Horizon v-3 split power mod

Will, is it absolutely imperative to connect the 2x2S to the DJI charger and use the balance connectors? Could we just use our LiHV capable charger and charge the packs as 4S via the XT60 and balance? I would think for those of us with a quality charger, we could cut the charging time down and still give the cells a quality, balanced charge.

Yes you can use a proper hi voltage charger if you have one, then the charge time is faster. If you have a hi voltage charger , discharge to 10% , balance the cells and pump them back up to 4.35 per cell as close as you can , cycling the cells wil help.
 
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View attachment 47595View attachment 47596
O.k to be fair to what Will may have been talking about is the carbon fiber bat trays, so i took them off. So this is bare bones stock bird, no bat trays, no trackers, no stickers! I taped the split batteries to the legs w/ the least amount of tape possible!!
Charged the batteries up per instructions above from Will DJI charger would not allow me to charge any fuller! the end charge was :
17.3v. 4.33-4.34-4.33-4.38
( this has been consistent for 5 charges)
Went a few feet off the ground and did screenshot as soon as timer started on app ( about 20 seconds)View attachment 47588

And for comparison did the same with a fully charged regular smart battery
View attachment 47594
Better , your not interrupting the air flow now. That's waisted energy. Every little thing matters , the lipos set you have may not be 100% , it should jump to 25mins and stay there for a while in the first part of the flight. If you place the lipos in the air flow like you did the first time , it will take more energy the hold it it flight , simple dynamics . You have minimise the air flow vs weight.
 
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Thankyou for responding, what here doesnt work? This is the setup that Horizons Midwest sent me. Before posting I e-mailed midwest w/ my issues and questions and Tom said he fowarded to you. Each time I've charged i get 4.33-4.34-4.33-4.37
I told Tom this, he says no prob.
I turn on main battery, check app for proper settings, compass etc. then plug in externals( plenty of time for the main battery to function). My timer starts as you say w/ my other lipo setups showing 25 min. After I've flown for 3-5 min. But your v-3 setup starts at 18-20 . Believe me i would love to rave of this mods success!
That's not right , it should jump to 25 mins for a while , something wrong there! the app calculates the current draw verses the voltage per cell it sees so if there is a voltage dip on the cells the time will be lower.
 
Better , your not interrupting the air flow now. That's waisted energy. Every little thing matters , the lipos set you have may not be 100% , it should jump to 25mins and stay there for a while in the first part of the flight. If you place the lipos in the air flow like you did the first time , it will take more energy the hold it it flight , simple dynamics . You have minimise the air flow vs weight.
I understood that is the way you designed this, however i have lesser lipo combo's that start the ticker --:-- or +25 as you say and w/ tracker,trays, and stickers. So it still doesnt add up that yours would start so low. The bats i sent to Tom were in great shape! ( i wish i had them back) if i have to fly with these splits hanging off by tape to fight for minutes that lesser batteries get easily then i would have to givd this mod a [emoji107]
 
I understood that is the way you designed this, however i have lesser lipo combo's that start the ticker --:-- or +25 as you say and w/ tracker,trays, and stickers. So it still doesnt add up that yours would start so low. The bats i sent to Tom were in great shape! ( i wish i had them back) if i have to fly with these splits hanging off by tape to fight for minutes that lesser batteries get easily then i would have to givd this mod a [emoji107]

I don't mean this to come across negatively so please don't take it this way, is there any possibility that a mistake was made when they split your battery and wired it up ? Maybe it's something simple that's causing you greif


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots mobile app
 
I don't mean this to come across negatively so please don't take it this way, is there any possibility that a mistake was made when they split your battery and wired it up ? Maybe it's something simple that's causing you greif


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots mobile app
I dont take offense, I did not do the mod. If will from UK horizon or Tom Parker from Midwest horizon reviews these results and feels like maybe there was something missed or done incorrectly with the mod itself I would be more than happy to send it back to them and have them go back to the drawing board. Because while I can give it more tests, with my flight time starting out at 18 to 22 minutes their product is just not worth running.
 
Again, we'll see what some of the other results are here as some of you receive your mods from Midwest horizon, and if they're the same as mine that maybe we need to look into the fact that both the current recorded 30 to 35 minute flight times were done by Will himself in the UK not done here in the Midwest. (Unknown and Silva)
 
I understood that is the way you designed this, however i have lesser lipo combo's that start the ticker --:-- or +25 as you say and w/ tracker,trays, and stickers. So it still doesnt add up that yours would start so low. The bats i sent to Tom were in great shape! ( i wish i had them back) if i have to fly with these splits hanging off by tape to fight for minutes that lesser batteries get easily then i would have to givd this mod a [emoji107]

To eliminate airflow as the cause for less time simply recalibrate the batteries. I would actually go lower than 10%, maybe to 8% like DJi says. I personally go to 2% when I recalibrate. But my 2x batteries were brand new. But also do the test without flight or test it just at a takeoff and hover only. Let it hover to 50% or even better 10% and see what the time is. Base all the test from a hover instead of flight. It will take out all the environmental variables (wind, acceleration, etc.).
 
