dji phantom 1 - battery & charging

[hedonist222]

Hello everyone

I picked up a Phantom 1 yesterday.
Along with a seaway 2700mah second battery.

I have a few questions: (ones in bold added later:

1- the battery takes an hour to charge. Sometimes I'm not home to disconnect the battery from the charger. Is it going to damage the battery? Or decrease battery life?

2- I read that I'm not going to use the battery for a while ,I should charge to 50% then pack it away.
a- is this correct?
b- how long is a while? Days? Weeks?
At this point I'm going to try to fly everyday but it could be days.

3- I think you shouldn't fly till the battery oud completely dead. But, during a flight, how can I know what's left? There's no gauge indicator.

4- How long (minutes) should I fly the stock battery? What about the third party 2700mah battery?

5- Will the third party battery I mention above damage the quadcopter? Should I stick to stock batteries?
The exact battery: Dualsky XP27003 ES

6- I will let the quadcopter sit 2 minutes between batteries to cool down. Is this ample time?

7- How many battery flights per outing? Are 7 batteries worth of flights exhausting to the quadcopter? (Yes , I'm excited ).

Thanks

Oh yeah, obligatory first flight photo :

 

[ElGuano]

Re: dji phantom 1 - battery & charging

Welcome! Great photo, looking forward to seeing more.

First and foremost, take lipos seriously. I'm not kidding. Charge it only when you are home and in the immediate vicinity. Don't leave to on the charger overnight, disconnect when the charge is finished. Charge and store your lipos in a fire safe location: on concrete, granite, etc. lipo fires during charging are rare but not that rare, and devastating when they happen.

A 2200 should take about 30 minutes to charge at "1c" rate, which is the 2-amp setting on the charger. The switch may be set to 1-amp.

Storing at 50% is recommended, generally if you fly less than once a week. If you're flying every other day or more, you can just store them after flight.

Without getting extra hardware, it's hard to know what your battery level is. The phantom's led will start blinking red when the voltage gets low; it's an imperfect but acceptable way to know when to land and still be at a safe discharge level. You can get a smart charger or low battery buzzer and fly by timer instead.

 

[hedonist222]

Welcome! Great photo, looking forward to seeing more.

First and foremost, take lipos seriously. I'm not kidding. Charge it only when you are home and in the immediate vicinity. Don't leave to on the charger overnight, disconnect when the charge is finished. Charge and store your lipos in a fire safe location: on concrete, granite, etc. lipo fires during charging are rare but not that rare, and devastating when they happen.

A 2200 should take about 30 minutes to charge at "1c" rate, which is the 2-amp setting on the charger. The switch may be set to 1-amp.

Storing at 50% is recommended, generally if you fly less than once a week. If you're flying every other day or more, you can just store them after flight.

Without getting extra hardware, it's hard to know what your battery level is. The phantom's led will start blinking red when the voltage gets low; it's an imperfect but acceptable way to know when to land and still be at a safe discharge level. You can get a smart charger or low battery buzzer and fly by timer instead.

Thank you for the LiPo advice.
I'll heed accordingly.

The sales assistant said to charge at:

3S and 2A.

I think that takes around 90 minutes to charge.

What's 1C pertain to?

Many thanks to for the swift & helpful reply.

 

[ElGuano]

Thank you for the LiPo advice.
I'll heed accordingly.

The sales assistant said to charge at:

3S and 2A.

I think that takes around 90 minutes to charge.

What's 1C pertain to?

Many thanks to for the swift & helpful reply.

3S and 2A is the right setting for the battery. "1C" is another way of saying rate. It's a "full transfer in an hour" at whatever capacity your battery is. So a 2200mah battery discharges its full capacity in 1 hour at 2amps continuous, a 4400mah discharges at 4amps, both are 1C for their respective batteries. It's "supposed" to take an hour to charge a 2200mah at 1C but it takes a lot less time on the DJI charger (mostly because it's usually not full drain).

 

[hedonist222]

Thank you for the LiPo advice.
I'll heed accordingly.

The sales assistant said to charge at:

3S and 2A.

I think that takes around 90 minutes to charge.

What's 1C pertain to?

Many thanks to for the swift & helpful reply.

3S and 2A is the right setting for the battery. "1C" is another way of saying rate. It's a "full transfer in an hour" at whatever capacity your battery is. So a 2200mah battery discharges its full capacity in 1 hour at 2amps continuous, a 4400mah discharges at 4amps, both are 1C for their respective batteries. It's "supposed" to take an hour to charge a 2200mah at 1C but it takes a lot less time on the DJI charger (mostly because it's usually not full drain).

It's been exactly one hour since I connected the the stock battery & it's still charging.

The charge status led a solid red.

The LHS guy did say it'd take 90 minutes.

I'm not sure what's happening.

 

[OI Photography]

To be honest, my stock 2200 batts always took around 75min to charge @ 2Amps on the DJI charger, after a full flight (drained to 11.1v)

 

[EMCSQUAR]

Depending on how many cycles the battery has been through it can go longer than an hour. I have original Phantom 2200 and it takes over an hour on original charger. Have aftermarket 2200s & 2700s that take 45 mins or less but they have less cycles on them.

 

[hedonist222]

Thanks everyone.


What about questions 4 to 7.

Thanks

 

[EMCSQUAR]

As far as how long to fly that depends on what your rig is loaded with (gimbal,FPV, etc...) that varies from Phantom to Phantom and how you fly. You can experiment with just a full battery hover - that'll give you max time without any heavy load. The heavier the rig the less fly time.

We all fly third party batteries - some good, some not so good but will it do damage - most won't unless they are really generic junk. Months ago folks bought some cut rate Ebay specials and had issues with length of flights (really low) and not being able to charge after 6-7 flights. Search the forum for battery recommendations - personally I like the mad dog 2700 but that's me.

You don't have to let the quad sit between batteries but let batteries sit 15mins after flight before charging.

7 batteries in an outing shouldn't bother your quad. After each flight feel the motors, they shouldn't be hot to the touch.

 

[hedonist222]

Thanks.

Any other thoughts.