Power Connector Gender Convention

The gender for any connectors used on the drone is critical and should not be taken lightly. Each specific connector series may, in rare cases, deviate from this standard though a reason should be cited in architecture document where that connector is defined.

The following convention will be adopted for general two pin power connectors: any electronic source’s output power will have a female connector and any electronic power consumer input power will have a male connector. In this case male refers to the connector with pin like electrical contacts and female as the connector with socket like electrical contacts.

When deciphering connector gender for the purpose of this standard be sure to ignore any plastic shrouding that may be present. Please note that some connector manufacturers have differing definitions of genders which should be ignore for the purpose of ensuring compliance with this standard.

This standard is critical for safety because we want sources which are always live to be hard to accidentally contact (i.e. short) accidentally whereas loads input power is totally safe to be shorted as there is no power source. This standard is adopted by the COTS world as well so for compatibility we keep this standard.

For data cables please refer Pixhawk Electrical Connector Standards .

For non-gendered power connectors (i.e. Anderson PP45 connectors) they are generally protected in sufficient shrouding and consequently this gender convention is not directly relevant.

Finally, some examples of this to avoid confusion. For examples of electronic source’s power output connectors we have: battery power connectors, ESC leads to the motor & buck/ldo/bec board output power. For examples of electronic load’s power input connectors we have: power distribution board input power, & ESC input DC power. Another system level super common example is when you want to plug something into the wall (~120VAC & ~60 Hz) (an electrical source) it has female electrical contacts and the thing you’re plugging in (an electrical load) has male contacts. This was done deliberately to keep humans safe!

XT30, XT60, XT90 are common connectors we use for power at WARG. The part numbers ending in -F are female and the part numbers ending in -M are male. Be sure any schematics being drawn, including system level schematics, specify the intended gender for connectors to avoid confusion during assembly. Feel free to link to this standard!

Because this design decision is so critical, if you are doing assembly on the aircraft and you are not sure be sure to ask for help and clarification. If you are dealing with an edge case, please document it here in the architecture space and even the general cases should be documented (though most are already).