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How to connect 4 ESCs to one LiPo battery (Make a power distribution board)

The first time I built a power distribution / wiring harness for a tri / quadcopter was back in December 2010 (http://fangin.com/blog/2010/12/07/tricopter-build-wiring-harness/) and I chose the most direct solution which was to solder all the cables together. I say "most direct solution" because in hindsight, it's not the simplest solution. The drawbacks of this solution include;

• It's more difficult to layout all the wires and get the lengths planned up front.
• Twisting the wire together and soldering 4 or 5 wires at one junction gets messy.
• I tried to link all the wires at one point (http://fangin.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/1000000286-Large.jpg) to go into the battery which made it difficult to get the wire into the XT60 connector.

 

A neater, simpler and all round better solution is a power distribution board where a central, double sided PCB board (copper on both sides) is located centrally in relation to the ESCs / motors and all the wires connect back to this PCB.

What you'll need. 

1. PCB - Double sided.
2. Cutters
3. Red / Black Wire
4. Solder / Soldering iron
5. 20mm heatshrink tube.

 

• Cut a small board approximately 35 x 15 mm of the double sided PCB.

 

• Prepare the wires and board by soldering the ends of each wire and the board where the wires will go. You may want to consider orienting the wire to suit the layout of your multirotor. For example an X-Quad you may want to have four wires coming off the board in an X layout.

 

• Solder the wires to the board. Turn the board over and repeat for the other polarity wires.

 

• At this point you're almost ready to seal the board up with some heatshrink tube. Before you do! Use a continuity test on a multimeter to ensure 1) All the ground wires are connected and 2) There is no connection between the positive and ground planes.

• If you're worried about wires moving or foreign objects getting into the heatshrink, smother both sides of the board with glue from a hot glue gun. That will help keep the wires in the right place and prevent a short circuit between the two polarities should something conductive work it's way into the housing. 

 

• Now you can solder your favourite connectors at the end of each pair of wires. In the photo shown below I've used XT60 connectors on a harness made for a tricopter.