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Air 3 Expansion Slot For Alternative Use

supersmay

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Joined
Dec 22, 2023
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Age
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Wisconsin
I know the Air 3 has an expansion slot intended to be used with the cellular dongle, but I'm interested in using it to power other things attached to the drone (additional batteries for attached equipment add weight). From my very brief testing I wasn't able to get any power out of the primary USB-C port, so I imagine the Air 3 just doesn't support doing that, but the expansion slot's USB port must be able to provide some power to the dongle for it to work at all. Does anyone know of any attempts to use that expansion port for alternative uses? I wasn't able to find anything from some searching around. I wasn't able to find output specifications for the drone itself anywhere either, and I'd guess the 4G dongle wouldn't use all the much power anyway, so it might not be able to put out much even if it was possible to use for other purposes. Given the port's intended narrow use case I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't even output a standard 5V.
 
Do you have a USB Power meter? if so you can check, but the dongle most likely uses way less power to work or keep its internal batt charged.
 
So far as I know/read, it is only for the use of a cellular dongle.
 
In case anyone comes across this post in the future, my limited testing indicates that yes, the USB slot does output a standard 5V. I don't know the max wattage, but it was enough for low power USB devices to recognize and charge.
 
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