#Turnigy reaktor 2 x 300w mod
#Turnigy reaktor 2 x 300w serial
#Turnigy reaktor 2 x 300w Pc

As most common processor I/O channels are safe to 20mA, this leaves a fair amount of leeway. This limits the maximum current flow through any circuit and GND to 12ma at 240V line voltage half that at 120V for those of us here in the States. It IS properly grounded, as is my desktop PC.Īfter finding that it worked, I tried & tested several values of resistor til I made it stop working, then went with the next lower value of 10KΩ. I'm using an HP Server power supply at 13.5V for my Reaktor.

#Turnigy reaktor 2 x 300w Pc

In my experimentation before writing up this How-To, I checked with a multimeter for any voltage differential between the GND on the breakout cable I made and the GND pin of the FTDI BEFORE I connected to the FTDI plugged into my PC I found none so I proceeded.

#Turnigy reaktor 2 x 300w serial

We're going to build this serial adapter cable with some buffer resistors which should prevent any errant voltage differential from being able to harm either your PC or your charger.

#Turnigy reaktor 2 x 300w mod

I'm not going to carelessly post a dangerous Mod out here for folks to toast their PC and their charger I have at least a minimum sense of responsibility. You intrepid readers who are still interested, READ ON. lets see how many more there are still with us. I'm CERTAIN this is why the iCharger 'Custom USB Cable' has the Shield & GND disconnected.īE FOREWARNED - If you do this mod and your Reaktor reaches Critical Mass and has a meltdown, YOU are responsible. The GND of this header and the GND of the TEMP sensor header and CPU GND are connected to a common GND plane, but it is NOT connected to the Main Power GND. If you're using some homebrew DC power supply with floating GND, or your PC is plugged into an improperly grounded outlet or for any reason there's a voltage differential between your charger and your PC, connecting this way could in theory blow the processor clean off the board. Internally, this connection is DIRECT to the CPU of your charger.

For absolute greatest safety, it would be best to only use this connection to a laptop running on battery power.

This connection is not the safest due to the manufacturer's design, which has the ISP Header connected to a 'floating ground' in the charger. Okay I cannot proceed any further without putting out this warning now that you have some idea what you need to do, you need to read the following to decide IF you want to do it. Look for one with the MICRO-USB, not a regular USB Type 'A' connector.įor connecting inside the charger, these:įit and are JUST long enough to get to the other end of the case. Today's hack will be based on the Silabs FT232 Converter, Commonly known as an 'FDTI', since I have one on hand and they are more commonly available with the Micro-USB connector (seen above) for a USB to Micro-USB cable, which we want because it will allow us to make our adapter pigtail nice & short to avoid noise. I just bought 3 of them from a US vendor on eBay for $6.13 with shipping those I'll be using for a future project. The original circuit in the iCharger 206B uses a Silabs PC2102 IC there are a number of VERY CHEAP FTDI USB->UART serial Converters out there based on the same chip. We can connect to it using an ordinary FTDI USB-Serial Converter. However directly to the right of the empty USB port solder pads is an ISP Header, and it IS live. Worse yet, they left off the USB->UART transcoder IC on the other side of the board! They even left the plug-in header!Īs you can see in the above photo the USB port, however, is NOT there. The temp sensor circuit is still there it's just lurking inside the box. I'm not sure why maybe it was due to space restrictions, maybe they didn't want to do support for those functions. Unfortunately, at the same time, they decided to eliminate TEMP SENSOR input and the USB port for Serial Data out to your PC. Even BETTER was taking the awesome iCharger 206B and stuffing it in an extruded aluminum box with one of its brothers this is how the Turnigy Reaktor 300W x 2 was born. One of the best ideas the folks at HobbyKing EVER had was to hook up with the folks at Junsi and start selling their world famous iCharger line of products. TURNIGY REAKTOR 300W x 2 HACKAGE - GET YOUR SERIAL DATA & TEMP SENSORS BACK!