Battery simple please

[Gary Beamon]

Hey everyone

Can someone tell me in simple terms what to do with batteries!

I read it's not good to store them at full charge

How do you discharge them fully say it has 1 and a half lights left on it after a flight what should I do to flatten it fully

When you look at the discharge times on the assist software is that as simple as that's how many times it's been used ?

I have 5 batteries between me and my dad if we go out and don't use them all what should I do with the full ones we bring back

Cheers

Gaz


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[rockydog]

You should never discharge them fully ! Store around 50%. You can set the battery to auto discharge in the app.

 

[Gary Beamon]

So let's say we went out last Sunday used three batts the two we never used have been stored full this past week that's fine to use today


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[rockydog]

You should top them up before you fly.

 

[Gary Beamon]

But when you plug them in they don't start charging


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[rockydog]

If they're almost full, you need to turn the battery on to initiate charging.

 

[Gary Beamon]

Cheers mate will do that now to one


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[Karanba]

I store them on 2 LEDs or around 50%, Ive been told to do that. DJI manual says every 20 cycles to discharge them completely or at 8% so the Phantom will not power with them and then charge them fully. Those batteries are real crap having in mind their price and durability.

Is it ok to store them on 30% aka Fail Safe landing capacity or we need to charge them to 50% and then store ?

 

[Mako79]

I store them on 2 LEDs or around 50%, Ive been told to do that. DJI manual says every 20 cycles to discharge them completely or at 8% so the Phantom will not power with them and then charge them fully. Those batteries are real crap having in mind their price and durability.

Is it ok to store them on 30% aka Fail Safe landing capacity or we need to charge them to 50% and then store ?

30-50% is fine. Don't store them full or too low and factor in temperatures when storing for long periods.

 

[Mark The Droner]

I personally don't worry about storing full batteries because I trust the auto-discharge system which is built into each battery. It will begin auto-discharge in ten days.

Yes, I use the number on the assistant software. I do a deep discharge every 20 cycles.

Re deep discharges, the battery will shut itself off when it gets to a deep discharge state, so it's very difficult to completely discharge them. I think the only way to completely discharge (kill) the battery is to deep discharge it and then forget to fully charge it immediately afterwards. Also, the P2V manual states to deep discharge them below 8%, not to 8% (however, the P3 manual says "to 8%"). I have a discharge device which I got on eBay which deep discharges to 3%. It works great.

What I like to do is make a record of the cells as they approach 20 cycles. I write down the individual cell levels at the 19th cycle. Then I fly, and afterwards I do the deep discharge. I load Phantom Asst on my desktop and plug in the Phantom to the desktop. I turn the phantom on, go to the battery page, do a quick screen shot (prt sc). Turn the phantom off. Then I fully charge and check the battery again using Phantom Asst. What I have found is, each time I do a deep discharge to 3% and then fully charge, the cells are more balanced than they were before I did the deep discharge. And all my four batteries are healthy with balanced cells. One of them is exactly the same mv and another of them are within 3 mv. That's pretty friggin' balanced.

 

[yorlik]

good advice, except I would temper it that each time you discharge to 3% you damage your battery slightly. It is only like 1-2%, but damage nonetheless.

Yes, discharge to EXACTLY 8% DOES NOT RECALIBRATE THE BATTERY. Discharge to anything less - even 7%, DOES. Discharging to 7% does not damage your battery.

If you watch REAL close, you will see the battery mah left go down and down and down linearly until it all of a sudden the % charge drops in SECONDS from whatever (60%, 40%, 30%, 20%) down to 8% value . It STAYS there until it is recalibrated, which may be 10-15 minutes depending on your discharge rate, but in anycase the mah remaining will continue to drop nice and linearly and drop while sitting at 8% charge value, until it recalibrates. So yes, you must go BELOW 8% to recalibrate fully. But not to 3%. I found typically 8% down to 4-5% continued at the same linear time discharge rate (watching mah left), so it is easy to NOT let it go that far.

But I would never recommend going to 3%: I have watched cell capacity go down a few 10's of mah each and every time I went that low. If in doubt, write down the mah capacity on last full charge before you go down to 3%. Now recharge. You will find the full capacity is LESS than the last time due to the damage you did. and it will remain lower forever more.