This is an Expensive hobby -change battery after 300 charges

[Don the builder]

Is the P2V manual correct, recommending a new battery after only 300 charges?

Battery cost of approximately $170.00 USD each divided by 300 flights is about .57 cents per flight.

After 3 weeks with my P2V I must have about 50-60 flights already. And don't forget you need to completely discharge the battery every 20 flights or it's even less time on the battery life.

Is this correct?

 

[FSJ Guy]

Re: This is an Expensive hobby -change battery after 300 cha

I suspect that they mean 300 charge cycles. If you drain your battery each flight, then yes, that would be 300 flights.

Sometimes you have to pay to play. ;- )

 

[amrflyingdude]

Re: This is an Expensive hobby -change battery after 300 cha

Is the P2V manual correct, recommending a new battery after only 300 charges?

Battery cost of approximately $170.00 USD each divided by 300 flights is about .57 cents per flight.

After 3 weeks with my P2V I must have about 50-60 flights already. And don't forget you need to completely discharge the battery every 20 flights or it's even less time on the battery life.

Is this correct?

Well I don't think it is 300 flights and "case closed" just like the manual say.

Lipo's usually start degrading about then (300 charge cycles) so what would happen then is that slowly you will get less and less flight time. now to be on the safe side and to insure your bird does not fall out of the sky it is good practice to replace it on time. Now if you take good care of your batteries you can get more than that. Again, all of this at your own risk of course.

Bottom line is batteries "Usually" start degrading before they give up.

 

[GetaGrip]

Re: This is an Expensive hobby -change battery after 300 cha

We are on our 4th set of these Lithium Ion's after a little over 7 years. One thing we have found is they also have a time life of around 2 years from first use. Another thing is when they are done, they are done, with little warning. They work fine and then simply will not charge beyond 2 bars and would only last about 2 hours as opposed to nearly a full day.

I'm wondering if there isn't something built into the "Intelligent Charging" system that determines this to prevent over cycling problems for which Lithium's are famous.

 

[Old Gazer]

Re: This is an Expensive hobby -change battery after 300 cha

We are on our 4th set of these Lithium Ion's after a little over 7 years. One thing we have found is they also have a time life of around 2 years from first use. Another thing is when they are done, they are done, with little warning. They work fine and then simply will not charge beyond 2 bars and would only last about 2 hours as opposed to nearly a full day.

I'm wondering if there isn't something built into the "Intelligent Charging" system that determines this to prevent over cycling problems for which Lithium's are famous.

The Vision uses lithium polymer batteries, not lithium ion. They are different. I don't know the life cycle difference between the two, but probably not the same. I have heard others say that they have lipo's that they have been using for five or six years and still going.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

[Jre]

Re: This is an Expensive hobby -change battery after 300 cha

It's probably just a liability statement. That's the mark that the battery could start degrading, so maybe they warn you beforehand so you don't try to start a class action lawsuit?

 

[LeoS]

Re: This is an Expensive hobby -change battery after 300 cha

What would be sh*tty is if they set a limit in the firmware so the Phantom wouldn't start after a set number of battery cycles.

Imagine if the Phantom would flash a warning LED when the battery reaches 300 cycles, then completely refuse to start after, say, 330 cycles.

 

[Pull_Up]

Re: This is an Expensive hobby -change battery after 300 cha

DJI themselves spec the battery as good for 300 charging cycles. Based on my current number of cycles and % of life reported by the battery via the Assistant that is both realistic and a little conservative (I don't push my batteries hard, though - always land before they drop below 18%).

Assuming an average of 22 mins flight per discharge cycle that works out at about £1 per hour of actual flying time as an ongoing "consumable" expense... Obviously that's +/- but doesn't seem outrageous to me (especially as a two-battery sortie, with travelling and setup time keeps me out of the house for about an hour and a half). Actually - capital cost of aircraft aside - that seems **** cheap for something I enjoy rather a lot! I would get my wife, who's an accountant, to amortize the capital cost into the expected lifespan of the whole unit plus depreciation and factor in some extra for spare motors, etc, to get a true hourly cost but I'd actually quite like to keep my genitalia intact a bit longer.

My own post from a while back in a different thread, but I still feel this way...

 

[Don the builder]

Re: This is an Expensive hobby -change battery after 300 cha

All interesting observations. Not knowing any better in the first few weeks of ownership I ran the battery's down till literally 12%- 15% and fought landing with stick up till the end, now I am landing at about 20%.

Thanks all!

 

[GetaGrip]

Re: This is an Expensive hobby -change battery after 300 cha

The Vision uses lithium polymer batteries, not lithium ion. They are different. I don't know the life cycle difference between the two, but probably not the same. I have heard others say that they have lipo's that they have been using for five or six years and still going.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Great information about Lithium batteries, more that than you probably want to know.
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/is_lithium_ion_the_ideal_battery

 

[Drone-Outlaw]

Re: This is an Expensive hobby -change battery after 300 cha

Is the P2V manual correct, recommending a new battery after only 300 charges?

Battery cost of approximately $170.00 USD each divided by 300 flights is about .57 cents per flight.

After 3 weeks with my P2V I must have about 50-60 flights already. And don't forget you need to completely discharge the battery every 20 flights or it's even less time on the battery life.

Is this correct?

All R/C hobbys R expensive in my experience! But this one is one of the best "bang for the buck" so to speak I M H O.

It's like the guy who questions the MPG of a Ferrari?