I bought a few of them and permanently fixed each to my quads since these are quite cheap. I heatshrink them after soldering the wires and use padded double sided tape to stick it on a safe place on the quad, then use a cable tie to secure it. Moving the voltage regulator around is cumbersome and fiddly when in the field.
I'm going to use a similar regulator but wire it differently. Instead of writing the leads to the battery pads on the flight controller I'm going to make a very short female/male power extending cable. So it will have a male xt30 on one side and a female on the other. Ill then run the bec power input on parallel to short power lines. To use it I will just plug one side into the battery and the other into the quad. If you hardwire the bec into the short extension then you only need one bec per connector type you use, eg xt30, xt60. if you dont mind the weight of yet another plug you can get away with only one bec. The difference here is that there are no loose wires when you aren't using the camera and there is nothing to change 'per drone' so flying the camera on a new drone is no solder operation.
this sounds interesting but im not sure i can fully picture what you are doing. is it like a xt30 coupler one end female one male pretty much with the 5v regulator attached to it? if that's what your explaining i think thats an awesome idea I might try to make that
@@OLEHFPV Yeah I think you got it. one male, one female xt30. The battery goes in one side, quad on the other, attached the 5v leads for the camera are connected to one of the xt30s. So you are flying with a bit more weight with the camera but without there is nothing. This also means you can swap it to another quad without soldering anything or having spare leads attached.
@@narr0wm1nd49 yeah i like that idea. for my case what i did was better because I have the 5 inch drone which has the xt60 but i like that idea for someone with multiple quads with xt30 plugs this would be very useful.
I put a tiny little pololu 5v regulator on the back of the camera mount with double sided tape, it's so small you almost don't even notice it's there. Output wire is just 1,5cm or so with the plug to go into the camera, soldered another 1cm wire with a female 2pin plug to the input and secured it to the regulator with heatshrink. Now i have different length extension wires that plug into the tiny 2pin plug on the regulator on one side and to the balancer plug of the lipo on the other side. This way i can adjust to different quads/wings/lipos and don't need to solder anything to the stack. I just don't get it why runcam did not put a regulator into the camera in the first place??
For mine I used the plug end on the new cable that fits on my balance port plug on the lipo makes it even more portable move the cable with the inline 5 volt regulator from drone to drone with the camera
soldering the power wire to 5V and GND is the best way to use this camera for a drone. another way is a have some power bank which you can power from using USB cable but that will add a lot of weight to your drone. if your not using it on a drone then power bank works well.
Would i be able attach the thumb pro directly to a lipo with out a drone to just use as a regular action camera? And is the quality good enough to use it like a go pro to film airsoft videos? good video bro
The quality is good for the money in my opinion. If you are not using a drone you could just attach the 5V regulator onto some kind of 3D printer case for the camera and then use a lipo to power it. As long ss you have a steady 5V powering the camera you should be good.
great content! subbed. Mine is coming in tomorrow but I'm definitely installing connectors on all my quads for a quick jump around whichever I choose to fly the thumb. using old 1s pigtails as power connectors
glad you liked the idea its really awesome to be able to move it from one drone to another real fast. if you look in the comments there is another great idea someone had to power up the camera with 5V
if you have a 5V out on your flight controller you can power the camera from there. the regulator is only to be able to power it from different size lipos.
Also wondering if i can wire the runcam straight to the 5v on my aio fc? Will that affect the amps? I have jhemcu 411 aio 40a. No idea how kv and amps work just yet, still learning! Haha
I don't think the camera will use up that much of the batteries capacity to really see a significant difference in flight time but the additional weight of the camera will make your motors work harder so you will loose some flight time from that especially if its a smaller drone
Hi, I just tried to use with lipo 3s 450mah and power it on directly with bec and gives the result 5.07v+- Is that ok even they stated only 5v input power? I just want to make sure that nothing can burn to my thumb pro
I believe that 5.07V is ok. in the video when I measured the 5V i got 4.98V sometimes and sometime 5.01V so that's ok you can use your 5.07V. Try using a different lipo for the power source i bet you will get a different 5v measurement.
