Phantom Batteries Maintenance

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So, the word on the street is now "do not cycle the batteries anymore!" and "you'll damage your batteries doing this" and other comments like "they don't have a memory effect."

Hmmmmm. Bit confused now. So where did this info come from exactly? Have DJI sent written confirmation that their LiPo batteries unlike it seems, all others in the world, now do not need to be maintained to get the best, and most consistent life from them and their batteries do not need to be cycled either, to remove the memory effect that all other LiPo do appear to suffer? I understand that battery maintenance has been removed from their instructions, so has someone just taken this as being "oh well.. I don't need to bother now"? All I want to know is the facts re the batteries that hold my expensive AC aloft and where those facts have been obtained.
 
Where did you hear this?
I've had experience with lead-acids, nicads, Nickel metal hydride, and LiPo's (from previous flying of RC Electrics), and
So, the word on the street is now "do not cycle the batteries anymore!" and "you'll damage your batteries doing this" and other comments like "they don't have a memory effect."

Hmmmmm. Bit confused now. So where did this info come from exactly? Have DJI sent written confirmation that their LiPo batteries unlike it seems, all others in the world, now do not need to be maintained to get the best, and most consistent life from them and their batteries do not need to be cycled either, to remove the memory effect that all other LiPo do appear to suffer? I understand that battery maintenance has been removed from their instructions, so has someone just taken this as being "oh well.. I don't need to bother now"? All I want to know is the facts re the batteries that hold my expensive AC aloft and where those facts have been obtained.

Here's a pretty good article on battery health and management that should serve as good practice.

The Ultimate LiPo Drone Battery Chargeing & Care Guide - Dronethusiast

I spent 25-30 years in the Engineering Field and can usually dig up technical articles fairly quickly on the subject. I did learn, that despite what many articles had said over the last few years about "memory effect", that there is actually some after all in Lithium batteries, but not nearly as much as with earlier nicads, etc. There's a technical article from Toyota published in 2013 that discusses the details. I haven't seen anything from DJI yet about NOT doing a discharge cycle (down to 8%) periodically. I do know that a complete discharge of lithium cells will effectively destroy the batterie's Electrode layers. Personally, I'm trying to learn as much as I can about my newly acquired Phantom 4 from the flight pack to the wheres, why, and how's of the new "Smart Vision" chip and cameras introduced in the Phantom 4 series. Knowing the capabilities and limitations of the flight hardware can help keep our precious investments flying safely.
 
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I spent 25-30 years in the Engineering Field and can usually dig up technical articles fairly quickly on the subject. I did learn, that despite what many articles had said over the last few years about "memory effect", that there is actually some after all in Lithium batteries, but not nearly as much as with earlier nicads, etc. There's a technical article from Toyota published in 2013 that discusses the details. I haven't seen anything from DJI yet about NOT doing a discharge cycle (down to 8%) periodically....
Yes, that's my view. Just because it's no longer included in the literature, that could be because of poor proofing, an oversite or it could be they really do not believe their batteries benefit from cycling. If DJI could give a statement on the care of their product batteries that would be well, good...
 
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Yes, that's my view. Just because it's no longer included in the literature, that could be because of poor proofing, an oversite or it could be they really do not believe their batteries benefit from cycling. If DJI could give a statement on the care of their product batteries that would be well, good...
Noticed over the last few years that NOBODY seems to be including much of anything in what passes for an "Instruction Manual"...
 
I've had experience with lead-acids, nicads, Nickel metal hydride, and LiPo's (from previous flying of RC Electrics), and


Here's a pretty good article on battery health and management that should serve as good practice.

