Brownouts and BECs

[i_r_beej]

Anyone have any experience using a BEC? I haven't yet purchased a new servo but want to do that soon as I'm running without a servo saver on the stock (plastic geared) servo so I figure it's a matter of time before I hit a post in a race and tear it to shreds.

I've read a few board posts (not here) about the use of BECs to avoid brownout but I'm still a little clueless just how they're employed.

 

[rob5059]

Currently you are powering the RX from your ESC, which has a 1 or 2A BEC built in. When you exceed the current limit of the built in BEC, you have a brown out. When you install a high torque or power hungry servo you can exceed the limit of the built in BEC. You can install a BEC or a glitch buster capacitor.

There are 2 ways to wire a BEC:
1st you plug the BEC in to the RX, and remove the red wire coming from your ESC. Now you are powering the RX and any accessories from the BEC. With the BEC you can set your voltage, and will have up to 10A. This is the most common setup. In this setup I would normally run 6V

2nd you power the servo directly from the BEC, and bring the yellow signal wire from the servo to the RX. This will allow you to set a higher voltage for the servo (higher torque), and not worrying about burning up the RX or accessories by hitting them with to high of a voltage. This is how I wire up the servos on my comp crawlers. In this setup I would normally run 7.4V

 

[i_r_beej]

After I posted my question I remembered that we had a brief exchange about this over in the Boost forum! But you've provided even more info. I appreciate the details about wiring-- makes sense to me now. Thanks for the explanation!