built in reserve battery

[ccase39]

I wish DJI would consider this. There is no reason they couldnt put a smaller reserve battery inside the Phantom that would only kick in when its emergency. It wouldnt have to hold much or weigh that much. Just something that will get you an extra 5 minutes or so in case your main battery fails. Battery failure is becoming fairly common recently and this would be another good feature as a fail safe. It would only kick on automatically only if your regular battery is dead and not meant to be a way to squeeze a few extra minutes of flight time.

 

[saltire]

Good idea.

 

[Francis Roy]

Good idea.

+ 1

 

[Turbazz]

Adds weight, so it reduces flight time. Not a good idea in that sense. But as a failsafe would be good.

 

[ccase39]

Wouldn't add enough weight to notice. Something the size of a Syma battery would be plenty for 3-5 min. I added a GPS TRACKER and can't tell a difference in flight.

 

[Turbazz]

Syma battery? Am not aware of the weight. But whatever battery you add, it needs to be 3s lipo. Then it needs to have the intelligent circuitry. Its possible.
Or You can buy a 1000mah 3s. Wire it in parallel? To your orignal so if it fails, it should kick in.
I really don't see the point of the hassle though. If you charge your battery properly and maintain it and keep eye on the voltage when flying it shouldn't be a problem. I have many lipo batteries for my RC Stadium trucks, yet to see one fail.

I think the main problem here is that the connection is lost hence the quad copter falling out the sky. So you need to check is it tight is there any dirt between the contacts etc.

But yeah still a nice idea.

 

[ccase39]

Syma battery? Am not aware of the weight. But whatever battery you add, it needs to be 3s lipo. Then it needs to have the intelligent circuitry. Its possible.
Or You can buy a 1000mah 3s. Wire it in parallel? To your orignal so if it fails, it should kick in.
I really don't see the point of the hassle though. If you charge your battery properly and maintain it and keep eye on the voltage when flying it shouldn't be a problem. I have many lipo batteries for my RC Stadium trucks, yet to see one fail.

I think the main problem here is that the connection is lost hence the quad copter falling out the sky. So you need to check is it tight is there any dirt between the contacts etc.

But yeah still a nice idea.

I dont think it would be worth doing yourself but would be nice if it came with some sort of battery fails safe reserve. I have seen several threads where people have watched their batteries go from 50% to 10% within a matter of seconds. Some of these batteries, even new ones do fail, and its not uncommon. I rarely fly below 40% myself.
I ordered some of that contact cleaner from amazon that some members here recommend.
At what point do you think you should retire your battery? I am about 40 or so flights in on both of mine.

 

[Turbazz]

From what I have read 80? a more senior member would know better..

I was concerned about loads of things also,that's why I installed a tracker. If it does do some thing erratic, I can find it and go get it.

If the battery does drops suddenly I think the craft autolands anyway, so there will be no damage. There's a lot of ifs and buts all we can do is take every precaution.

Are you using a tracking device or thought of it..?