@@FpvDevilbreath your lipos can discharge at a higher amp rating but the camera only needs 500mah to work and it will only pull the current it needs and no more. if your power sources output amps is high it does not mean that the camera will pull more amps. So as long as the voltage is at 5V you will not burn out the camera.
My camera will be arriving Monday. What is the green wire supposed to do? Is it for controlling the recording with an aux switch on the transmitter? Looks like it goes to nothing in your build since it's not soldered to the 5V regulator. Does that mean recording starts when the battery is plugged in, or when the quad is armed? I haven't looked yet and I'm sure you gave enough info to find it, but a link to the regulator would probably be a good idea. Otherwise, great video. Thanks for sharing your solution!
the green and white wires are for controlling the recording with a switch using a UART. as default to start recording without those wires you need to press the button on the camera but in the app you can set up the camera to start recording once its powered ON. Glad you enjoyed the video let me know if your going to try this with your camera!!!
Here is a link to a voltage regulator your can use besides that you will just need a few wires www.amazon.com/Voltage-Converter-Non-Isolated-4-75V-23V-Airplane/dp/B07PDG9XRB
I have crashed into trees multiple times and it doesn't come off that easily. depending on how you mount it onto the drone it could come off i guess. I actually ended up using double sided sticky tape and just sticking the 5V regulator directly to the frame
I bought a few of them and permanently fixed each to my quads since these are quite cheap. I heatshrink them after soldering the wires and use padded double sided tape to stick it on a safe place on the quad, then use a cable tie to secure it. Moving the voltage regulator around is cumbersome and fiddly when in the field.
yeah currently I have mine attached to the camera but I ordered more and want to do exactly wat you said have one on each drone.
wow buddy....veeeery nice! Thank you so much for sharing it!
I'm going to use a similar regulator but wire it differently. Instead of writing the leads to the battery pads on the flight controller I'm going to make a very short female/male power extending cable. So it will have a male xt30 on one side and a female on the other. Ill then run the bec power input on parallel to short power lines. To use it I will just plug one side into the battery and the other into the quad. If you hardwire the bec into the short extension then you only need one bec per connector type you use, eg xt30, xt60. if you dont mind the weight of yet another plug you can get away with only one bec. The difference here is that there are no loose wires when you aren't using the camera and there is nothing to change 'per drone' so flying the camera on a new drone is no solder operation.
this sounds interesting but im not sure i can fully picture what you are doing. is it like a xt30 coupler one end female one male pretty much with the 5v regulator attached to it?
if that's what your explaining i think thats an awesome idea I might try to make that
@@OLEHFPV Yeah I think you got it. one male, one female xt30. The battery goes in one side, quad on the other, attached the 5v leads for the camera are connected to one of the xt30s. So you are flying with a bit more weight with the camera but without there is nothing. This also means you can swap it to another quad without soldering anything or having spare leads attached.
@@narr0wm1nd49 yeah i like that idea. for my case what i did was better because I have the 5 inch drone which has the xt60 but i like that idea for someone with multiple quads with xt30 plugs this would be very useful.
@@OLEHFPV I'm going to make one with xt30s and another with xt60s. I found the matek micro 5v becs come in a pack of 3s.
@@narr0wm1nd49 id be interested in seeing what it looks like. email me a picture if you dont mind
I think is a great idea ad im going to used at idea thank u
yeah this is one of the best ways to power up the camera.
I put a tiny little pololu 5v regulator on the back of the camera mount with double sided tape, it's so small you almost don't even notice it's there. Output wire is just 1,5cm or so with the plug to go into the camera, soldered another 1cm wire with a female 2pin plug to the input and secured it to the regulator with heatshrink. Now i have different length extension wires that plug into the tiny 2pin plug on the regulator on one side and to the balancer plug of the lipo on the other side. This way i can adjust to different quads/wings/lipos and don't need to solder anything to the stack.
I just don't get it why runcam did not put a regulator into the camera in the first place??
yeah a regulator would have been really nice
For mine I used the plug end on the new cable that fits on my balance port plug on the lipo makes it even more portable move the cable with the inline 5 volt regulator from drone to drone with the camera
Can u power the camera in any way without a solder?
soldering the power wire to 5V and GND is the best way to use this camera for a drone. another way is a have some power bank which you can power from using USB cable but that will add a lot of weight to your drone. if your not using it on a drone then power bank works well.
