8000mAh Battery...

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Hi,

I took a Solo battery apart (a long time ago). The goal was to mod the Solo so it can take a "regular" LiPo battery. One that does not cost $150 bucks.
I got a 4s 8000 mAh battery from hobby king, put my connectors on, and thought that the only thing left to do, is to change the LiPo capacity in Mission Planner. Well, I was wrong. Or maybe I am right, but it didn't work, ha ha. I am able to change the capacity, but not the "measured voltage"? Also, when I change the capacity and a stock Solo battery is connected to the Solo, everything seems fine. However, when I connect the 8000 mAh battery to the Solo, I get this beeping, like something is not right?! Not sure what it means though.

That said, I flew the Solo before using a 4s 5000 mAh battery with no changes to MP, and it worked totally fine.
I attached a few pictures.

1. I get this Error message when I connect the Solo to Mission Planner.error.jpg
2. The default setting shows nothing under "Monitor"??? am I supposed to leave it like that or change it to 3 or 4?monitor.jpg
3. The default setting under "Sensor" is "Other". Am I supposed to leave it like that or change it to any of the other 7 options listed???sensor.jpg
4. The default setting under "APM Ver" is PIXHAWK. Do I leave it at that or do I need to change it to something else???

Hope someone can shed some light on this.

Thanks.
 
Very interesting, i was wondering what you did with that battery.
I'll be heading down this path in a couple of weeks with the battery that @Jim..... donated as well.
 
Did you remove the battery monitoring circuitry also, if you only changed the battery ceĺls, then how to you reprogram the circuitry for the new capacity ?

The circuitry is what communicates with the Solo and through to the controller.
 
Did you reprogram the smart chip in the battery? The batteries store their parameters and I doubt changing it in MP is rewriting the parameters TO the battery. I'm sure solo is reading them, and they are the old values. This is just a gut feeling after studying and playing with the SMBus. I do not know this to be fact.
 
Very interesting, i was wondering what you did with that battery.
I'll be heading down this path in a couple of weeks with the battery that @Jim..... donated as well.
Yeah, I was doing other stuff and I am not that much into my Solo anymore as I used to, ha ha. Anyhow, I am curious to see what you can come up with...

Thanks.
 
Did you remove the battery monitoring circuitry also, if you only changed the battery ceĺls, then how to you reprogram the circuitry for the new capacity ?

The circuitry is what communicates with the Solo and through to the controller.
I took the stock battery apart. There was a circuit board of some sort in the battery. I de-soldered the stock battery from the board and soldered Anderson Power Pole connectors on instead. That will allow me to use the same board with different packs. I also had to de-solder the balance wires (going from the board to the stock battery) and then solder a JST-XH plug to the wires. I tried just hooking up a battery, but the Solo would alarm if it would sense "nothing" on the balancing wires. SO the balance wires have to be connected as well.

I flew a 5000mAh 4s like this and everything was fine. No alarm, no nothing. Didn't change a thing in the board or mission planner.

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That said. I figured that this should work by me simply changing the capacity in mission planner. I really believe that you do not need to reprogram anything on the board... What I am going to try next is, I will leave all the setting to default (5200mAh) and then hook my new battery up.

Thanks.
P1050776_resize.jpg P1050782_resize.jpg
 
Did you reprogram the smart chip in the battery? The batteries store their parameters and I doubt changing it in MP is rewriting the parameters TO the battery. I'm sure solo is reading them, and they are the old values. This is just a gut feeling after studying and playing with the SMBus. I do not know this to be fact.
Like I said, I did not reprogram anything. I wouldn't know how, even if I wanted to. Again, I have a bunch of Pixhawks and use the 3DR power module with them. There is no programming involved, when it comes to the battery voltage, capacity, amp draw and what not. It is all done in Mission Planner. I think the circuit board in the Solo battery is only there to discharge the battery and charge the battery.

Thanks.
 
Don't forget, when you used the 5000 mah battery, it had less capacity than the stock one, not more!
Just thinkin' out loud here...
 
Don't forget, when you used the 5000 mah battery, it had less capacity than the stock one, not more!
Just thinkin' out loud here...
Of course I though of that... : )

I really believe that the problems I have are not capacity related. The capacity is only there to give you an idea how full your "gas tank" is. If one is not monitoring the "gas tank", it should not matter what capacity is set in Mission Planner.
 
Well, I just reset everything to the default settings. I then tried one of my 5000 mAh batteries and I get the same beeping.

beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep PAUSE beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep.

Something like that. I assume that after dragging the circuit board around for a while, it got maybe damaged. Who knows?! That is where my journey ends, ha ha.

Thanks.
 
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Wouldn't happen to have a picture of the battery top cover???? I'd appreciate it if could.

Looking at drilling some cooling holes...just messing around...
 
Wouldn't happen to have a picture of the battery top cover???? I'd appreciate it if could.

Looking at drilling some cooling holes...just messing around...
I would have to look. No idea if I have a picture of that. I also have no idea where I put that battery case... I can take a look in the a.m.for you. In the meantime, check out the official 3DR thread. The first couple of pages too be precise. Franknitty69 reposted some of my pictures. Maybe one of them is what you are looking for!?
 
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What did I read yesterday over there, 3rd highest poster in the thread... My search foo is not that good...;)

I scrolled the first 40 pages and then did a google search, my scroll wheel burned out.... May have been a link, but I saw no photos for your battery breakdown in those first 40 pages.

I remember seeing the photos at the time they were posted, but don't recall ever seeing the cover pictured. If you find either, I'd appreciate it.
 