The Ultimate LiPo Drone Battery Chargeing & Care Guide - Dronethusiast

I spent 25-30 years in the Engineering Field and can usually dig up technical articles fairly quickly on the subject. I did learn, that despite what many articles had said over the last few years about "memory effect", that there is actually some after all in Lithium batteries, but not nearly as much as with earlier nicads, etc. There's a technical article from Toyota published in 2013 that discusses the details. I haven't seen anything from DJI yet about NOT doing a discharge cycle (down to 8%) periodically. I do know that a complete discharge of lithium cells will effectively destroy the batterie's Electrode layers. Personally, I'm trying to learn as much as I can about my newly acquired Phantom 4 from the flight pack to the wheres, why, and how's of the new "Smart Vision" chip and cameras introduced in the Phantom 4 series. Knowing the capabilities and limitations of the flight hardware can help keep our precious investments flying safely.
If you have a link to an article that says any Lithium chemistry battery is affected by "memory" please post it here. I have read dozens that say there isn't any memory effect with Lithium batteries and highly recommend to partially discharge for maximum life. The only time a Phantoms LiPo battery pack should be fully discharged is when the cells have become unbalanced or airline regulations demand it.
 
If you have a link to an article that says any Lithium chemistry battery is affected by "memory" please post it here. I have read dozens that say there isn't any memory effect with Lithium batteries and highly recommend to partially discharge for maximum life. The only time a Phantoms LiPo battery pack should be fully discharged is when the cells have become unbalanced or airline regulations demand it.
Take a look at the links in may earlier post....
 
If you have a link to an article that says any Lithium chemistry battery is affected by "memory" please post it here. I have read dozens that say there isn't any memory effect with Lithium batteries and highly recommend to partially discharge for maximum life. The only time a Phantoms LiPo battery pack should be fully discharged is when the cells have become unbalanced or airline regulations demand it.
The Link to the Toyota "White Paper" is here: https://phys.org/news/2013-04-memory-effect-lithium-ion-batteries.html
and the article pointing me to it is here: Toyota has confirmed that Li-Ion Batteries do have a "memory effect"
 
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Sorry, I added the links in another thread..
All these reference Lipo memory effect, one inc mention of the Toyota paper...
Five tips for extending lithium-ion battery life - TechRepublic
Look at point 3...
LiPo Battery Care and Maintenance: Getting the Most from your Battery | Hobby Warehouse RC Cars
5th paragraph...
https://phys.org/news/2013-04-memory-effect-lithium-ion-batteries.html
So whether it's a true memory effect or not, there can be a digital effect and the general consensus on these seem to say that LiPo batteries do indeed need to be cycled properly to maximise the battery life. You pays your money....
 
numone,of course you are free to believe anything you want, including Urban Legends about lipo batteries.

If you want to play "I been doing this longer than you," I can play! 43 years as an electrical engineer with heavy experience in all battery technologies. You may add another 10 years before that as a extra class ham radio operator who built lots of his own equipment, including battery powered tube stuff. I decoded firmware errors in the P2 series ESC controllers, from which I believe dji made proper changes to stop them burning up, and extensive studies on the P2 lipo batteries, decoding and proving how and why the magical 8% discharge exists - on them, not P3 or P4 -- dji solved the need to discharge to BELOW 8% with the P3 and newer models. I went on to run a complete 100% 35kwh 350vdc EV for almost 4 years, helping the BMS (Battery Management System) and drive mfgr improve their systems. I took the vehicle from 75 mile range per charge to 120 mile per charge, showing both improvements to their systems. Enough background.

So, all that said, you may believe the urban legends, or google away and learn and understand that our dji lipos are NOT any different than all the others sold by other people as you suggested. Our lipos do NOT have any memory effects as nicads did. Period.

The WHOLE reason for discharge to BELOW (not to as you state) 8% is from the P2 BMS controller built in the battery. This was dji first attempt at a smart battery. They actually did very well at that. But their BMS was not capable of COORDINATING ACTUAL POWER LEFT WITH CALCULATED POWER LEFT. A simple COMPUTER program error, nothing at all to do with lipos and memory or life. Period. After many discharges, the CALCULATED power left got out of sync with the ACTUAL power left in the cells. Their solution was to have us discharge to BELOW 8% -- when the CALCULATED power left got to 7% (BELOW 8%), it stopped counting down; yet the battery continued to discharge. When it hit 6-7%, the ACTUAL power left was measured via cell voltages and coordinated and synced to CALCULATED power left. They then matched again. Charge up, and you are good to go another "20" or so discharge cycles before they were again out of sync far enough to require discharge to BELOW 8% again to resyn CALCULATED to ACTUAL power. Now this should be clear as mud that this discharge recommendation has NOTHING to do with MEMORY effect inside the lipo cells.

