Batteries

[Nemo]

Question?
I have two barrettes for my P3S and in the past I have read about flyaways due to taking off with a low battery. I was shooting some photos of different locations in my area a few weeks ago and was nervous about not taking off with a fresh battery each time. I would take off at 100% and drain the battery down to 90% then land and go to another location and use the same battery draining about another 10 or 15% then of to another location. I stopped at 50%. Is this advisable?

 

[BigAl07]

For the life of me I can't understand how people say low battery = fly away but I guess anything is possible.

A lot of what I shoot involves short bursts of pics & video and then we're off to the next location. Sometimes only consuming 5% - 10% of the battery at each stop. I access how much batter I "think" the shoot will take (in %) and then DOUBLE it. If I subtract that amount and I still have 40% left I'll make the shoot.

IMHO so long as you reset the home point before flight, know your battery levels, and you're gentle on your batteries you should have no problems initiating a flight with less than 100% battery. With that being said I rarely very rarely take off (unless a test flight at the house) with less than 50% battery.

 

[Multicoptertec]

I run through multiple batteries, and will fly, land, shut down, take off again until I start reaching around 30%, then change battery. Never had an issue.


Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots

 

[joet]

I run through multiple batteries, and will fly, land, shut down, take off again until I start reaching around 30%, then change battery. Never had an issue.


Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots

Ditto. Battery level shouldn't mean much. Battery HEALTH might.

 

[Airborne Works]

We buy spent DJI Batteries from Phantom and Inspire $5 -$10 each depending upon physical condition..and we pay shipping don't toss them contact us and turn them into cash..
Contact us at [email protected]

 

[y2keable]

We buy spent DJI Batteries from Phantom and Inspire $5 -$10 each depending upon physical condition..and we pay shipping don't toss them contact us and turn them into cash..
Contact us at [email protected]

Do you do business with the UK?

 

[y2keable]

Question?
I have two barrettes for my P3S and in the past I have read about flyaways due to taking off with a low battery. I was shooting some photos of different locations in my area a few weeks ago and was nervous about not taking off with a fresh battery each time. I would take off at 100% and drain the battery down to 90% then land and go to another location and use the same battery draining about another 10 or 15% then of to another location. I stopped at 50%. Is this advisable?

I have a friend who has a P3S and he refuse to take off on anything less than 100% battery. I've never understood it.

I think it's because he's been told a few fly-away fairy tails by those with little to no understanding of electronics or how batteries work and therefore no understanding of how their fly-away wasn't proportional to a 90% battery capacity when taking off. Most likely, the fly-away was human error (like nearly every fly-away) and they just wanted to fabricate a fault to shift the blame from their selves.

Take it from an electronics engineer, there's nothing wrong with starting up and launching with a battery at less than 100%. Unless its at 15% but even then, the only issue is that you have a mere 5% to play with before the phantom tries to land itself so why bother.

 

[Airborne Works]

Do you do business with the UK?

It depends on the amount of batteries and the cost to ship... The more batteries the better but the cost per we offer is lower... Shipping is the killer.. how many do you have?

 

[With The Birds]

The batteries in those AC you heard about that flew away must have been pretty good- it couldn't fly away without power.

The recommendation to not take off on a partially charged battery is, least in some circumstances, well founded. This is principally due to the circuitry that determines SOC and remaining capacity potentially providing an inaccurate reading. You may have way less energy reserve than that depicted in the APP. If the battery hasn't been flown for a while you have a potentially larger issue where cells have gone out of balance and you can get one going low during flight. You only need one cell to go below critical voltage and you will have an auto land or worse complete shut down in flight.

Multiple flights within a reasonable time from a full charge are likely a lot less problematic.

I have no hesitation taking off with a battery at if above 50% if I flew it from a full charge within an hour or so.