I might have missed a bullet today.
During flight I noticed my battery voltage turned red and I received a Critical Battery Warning. I was not flying it hard and no where near full power but it was a bit windy today. I very gingerly flew back and into a hover about 5' above the ground. I brought up the battery page and saw that all the cells were red and barely reading. The battery was varying between 11.2 and 11.4 volts and the battery temp was 50°c with a percent charger of 60%. Within a few minutes of hovering the battery percent of charge fell rapidly to 18% and the temp went to 79°c. At this point I saw a red Battery Overheat During Discharge warning and I landed and shut her down. Total flight time was 12 min with 4 or 5 of that hovering at the end trying to figure out what was going on.
I started the flight with a freshly charged battery at room temp. I did the initial warm up in my house before going outside to fly. The battery had 25 flights (26 now) and still shows 100% battery life. Outside air temp was cold 17°F and the wind was a little gusty at 15 to 20 mph. I have over 150 flts on this P3 and have never experienced anything like this before.
The question I have now is if I should retire this battery? Is there a way to test it? Or was it the fact that even with a warm 20°C plus battery, flying in the cold is risky?
During flight I noticed my battery voltage turned red and I received a Critical Battery Warning. I was not flying it hard and no where near full power but it was a bit windy today. I very gingerly flew back and into a hover about 5' above the ground. I brought up the battery page and saw that all the cells were red and barely reading. The battery was varying between 11.2 and 11.4 volts and the battery temp was 50°c with a percent charger of 60%. Within a few minutes of hovering the battery percent of charge fell rapidly to 18% and the temp went to 79°c. At this point I saw a red Battery Overheat During Discharge warning and I landed and shut her down. Total flight time was 12 min with 4 or 5 of that hovering at the end trying to figure out what was going on.
I started the flight with a freshly charged battery at room temp. I did the initial warm up in my house before going outside to fly. The battery had 25 flights (26 now) and still shows 100% battery life. Outside air temp was cold 17°F and the wind was a little gusty at 15 to 20 mph. I have over 150 flts on this P3 and have never experienced anything like this before.
The question I have now is if I should retire this battery? Is there a way to test it? Or was it the fact that even with a warm 20°C plus battery, flying in the cold is risky?