Would i be able attach the thumb pro directly to a lipo with out a drone to just use as a regular action camera? And is the quality good enough to use it like a go pro to film airsoft videos?
good video bro
The quality is good for the money in my opinion. If you are not using a drone you could just attach the 5V regulator onto some kind of 3D printer case for the camera and then use a lipo to power it. As long ss you have a steady 5V powering the camera you should be good.
Awesome thanks man I really appreciate the reply and advice I'm going to try it👍
@@shadow1ndustries happy to help. thanks for watching the videos!!!
great content! subbed. Mine is coming in tomorrow but I'm definitely installing connectors on all my quads for a quick jump around whichever I choose to fly the thumb. using old 1s pigtails as power connectors
glad you liked the idea its really awesome to be able to move it from one drone to another real fast. if you look in the comments there is another great idea someone had to power up the camera with 5V
I'm just connecting leads from a 5v out and ground on the board not needing a regulator. What am I missing here?
if you have a 5V out on your flight controller you can power the camera from there. the regulator is only to be able to power it from different size lipos.
Good video! 👍 I am wonder how much battery/flight time is lost when using an action cam vs not recording?
Also wondering if i can wire the runcam straight to the 5v on my aio fc? Will that affect the amps? I have jhemcu 411 aio 40a. No idea how kv and amps work just yet, still learning! Haha
I don't think the camera will use up that much of the batteries capacity to really see a significant difference in flight time but the additional weight of the camera will make your motors work harder so you will loose some flight time from that especially if its a smaller drone
@@adoreoner8185 you can wire the camera to the 5V for sure the camera will only pull the amps it needs to work so you wont damage it.
Hi, I just tried to use with lipo 3s 450mah and power it on directly with bec and gives the result 5.07v+-
Is that ok even they stated only 5v input power? I just want to make sure that nothing can burn to my thumb pro
I believe that 5.07V is ok. in the video when I measured the 5V i got 4.98V sometimes and sometime 5.01V so that's ok you can use your 5.07V. Try using a different lipo for the power source i bet you will get a different 5v measurement.
@@OLEHFPV I see.. thank you so much my friend! 👍
The runcam says 500mah. Is it ok to use a 2a output?
500mah is how much current the camera consumes at 5V. so more is ok
@@OLEHFPV no more in not ok.... you gonna burn it...
@@FpvDevilbreath your lipos can discharge at a higher amp rating but the camera only needs 500mah to work and it will only pull the current it needs and no more. if your power sources output amps is high it does not mean that the camera will pull more amps. So as long as the voltage is at 5V you will not burn out the camera.
My camera will be arriving Monday. What is the green wire supposed to do? Is it for controlling the recording with an aux switch on the transmitter? Looks like it goes to nothing in your build since it's not soldered to the 5V regulator. Does that mean recording starts when the battery is plugged in, or when the quad is armed? I haven't looked yet and I'm sure you gave enough info to find it, but a link to the regulator would probably be a good idea. Otherwise, great video. Thanks for sharing your solution!
the green and white wires are for controlling the recording with a switch using a UART. as default to start recording without those wires you need to press the button on the camera but in the app you can set up the camera to start recording once its powered ON. Glad you enjoyed the video let me know if your going to try this with your camera!!!
Thanks for share 🙂👍
You got it!!!
you need a huge capacitor too, because voltage oscillates
no need its a steady 5V
@@OLEHFPV ok, thanks!
Props off man
From my test, the minimum voltage is 4.5v, probably should not over 5.5v
yeah going over will kill your camera
Please post parts list links
Here is a link to a voltage regulator your can use besides that you will just need a few wires
www.amazon.com/Voltage-Converter-Non-Isolated-4-75V-23V-Airplane/dp/B07PDG9XRB
it will break once you stuck in tree or crash in bando..
I have crashed into trees multiple times and it doesn't come off that easily. depending on how you mount it onto the drone it could come off i guess. I actually ended up using double sided sticky tape and just sticking the 5V regulator directly to the frame
take your props off !