What’s it about?
Kontronik’s Kosmik and JivePRO share the same BEC design. As proved in many places and by Kontronik themselves there is a small design flaw in it, it might not always initialize correctly. It is also important to understand that not every unit suffers from this issue.
What this does is a small notch around 3.3V when rising, unfortunately that is the same voltage where a lot of electronics wake up. This may result in erratic behavior on some servos or gyros.
Note the notch in 3.3V area on the yellow line (Kosmik BEC initializing). The blue line is voltage measured after Optipower BEC Guard I have in my heli due faulty Kosmik.
Kontronik have re-done the BEC a bit so in new unit’s this behavior is long-gone now.
How do I know the solution and information?
I contacted Kontronik to get the final truth about this and they were kind and answered. So, here it is, the definite truth, thanks to Katrin Becker at Kontronik for the information.
Do I have a (possibly) faulty unit?
If your Kosmik or JivePRO is older than these serial numbers you just might have:
- Kosmik 160 – Serial 2943
- Kosmik 200 – Serial 3543
- JivePRO 80+ HV – Serial 9Q
- JivePRO 120+ HV – Serial 9Q
Now. If your’s is older and you suffer from these symptoms here’s what you can do:
Contact Kontronik here and explain your situation. You have to send your ESC to Kontronik, they have a 11 servo test-bench from different manufacturers. If your ESC passes this test Kontronik will charge you 12.61€ + shipping, if your ESC fails this test they will exchange your ESC to a newest version for free.
So, if your worried, get to it :)