to my panel for 12 volt power supply.

Please PM me if you can help out.
 
I use a SkyRadar D2, works great; USB connection to the back of my grt Hx, WiFi connection to my iPad and WingX, 12 volt cigar plug which I hardwired to aircraft power. Two antennas (one for each frequency) mounted on the inside of the fiberglass doorposts (rv10). Google ‘skyradar adsb’ to find their web site, they sometimes have refurbished unit on sale.
 
Details matter.

Tankerpilot75 said:
I have the old Open Flight Solutions ADSB-In (now Falkin Avionics) unit and I wanted to hard wire power to the Flightbox instead of going through a USB plug on the panel for power. Unfortunately I didn’t realize a USB plug output is only around 5.4 volts vs 12 volts at the 1 amp CB I was going to use for power. When I tried to power up the Flightbox I didn’t get the expected Wi-Fi signal therefore I think I fried the unit with the 12 volts I directly connected.

Sorry, no direct help :(. But - - EE's generally build in some fault protection. Did you check the fuse and go back to the USB powered connection?

Now-this is not always true, and they make mistakes too. We had a 3 phase 400 volt motor drive inverter that got hooked up wrong and it made a $30,000 crack that sounded like a whip crack. Oops - IGBT's shot. Stuff happens.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Get a cigar plug 12vdc variety that has USB on rear. Give that a try just to verify that the Flight Box is dead. You may find it's still alive and well. Worth a try.
 
Magic Smoke?

Unfortunately, the Raspberry Pi that powers the FlightBox is a USB device, so anything above ~5.5v will cook it. 12v will cook it fast. I'm surprised it didn't release the magic smoke...

It's hard to know without looking at it if only the main board (Raspberry Pi) died, or if the over-voltage made it to the USB ports and cooked the radio modules and GPS receiver.

In better times (before Covid) it would be pretty easy and cheap to fix: try replacing the Pi first, and if necessary replace the radios and GPS. Or use the Pi for something else and buy a new Stratux / FlightBox. Unfortunately, these days Pis are rather hard to come by - you can either stalk them online at the official resellers or you can pay as scalper about 4x the normal cost for one. You need a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B (not the Model B+). The one store on Amazon that has them is asking $137 for what's normally a $35 part. (That's why we're not making them at the moment.)

For anyone else out there who wants to hard-wire a FlightBox or Stratux here are a few options:

1. Find a good buck regulator with a wide input voltage tolerance (12 - 50v). There are all kinds of cheap ones out there, but many are noisy or don't deliver enough current to keep the system happy. They draw up to 1 amp at 5v (5 watts). I'm fond of this guy from a robotics / maker place called Pololu:

https://www.pololu.com/product/2858

To connect a USB cable to the Pololu regulator, cut off the "big end" (the USB A male end), strip it back a bit and connect the red wire to the OUT pin and the black wire to one of the two GND pins. Connect the ship's power lead to the IN pin, and connect ship's ground to the other GND pin. Ideally, enclose it in some kind of box. If that's not practical, heat shrink tubing works fairly well.

2. Use a USB cable that has > 28 awg wires. Cheap USB cables use super thin conductors for both power and data. Find one that's fairly beefy and keep it as short as possible. Ideally, run ship's power to the regulator and have just a pigtail going to the USB input on the side of the box.

3. Use a 90° USB cable. Regular cables stick straight out the side and can easily be torqued in a way that can damage the plug, the jack, or both. A 90° cable only sticks out a little bit and is therefore far less likely to be yanked.

4. Install a circuit breaker or a fuse between the regulator and your avionics bus. A 1 amp fuse will work just fine. This is just basic aviation electronics safety: you want something other than your wiring to blow if something shorts.

Considering that the FlightBox and other Stratux systems are built using off-the-shelf hobbyist parts, they're pretty tough. Since 2016 I've sold over 4000 of them and while I've had a few repairs, most of them are still flying.
 
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