Battery Discharge/Charge question?

[solentlife]

People think I am anti DJI and knocking them. Not true. I just feel it is prudent to let owners know how things are calculated / determined / controlled so they may have a better understanding.

DJI unlike most other RC companys are very poor on explaining items or procedures, they rely on a manual that is pretty well out of date now with all the FW and GO updates gone through.

A lot of maybe's and hearsay gets reported as fact by some owners who should know better ... it perpetuates the myths.

I get moaned at because I do not 'follow' the crowd and prefer to know what is happening in my hands. This means that at times I am contrary to some. Sorry but that's life.

My view is that if I can save one person from damaging his battery or P3S ... then why not ?

Nigel

 

[jakeaheli]

I appreciate all the answers and opinions thrown out here. I will NEVER discharge my battery to those levels again as I've come to the conclusion that it is really not necessary.
Thankyou Nigel for pointing that out. I've come to this conclusion myself. 25-30% is where i will plan on landing from now in the future.

Since we are on the subject of batteries and charging - is is OK to charge the RC (Remote controller) with a portable power bank (Charger) ?

Thanks for any input on this
Jake

 

[solentlife]

The P3S remote is a 1S 3.7V 2600mAh battery ... so a standard up to 5V USB power source is the answer. If you have a car adaptor to charge your mobile phone / tablet etc. - that is ideal on a power bank. But do not exceed a 2A adaptor .. otherwise you risk damaging the circuitry. The Remote does not use or require in any form a 17.4V supply. In fact if you tried such a power supply WITHOUT suitable reduction to USB levels - you'd fry the remotes boards and liable to explode the small battery in there.

Sorry Quamera - but your post is confusing as it mixes the 17.4V models flight battery power supply in with the lower 5V USB supply to Remote Controller.

Nigel

 

[Quamera]

The P3S remote is a 1S 3.7V 2600mAh battery ... so a standard up to 5V USB power source is the answer. If you have a car adaptor to charge your mobile phone / tablet etc. - that is ideal on a power bank. But do not exceed a 2A adaptor .. otherwise you risk damaging the circuitry. The Remote does not use or require in any form a 17.4V supply. In fact if you tried such a power supply WITHOUT suitable reduction to USB levels - you'd fry the remotes boards and liable to explode the small battery in there.

Sorry Quamera - but your post is confusing as it mixes the 17.4V models flight battery power supply in with the lower 5V USB supply to Remote Controller.

Nigel

Nigel, my post was more than confusing, it was incorrect and I have deleted it. Apologies for my brain fade and thankyou for pointing it out.

 

[solentlife]

Hi Quamera .... no worries ... and no disrespect on my part intended.

Cheers
Nigel

 

[jakeaheli]

The P3S remote is a 1S 3.7V 2600mAh battery ... so a standard up to 5V USB power source is the answer. If you have a car adaptor to charge your mobile phone / tablet etc. - that is ideal on a power bank. But do not exceed a 2A adaptor .. otherwise you risk damaging the circuitry. The Remote does not use or require in any form a 17.4V supply. In fact if you tried such a power supply WITHOUT suitable reduction to USB levels - you'd fry the remotes boards and liable to explode the small battery in there.

Nigel

Thanks for the answer to this. I've got a 4000mAh portable battery with a USB output DC5V 1A MAX. So i should be alright yeah?

The 4000mAH should be enough to charge roughly about once over with some power left to spare.

Jake

 

[Quamera]

Hi Quamera .... no worries ... and no disrespect on my part intended.

Cheers
Nigel

And none taken either, I would much prefer my error was corrected than have it left there and be another bit of misinformation, there is too much of that in this world already.

 

[solentlife]

Thanks for the answer to this. I've got a 4000mAh portable battery with a USB output DC5V 1A MAX. So i should be alright yeah?

The 4000mAH should be enough to charge roughly about once over with some power left to spare.

Jake

Fine ... go for it ...

The other way of course is a phone charger in the car.

Nigel

 

[jakeaheli]

Fine ... go for it ...

The other way of course is a phone charger in the car.

Nigel

Cheers brother, you've been very helpful to me

 

[solentlife]

Your RC controller should in theory be good for about 18 - 20 flights ... in unmodified form.

And because the battery in there is also a LiPo - its good to not just keeping topping it up - personally I like to use it for at least 10 or so flights before recharging .....

Nigel

 

[jakeaheli]

Thanks for pointing that out. I will keep those point in mind.

BTW - What's your take on using non OEM batteries? I can buy 3 of them for the price of an OEM battery here in Australia anyway. Its just ridiculous. In my research, I haven't heard of one story of a fire or the AC dropping out of the sky.