With newer technology, newer better firmware in the BMS, dji learned to no longer require this discharge to BELOW 8% - which actually DOES damage the cells slightly each time you do it. You probably know discharging a lipo to 0 kills it. You probably do not know discharging it to 8% kills a few percent of its remaining life each time. Discharging to 50-70% over and over does little damage to the cells. Leaving these SACK cells at 100% causes them to outgas, making them balloon and go bad.

I hope this helps you understand truth vs legend a little more.
 
Sorry, I added the links in another thread..
All these reference Lipo memory effect, one inc mention of the Toyota paper...
Five tips for extending lithium-ion battery life - TechRepublic
Look at point 3...
LiPo Battery Care and Maintenance: Getting the Most from your Battery | Hobby Warehouse RC Cars
5th paragraph...
https://phys.org/news/2013-04-memory-effect-lithium-ion-batteries.html
So whether it's a true memory effect or not, there can be a digital effect and the general consensus on these seem to say that LiPo batteries do indeed need to be cycled properly to maximise the battery life. You pays your money....
The digital memory effect you are referring to has very little relevance to DJI LiPo Batteries.
1) It is mainly applicable to Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries, not the Lithium Cobalt Polymer batteries that DJI uses.
2) EVs have multiple very small cycles from regenerative braking which have a cumulative effect, Phantoms usually have a 50% or more cycle which take a very long time to build up any memory if at all.
3) If some loss of capacity (memory) does appear in a Phantom battery it is more likely due to cells not being in balance and can often be rectified by a full cycle when it occurs, not by regularly deep cycling which is only detrimental to battery life.
4) A digital memory is a temporary software problem not a hardware problem.
 
Cycle your batteries by flying them and enjoy. LiION chemistry does not have a memory effect. Avoid storing at full charge, frequent deep discharge and storage at high temps and you should get good life. The best you might have achieved with the earlier DJI recommendation to deep discharge was better accuracy on the % remaining indicator.
 
The digital memory effect you are referring to has very little relevance to DJI LiPo Batteries.
1) It is mainly applicable to Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries, not the Lithium Cobalt Polymer batteries that DJI uses.
2) EVs have multiple very small cycles from regenerative braking which have a cumulative effect, Phantoms usually have a 50% or more cycle which take a very long time to build up any memory if at all.
3) If some loss of capacity (memory) does appear in a Phantom battery it is more likely due to cells not being in balance and can often be rectified by a full cycle when it occurs, not by regularly deep cycling which is only detrimental to battery life.
4) A digital memory is a temporary software problem not a hardware problem.

Well said! I was going to write an identical reply after reading the articles linked to Same points. I would have worded 4) a bit different, buut same idea. digital memory they spoke of is indeed not a battery chemestry issue but a software issue: we had it with our P2 when the ACTUAL power got out of sync with the SOFTWARE REPORTED power.
 
Cycle your batteries by flying them and enjoy. LiION chemistry does not have a memory effect. Avoid storing at full charge, frequent deep discharge and storage at high temps and you should get good life. The best you might have achieved with the earlier DJI recommendation to deep discharge was better accuracy on the % remaining indicator.

Good advice but not good for P2 batteries. Newer ones got better BMS software, but P2 is P2. Many crashes happened due to REPORTED power being 20-50% while ACTUAL power was only 5-8%. Result was battery went from 20-50% power to 5% in about 2 seconds and the bird crashed. Remember, its BMS software automatically went into resync mode at 8% - bringing the REPORTED power down to crash level almost instantly.