Those screenshots I last posted were 20 seconds after takeoff hovering 12 feet off the ground. It actually started out at 96% just took a second for the warm-up. Even at 95% it should start out at higher than 23 minutes. Maybe they didn't get the split battery right because it doesn't seem like it's getting much better than one regular smart battery. Hey would you mind explaining to me what you mean by recalibrate. I run all my batteries down to about 2% on every flight anyway just based on the nature of my flying. Is there something else I need to be doing for battery maintenance(they all seem to be in good shape for the most part anyway)
 
Later I'll charge up just the main battery Horizon modded for me & see what kind of minutes it posts alone.
But like I said all this is kind of pointless. Waiting and hoping that the rest of you get great results at least I'll know I need to start over
 
Those screenshots I last posted were 20 seconds after takeoff hovering 12 feet off the ground. It actually started out at 96% just took a second for the warm-up. Even at 95% it should start out at higher than 23 minutes. Maybe they didn't get the split battery right because it doesn't seem like it's getting much better than one regular smart battery. Hey would you mind explaining to me what you mean by recalibrate. I run all my batteries down to about 2% on every flight anyway just based on the nature of my flying. Is there something else I need to be doing for battery maintenance(they all seem to be in good shape for the most part anyway)

Did you try testing the pack with a meter? OR connect the pack to a LiHV charger with the balance connector and use the battery meter function. I know the D100 has this. Or if you have a LiHV battery tester you could test it with that...
 
Those screenshots I last posted were 20 seconds after takeoff hovering 12 feet off the ground. It actually started out at 96% just took a second for the warm-up. Even at 95% it should start out at higher than 23 minutes. Maybe they didn't get the split battery right because it doesn't seem like it's getting much better than one regular smart battery. Hey would you mind explaining to me what you mean by recalibrate. I run all my batteries down to about 2% on every flight anyway just based on the nature of my flying. Is there something else I need to be doing for battery maintenance(they all seem to be in good shape for the most part anyway)

No, if you run them down to 2% then your effectively recalibrating.

You should do it every 20 cycles otherwise. LiPO's need to be recalibrated in general. The calibration resets reported battery percentage with the actual voltage levels so they stay somewhat accurate so your not seeing 30% but actually at 15% of use left. Laptops do this as well. Whatever logic is calculating percentage in the laptops case software on the laptop and in the Phantom's case the Go App talking to the silicon in DJI's batteries.
 
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Nope, i dont use lihv bats on my mods so I haven't got that equipment. I dont use hyperions as they seem a little on the heavy side. I'll visit a buddy and try to charge them up that way. You seen the end balance numbers I posted 4.33-4.34-4.33-4.37
Its been these numbers almost exactly for five charge cycles. Does that fourth cell being so high seem a little off to you?Tom Parker at Midwest Verizon said no big deal and I don't find it to be a huge deal, yet Will stated above to charge them up to where they're all 4.35 and that's just not something I can get out of the DJI charger
 
Nope, i dont use lihv bats on my mods so I haven't got that equipment. I dont use hyperions as they seem a little on the heavy side. I'll visit a buddy and try to charge them up that way. You seen the end balance numbers I posted 4.33-4.34-4.33-4.37
Its been these numbers almost exactly for five charge cycles. Does that fourth cell being so high seem a little off to you?Tom Parker at Midwest Verizon said no big deal and I don't find it to be a huge deal, yet Will stated above to charge them up to where they're all 4.35 and that's just not something I can get out of the DJI charger

The 4th cell is ever so slightly over 4.35v but .02 isn't what I'd consider a damaging overcharge. That's why I asked if you could get it on a good balance charger. Maybe run the battery down good and then use a good LiHV charger and hopefully things will settle down.
 
The 4th cell is ever so slightly over 4.35v but .02 isn't what I'd consider a damaging overcharge. That's why I asked if you could get it on a good balance charger. Maybe run the battery down good and then use a good LiHV charger and hopefully things will settle down.

The DJi provided charger is just a power supply. So other compatible power supplies that are ~17.4 volts abd ~100 watts and have the right connectors do just fine. The battery boards in each battery determine when to stop charging the battery and they do the charge balancing as well. The v3 mod looks just like a normal P3 battery to the battery board. There really isn't a need to use any other smart charging product. I think it's best to let the battery board handle it all.
 
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The DJi provided charger is just a power supply. So other compatible power supplies that are ~17.4 volts abd ~100 watts and have the right connectors do just fine. The battery boards in each battery determine when to stop charging the battery and they do the charge balancing as well. The v3 mod looks just like a normal P3 battery to the battery board. There really isn't a need to use any other smart charging product. I think it's best to let the battery board handle it all.

What you said just proves my point. If you hook the 2x2S split pack up to a LiHV charger there is no difference...The LiHV charger will do the balancing..And who knows what type of balancing the DJI board does...I'm sure it's good but it's worth a shot on a LiHV charger too. Even Will said it's ok to use a LiHV charger. They just market the v3 mod to use the DJI charger as a selling point (no need to buy another charger).
 
If i had a LiHV charger i wouldve tried it on charge #3 after i noticed the first two cycles i couldnt top them off to 4.35!
So yeah, it doesn't hurt to try a different charger
 
The DJi provided charger is just a power supply. So other compatible power supplies that are ~17.4 volts abd ~100 watts and have the right connectors do just fine. The battery boards in each battery determine when to stop charging the battery and they do the charge balancing as well. The v3 mod looks just like a normal P3 battery to the battery board. There really isn't a need to use any other smart charging product. I think it's best to let the battery board handle it all.
Thats the way I designed it ,use what you already have .. its simple
 
the power mod is the best there is ,it can work the P2,P3,P4 , Inspire also . the external battery can be any hi voltage type it does not have to be the DJI battery split down a good selection is the 5200 4s, split down , we do these in the UK , more power still . Take it from a guy who has been doing this stuff over 40 Years ... it works .
MINE DOESNT!
And please dont get me wrong, i'm a fan of your antennas, not just a complainy poster!
 

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