Electronic – Can you discharge a 3s LiPo battery from both its main plug and it’s balance plug

cell-batterylipopowerquad-copter

So I’m building a quadcopter, and I want to be able to use the same battery to power both the escs and the flight controller.

However, the escs are connected to the PDB which is connected to the main plug of the lipo. I was wondering if it was safe to then use wires 1 and 3 of the balance plug to get 7.4V, and power the flight controller with that?

Best Answer

Yes, this is fine, provided you don't draw current in excess of the normal balancing current that the balance wires and connector are rated for. That shouldn't be a problem if it's just running logic and radios, might be more of an issue if you were wanting to run some high-powered servos.

Note that it it's important to only draw from the outer balance wires which are directly connected to the overall pack + and -. If you were to tap off intermediate wires (to get a lower voltage) you'd quickly unbalance the pack.

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