Those of us who watched our batteries, like keeping each discharge and charge in a spreadsheet, KNEW if we had an issue and required discharge BELOW 8% or not. By using a better non dji charger, tracking actual power used and then actual power put back in, and keeping discharges to typically 50% with only occasional 30% minimums, we have original batteries 2-3 years old that actually hold MORE power today than new. My 2 are 5300 and 5400mah today and have not required a discharge to BELOW 8% for over a year and probably 40 full cycles.
 
numone,of course you are free to believe anything you want, including Urban Legends about lipo batteries.

If you want to play "I been doing this longer than you," I can play! 43 years as an electrical engineer with heavy experience in all battery technologies. You may add another 10 years before that as a extra class ham radio operator who built lots of his own equipment, including battery powered tube stuff. I decoded firmware errors in the P2 series ESC controllers, from which I believe dji made proper changes to stop them burning up, and extensive studies on the P2 lipo batteries, decoding and proving how and why the magical 8% discharge exists - on them, not P3 or P4 -- dji solved the need to discharge to BELOW 8% with the P3 and newer models. I went on to run a complete 100% 35kwh 350vdc EV for almost 4 years, helping the BMS (Battery Management System) and drive mfgr improve their systems. I took the vehicle from 75 mile range per charge to 120 mile per charge, showing both improvements to their systems. Enough background.

So, all that said, you may believe the urban legends, or google away and learn and understand that our dji lipos are NOT any different than all the others sold by other people as you suggested. Our lipos do NOT have any memory effects as nicads did. Period.

The WHOLE reason for discharge to BELOW (not to as you state) 8% is from the P2 BMS controller built in the battery. This was dji first attempt at a smart battery. They actually did very well at that. But their BMS was not capable of COORDINATING ACTUAL POWER LEFT WITH CALCULATED POWER LEFT. A simple COMPUTER program error, nothing at all to do with lipos and memory or life. Period. After many discharges, the CALCULATED power left got out of sync with the ACTUAL power left in the cells. Their solution was to have us discharge to BELOW 8% -- when the CALCULATED power left got to 7% (BELOW 8%), it stopped counting down; yet the battery continued to discharge. When it hit 6-7%, the ACTUAL power left was measured via cell voltages and coordinated and synced to CALCULATED power left. They then matched again. Charge up, and you are good to go another "20" or so discharge cycles before they were again out of sync far enough to require discharge to BELOW 8% again to resyn CALCULATED to ACTUAL power. Now this should be clear as mud that this discharge recommendation has NOTHING to do with MEMORY effect inside the lipo cells.

With newer technology, newer better firmware in the BMS, dji learned to no longer require this discharge to BELOW 8% - which actually DOES damage the cells slightly each time you do it. You probably know discharging a lipo to 0 kills it. You probably do not know discharging it to 8% kills a few percent of its remaining life each time. Discharging to 50-70% over and over does little damage to the cells. Leaving these SACK cells at 100% causes them to outgas, making them balloon and go bad.

I hope this helps you understand truth vs legend a little more.
Oh Yorlik, it's you who appears to want to play oneupmanship - and I'm not referring to any "urban legends". And SHOUTING doesn't ever help your put your point across.
Yep, I have zero experience in manufacturing Lipo batteries and well-done you, on your deep and long professional experience.
Anyway, getting to the point, your essay seems to result in the point that DJI have eliminated the so-called "digital" effect where the reported remaining power doesn't match the real remaining power - is that correct? So, to quote you (and reiterate my actual point, Yorlik), "dji solved the need to discharge to BELOW 8% with the P3 and newer models..." so it should be pretty easy for them to state it, in writing, shouldn't it?
 
After about 30 charges on a fully charged battery I have done a full discharge by leaving the drone powered on but props off. It takes several hours to drain. I then wait about 12 hours before a full recharge and they work better.
 
After about 30 charges on a fully charged battery I have done a full discharge by leaving the drone powered on but props off. It takes several hours to drain. I then wait about 12 hours before a full recharge and they work better.
Work better how? What parameter is improved?
 

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