Thought I'd ask here before i did anything

Jake

 

[WilliamM]

Your RC controller should in theory be good for about 18 - 20 flights ... in unmodified form.

And because the battery in there is also a LiPo - its good to not just keeping topping it up - personally I like to use it for at least 10 or so flights before recharging .....

Nigel

20 flights, seems way high. I never let it get too low before changing it, but if I did seems like I'd get about 10 flights at most.

 

[solentlife]

Thanks for pointing that out. I will keep those point in mind.

BTW - What's your take on using non OEM batteries? I can buy 3 of them for the price of an OEM battery here in Australia anyway. Its just ridiculous. In my research, I haven't heard of one story of a fire or the AC dropping out of the sky.

Thought I'd ask here before i did anything

Jake

Ooooh ! This will upset the natives ... I use non original batterys and have no problem at all ... I can get 2 for 1 versus DJI pricing.

Back to Controller ..... I like to see my controller drop back to 2 greens before recharging ... I am not one to push the limits ... but I am sure that even 1 green would be enough to bring 'her home'.

Nigel

 

[jakeaheli]

Ooooh ! This will upset the natives ... I use non original batterys and have no problem at all ... I can get 2 for 1 versus DJI pricing.

Back to Controller ..... I like to see my controller drop back to 2 greens before recharging ... I am not one to push the limits ... but I am sure that even 1 green would be enough to bring 'her home'.

Nigel

Where did you buy yours from? Do you have a link please... I have decided to purchase 2 of them along with a parallel charger so i can charge about 3 at a time.

20 mins is not enough with this thing lol

Jake

 

[SteelFlyer]

I have a question that so far I've been unable to get answered. I understand the issues with leaving a LiPo charged and DJI's recommendations for storing in a discharged state. My question is what is the real effect if you keep your batteries charged up all of the time? How much of the useful life are you really sacrificing? I fly when I get an opportunity in my busy schedule and often don't have a long time to plan and charge my batteries so I prefer to have them charged and ready to go.

 

[N017RW]

SteelFlyer... there is Soooo much info about LiPo maintenance info on the web that to say it's 'unanswered' is simply lazy.
30-50% of the pack voltage is considered optimal.
DJI offers up to 10 days for their self-discharge feature on their product offerings.
Seems nominal.
Frequent partial charge from storage levels as req is not detrimental.

 

[stuka75]

I have a question that so far I've been unable to get answered. I understand the issues with leaving a LiPo charged and DJI's recommendations for storing in a discharged state. My question is what is the real effect if you keep your batteries charged up all of the time? How much of the useful life are you really sacrificing? I fly when I get an opportunity in my busy schedule and often don't have a long time to plan and charge my batteries so I prefer to have them charged and ready to go.

From experience, I can state that the battery(lipo) kept fully charged will loose capacity within a year. That equates to flight time.
I had four new high quality 3 cell packs I kept charged on the shelf four 8 months. When I went to use them, I found them unable to give half the original flight time with the same aircraft.
The self discharging of the DJI packs avoids the need to discharge packs ot storage level. If flown to 20% say, then they should be charged to 40-50% or fully charged and allowed to self discharge.

 

[solentlife]

My battery's come from an Irish seller.

OK - storage level ... if you fly to 20% - that is fine to leave in storage. There is no need to charge up to higher. The often quoted 50% is actually at the high end of storage ....

Storage is usually recc'd to be around the 30% mark.

Kepoing a lipo fully charged can cause it to fail in even a short time but generally people get a year or so. The fault is that the internal resistance increases to the point that power delivery is seriously restricted and battery cannot fly the model or its flight time is very short.

Flight timesare actually one of the best indicators of battery going down ... its worth noting time vs battery state on flights ... you will note a lessening of flight time vs state as it gets weaker.

Nigel

 

[Eddie258]

Just my 2 cents worth but from what I have read the discharge on DJI batteries was not for the battery cells themselves but served to reset the capacitor- electronics in the battery pack.

 

[A.L.E.X]

On the subject of lipo maintenance, I was under the impression that discharging to 8% did nothing for the battery, but only calibrated the phantoms sensors to properly read remaining capacity. For example, if you never discharge to below 30%, the system will not "know" what a depleted battery "looks" like (depleted vs full voltage), and won't have an accurate reference to calculate capacity. It is possible that DJI no longer recommends deep discharge because they have added firmware that is smart enough to calculate capacity based on a smaller range of voltages. Either way, the best option is to follow the manual to the letter.