Thanks For Your Reply...
Since, as you mentioned, the Tx does not have exactly a huge draw. I normally run my drones all summer with hardly a charge or two on the Tx side. I do top my controller off the night before flying only to get the strongest radio signal out to the drone. Perhaps topping off the lipo does not affect the strength of the signal going out to the drone. (???)
I feel most flyers take the Tx battery for granted. Unless you take the controller apart you cannot see the battery, so you don't know physically the health of the battery (if it is swollen). You can't "watch" the battery when it's being charged as we are told to do. I'm sure not too many, if any, take the time to run it down to the 60% each week while it sits waiting for the next flight. (And) if anybody cares, how would you drain the battery down to 60% ? Turn the radio on and leave on for days, with the annoying beeping ?? Rip the case open and drain the battery with a light bulb ???
So I am interested in what others do with their controllers between flying sessions. It seems most people don't pay much attention to the Tx battery. My thoughts are the controller a critical part of the whole drone package. This radio sends the signal which controls the drone. No signal, no control.
Sorry for ranting, but like I said, I am just curious.... Gotta run... Daybreak is almost here... (LOL)
Have A Good One.
Flying season? We fly year round
I take every Tx out 1x a month if I'm not already using it and use it to fly an aircraft (P3S, P3P or Inspire). We have backup aircraft and everything gets flown 1x a month during our "Inspection" process. This has been our SOP for 4 years now and we've yet to have a Tx go out of service (
other than the one that fell off the top of a car and crashed into pavement).
The "Draw" on the Tx battery is low enough to where even a very poorly maintained battery can still maintain FULL functions in the Tx. Keep in mind there is a WORLD of difference between the needs of different applications:
Rotor Craft relied upon the battery to produce enough power to produce life and keep the bird in the air. This goes even more so for MultiRotors which have SEVERAL rotors to create lift and control direction and attitude. For this application you need a High End battery and it needs to be operating fairly much at the TOP of it's power envelope at all times.
Fixed wing aircraft use the battery to provide propulsion to get the aircraft moving forward at which point the WINGS produce lift. The demands on the power system are significantly less (
unless we're talking aerobatic/3D type flying) than Rotor Craft and therefore we can get away with less than stellar batter performance. Keep in mind that fixed wing aircraft can usually glide to landing once a motor gets shut-off due to low voltage (Due to BEC in the aircraft which will save enough power to control the flight controls by turning the motor OFF) where-as our MR do NOT glide so well LOL.
When my Helicopter batteries get "sluggish" they get moved into the Airplane inventory. This usually gives me another season or part of a flying season before I have to remove from inventory and dispose of the battery.
Transmitters don't require any type of PUNCH of power so they are the most lenient in terms of LiPo performance. So long as the battery can produce enough voltage to run the Tx it's pretty good to go. I've noticed my older P3P Tx doesn't stay fully charged as long as it used to but I still get over a week of flying from a full charge. Keep in mind that on some days we are flying for hours on end and I rarely charge any of my Tx more than 1x a week. One thing I do is that if I have a busy day the next day and the Tx is showing 50% or less I will fully charge it before the next day.
My Search & Rescue platform Tx(s) gets charged after every flying session. Both go onto the chargers as soon as we are done flying because we keep them in a Mission Ready status 24/7.
While I fully agree the Tx is a VERY important component of the "System" once you understand how the Tx works, how Lipo batteries work, and how they degrade you'll understand why we aren't nearly as worried about their storage/charge/performance as we are our flight batteries.