Fractal 5V Boostybaby Ultra Small High Power Voltage Booster

Here's what Fractal Engineering has to say about the Boostybaby:

Radically extend your flight time and improve your video reliability on 1S Li-ion builds with this 5V voltage booster

One of the major challenges with digital or longer-range 1S builds is supplying enough power to the video transmitter, along the whole discharge curve of the battery.

In most cases, Li-po batteries can be discharged down to 3.5 or even 3.3v.

That is already edging the limit of the HDZero Whoop Lite VTX (which tends to completely brownout below 2.8V and will not restart unless power-cycled)

But even more so on Li-ion builds whose batteries can be discharged down to 2.5v – All while showing higher voltage sag under load, which can turn off your video under the slightest punchout past mid-battery capacity

That is why I use a voltage booster on my digital and discrete analog VTX Wingman BNF builds.

I’ve tested quite a mouthful of modules of various sizes and specs, and thought I had found the best one at a time,

But it had its quirks and when I started noticing the quality going down over the batches I thought it was time to make my own.

I then went on to select the best-suited power IC for our specific 1S need and found this outstanding chip, boasting impressive specs that fit exactly our use case.

Then designed the circuit around it from the most reputable component manufacturers,

And out came this remarkably capable piece of gear that I can definitely trust to supply consistent, reliable power all the way through our 1S batteries.

Successor of the Boostyboi, the Boostybaby retains all of the performance in a now much smaller footprint, less than half the size and weight, at not even 0.4g!

Making it a viable option to add reliable video to any 1S digital or high power video build, from nano long range to tiny whoops.

It also retains the remote disable pad added in the BB Rev-02, allowing you to switch off the output from the FC when pulled to ground.

That will allow you to turn off the connected VTX remotely, from your radio, whether be it to save battery, cool it down or simply reboot it in the event it got wonky

To use it, I suggest remapping vtx power resource in Quicksilver to your Buzzer pad, and wire it to the /EN pad.

Why would you need one:

• It will power your HDZero Whoop lite or Walksnail VTX all the way down to 2.5V and below, even at full output power.
  

• Small package and lightweight of only 0.4g; fits most whoop builds and I’ve made it to fit perfectly between the wingman rear standoffs. (old pics of boostyboi for now )
  

• Built from top quality components from reputable manufacturers (Kemet, Samsung, TDK…) with high reliability in mind; rigorously tested to the limits.
  

• High efficiency, low noise down to 2.5V and still useable way below
  

• Remote disable pad to turn on/off your VTX from the FC to save power or reboot the VTX

It is in my experience a vital element in building a reliable 18650 1S build, whether be it with a digital or a high-power analog VTX

Entirely removing the video brownout bottleneck and enabling you to experience flights upwards of 20 minutes on a digital Wingman!

How to wire:

How to setup /enable:

Quicksilver:

• From the configurator, save the target
• Choose an available pad you want to use on your FC and find it on the target file (buzzer recommended, but most would do)
• Note the pin used by that function and remap it to a new one called “fpv“
• Back in the configurator, upload your edited target and in the receiver tab, select the channel you want to assign to “AUX_FPV_SWITCH“
• And you’re done! test by flipping the channel to make sure it’s commutating the booster on/off and you’re good to go.

Betaflight:

• In CLI, type

  resource

• Find the pad you want to use (can be a uart, led, buzzer, pinio pad…)
• For instance if we want to use the buzzer then we can find it is assigned to resource C13

  resource BEEPER 1 C13

  Keep note of that resource ID.
• Next we will free up that pad by assigning it to resource NONE

  resource BEEPER 1 NONE

• Next we can set the custom mode switch, using these commands:
  

  set pinio_box = 40,41,42,43
  aux 2 40 2 1600 2100 0
  

• Then we can finally assign our earlier resource ID to the custom more switch, like so:

  resource PINIO 1 C13

• That’s it for the CLI part! don’t forget to enter SAVE in CLI and let your FC reboot
• Finally you can go to the Modes tab and assign an aux to the USER1 mode.
• And you’re all set! You should be able to flip the boostyboi on/off with the flick of your switch.

Features:

• Module Properties:  non-isolated step-up module (BOOST)
• Input voltage:  1.8-5V
• Output voltage:  5V
• Output Current:  Rated 2.1A
• Conversion efficiency:  up to 96%
• Switching Frequency:  500KHz
• Output ripple:  60mV (p-p, input 3.6V, Output 5V 1A)
• Operating temperature: Industrial grade (-40 Celsius to +85  Celsius )
• Quiescent Current: 90uA
• Load regulation:  ± 1.5%
• Voltage regulation:  ± 3%
• Short circuit protection: Output only
• Input Reverse Polarity Protection: None
• Output over-voltage protection

Content:

1x Voltage Booster Module