Battery practices

[crchisholm]

I built an F450 with the E300 propulsion system and have been using some Phantom 1 batteries I had left over from a Phantom 1 that took the long swim.

I have not been able to get the battery alerts to work correctly, but have a s.port voltage sensor on the quad that tells my tx what the cell voltage is. I turned off the alerts that seem to fire way too soon and watched the cell level and just hovered to see how long I could stay up. I managed 11:20 which I thought was pretty good. I did this by staying up until the weakest cell hit 3.5 volts. The finish overall voltage was 10.98. My neighbor thinks I might be pushing my lock allowing the cells to go to 3.5v

My question is, is this a bad plan. I was very happy about the 11:20 but I guess I don't have an over abundance of battery money if I am going to be trashing batteries going this low. I've learned my lesson about not storing the batteries fully charged for more than a day, but I read conflicting info about how low I should allow my weakest cell to go. Some seem comfortable at anything over 3v and a lot say 3.2v.

Would like to hear from others

 

[FangsCPO]

I for one, let my cells drop to 3.2 per cell. I've been doing that for years on all my lipos with no issues....but that's just me. If you are having your cells stop at 3.5, you are doing fine.

 

[crchisholm]

I like that answer. I'll probably stick with 3.5 just to allow for some miss-calculation on how long it will take me to land.

Thanks