Power Distribution Board

Power Distribution Board is a lightweight distribution board used to power multi-rotor aircraft easily. These boards provide easy connections from the battery to your ESC, video Transmitter, Flight Controller, etc. A couple of switches on the board used to control LEDs, video Transmitter power, etc.

PDB’s are usually available in 20x20mm and 30.5×30.5mm sizes. But the popular one is 30.5×30.5. These boards can handle some serious current. Hence PDB  designed with higher copper content in their boards to handle these high currents and heat, at the high-end. PDB is just a simple basic circuit board that connects all the ground connectors to one another and all the positive connectors together allowing you to power all of the equipment on your drone.

The three main factors to be considered while choosing a PCD board for your Multirotor

• Current Rating:

The main safety aspect while choosing a PDB the amount of current it can handle and required to pass through it. This done by simply checking the ratings of your ESC’s to find the maximum total current draw. For a 4x 20A ESC’s we need to have a PDB that can handle (4x20A) 80A. However we will not be flying our quadcopter at max throttle, so it’s better to use a 60A PDB.

• Number of connectors:

PDB provides a sufficient number of connectors for all of your ESC’s so you can easily solder everything to your board. Thus makes the board simpler and easy to install.

• Voltage Regulator

The PDB’s also has Switching voltage regulators, also known as a BEC. These are the most efficient and emit excessive heat. A voltage regulator regulates the input voltage to a specific value, commonly 5V, or 12V. In case if we are using a 4S LiPo battery (which is 14.8V) the voltage regulator will convert that voltage and output a constant 12V, or 5V. These can be can use to power certain equipment such as LED lights, or FPV equipment which is a very useful feature as not all equipment on the drone will be able to work on 14.8V.