Am I flying wrong then??? I just assumed you could fly until a few mins b4 the battery ran out.
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Wrong? Technically no. But unless you’ve gotta reason to hammer the battery into ODDV (over discharge detection voltage) you’ll soon sacrifice significant battery pack life for an extra couple minutes of flight time.
13 minutes from a stock, good condition battery is gonna be very close to “auto land” for average Phantom1/FC40. Do that just a few times and be assured 13 minutes will quickly drop to 12, 11, 10 minutes and so on.
It’s very hard on these batteries to drain them when below 1/2 SOC (state of charge) and also leaves no reserve in the event you’re unable to reach desired landing site in time? Or, perhaps a dog or child runs up to your landing site and you need to abort landing? A little extra reserve capacity is never a bad thing.
Don’t mean to preach or go “chicken little” but I think most experienced Phantom 1, FC40 pilots would agree that 8-10 minutes flight time from good 2.2Ah battery pack is about what you can really expect without hammering said battery pack into damaging voltage levels.
If you can use an RC Balance charger, cell level alarms and “mind the store” when it comes to these battery packs then wring ‘em out if /when you need it?
I’m quite conservative with my battery packs (timer set for 7 minutes and I take my time returing and landing) but I’ve got packs that are several years old still performing close to new.
Best deal I’ve found for stock size P1/FC40 battery packs. 2qty Turnigy 3S 20C 2.2Ah packs for about $25 shipped USA.