What did I read yesterday over there, 3rd highest poster in the thread... My search foo is not that good...;)

I scrolled the first 40 pages and then did a google search, my scroll wheel burned out.... May have been a link, but I saw no photos for your battery breakdown in those first 40 pages.

I remember seeing the photos at the time they were posted, but don't recall ever seeing the cover pictured. If you find either, I'd appreciate it.
Look at the very bottom of post #3. You will see a bunch of links to the actual photos.

Anyhow, explain to me again what you need photographed!? The top of the battery case? I doubt that as you can just look at it. That said, do you mean the inside of the top of the case!?
 
That said, do you mean the inside of the top of the case!?
Yep, that's what I meant. English is my second language when writing...

Thanks for the directions, just like you said, bottom of post #3. Nice pictures, you document pretty much everything. I appreciate you sharing those with the community. Wish your project would have developed further.

Shout out to @franknitty69 for indexing the good stuff from the thread.

Found enough details to help my effort.
 
Like I said, I did not reprogram anything. I wouldn't know how, even if I wanted to. Again, I have a bunch of Pixhawks and use the 3DR power module with them. There is no programming involved, when it comes to the battery voltage, capacity, amp draw and what not. It is all done in Mission Planner. I think the circuit board in the Solo battery is only there to discharge the battery and charge the battery.

Thanks.
Mission Planner can't "reprogram" the battery. You and @PdxSteve should team up. He's already connected directly to the battery and accessed the smart chip. It may be possible to change some parameters for a different battery.
 
Mission Planner can't "reprogram" the battery. You and @PdxSteve should team up. He's already connected directly to the battery and accessed the smart chip. It may be possible to change some parameters for a different battery.
Good idea, I might team up with him.

I don't team up with people. Last time I did that was with Mark Zuckerberg. We all know how well that went, ha ha.

Here is my theory on the whole battery board chip and what not:

The battery board is nothing but a LiPo charger, build in to the battery [case]. When you hook up the power supply, it charges the battery. In order to do that, it of course needs to have a few parameters stored such as: cell count, capacity, charge rate and things like that (just like any other LiPo charger), and that is the information Steve might be seeing.
It will also automatically discharge the battery if you leave it sitting around, thus the name "smart battery".

Now, IF this theory is true and the board is indeed nothing but a LiPo charger, it should not matter to the board if you hook up a battery with a different capacity, or even cell count, as long you are NOT running the charger! Think about it. I can take any kind of battery and hook it up to my charger. All I will get is a Voltage reading. Even if the charger is set to the wrong battery type, cell count, charge rate and what not, nothing will happen AS LONG YOU DO NOT RUN THE CHARGER. Right?!

I really think it should not matter to the board what kind of battery I hook up to it, as long I don't try to charge it. It should also not matter to the Pixhawk what battery is hooked up, unless of course you want to use the on-board telemetry. Other than that, the Pixhawk should not care.

However, I still believe that there is some sort of chip, telling the Solo what is being connected as power source. The reason I say this is, because I tried hooking up a "regular" LiPo battery to the Solo using alligator clamps, and it would not work. The Solo did realize that there is no "smart battery" connected, and it would not arm (and an annoying beeping would come on). Of course 3DR (and DJI) is doing that so you cannot simply use a different battery with the Solo, without at least giving you a little bit of a hard time. That is the reason I took a battery apart and used the battery board to hook up my own pack. As you can see in the video I posted above, it worked. Sure, it was a 5000 mAh battery, but again, I really thing it does not matter.

That said. I simply believe that my battery board just died on me. I dragged it around, countless times, without the proper protection, and now it is broken. The reason I say this is, because I used the same 5000 mAh battery it worked with before, and I am getting the same annoying beeping I get when using a 8000 mAh battery.

Anyhow, that is my theory.

Thanks.

EDIT: I am pretty sure that it would have worked with my 8000 mAh battery, if the board would have not been broken, even without changing anything in Mission Planner or the battery "chip". The reason I wanted to change the capacity in MP is, so I would get a CORRECT "capacity left" percentage reading...
 
It will also automatically discharge the battery if you leave it sitting around, thus the name "smart battery".
Unfortunately, unlike the Phantom batteries, the Solo batteries do not discharge if left sitting around.

However, I still believe that there is some sort of chip, telling the Solo what is being connected as power source. The reason I say this is, because I tried hooking up a "regular" LiPo battery to the Solo using alligator clamps, and it would not work. The Solo did realize that there is no "smart battery" connected, and it would not arm (and an annoying beeping would come on).
Said chip is in the Smart battery.

Of course 3DR (and DJI) is doing that so you cannot simply use a different battery with the Solo, without at least giving you a little bit of a hard time.
I can't speak for DJI, but the Solo hardware, including the battery are open source. Open source software AND hardware. So I think its unlikely that 3DR is really doing anything to make it hard. In fact, I've seen them talk about how they expect 3rd party batteries to come out soon.[/QUOTE]
 
Unfortunately, unlike the Phantom batteries, the Solo batteries do not discharge if left sitting around.
Mine do... for sure. Just checked them now and they are not full anymore, even though I charged them a week ago or so.

I can't speak for DJI, but the Solo hardware, including the battery are open source. Open source software AND hardware. So I think its unlikely that 3DR is really doing anything to make it hard. In fact, I've seen them talk about how they expect 3rd party batteries to come out soon.
I think the fact, that by now no one has come up with a 3rd party battery, speaks for it self.

If they did not "make it hard", why can't I simply connect a different battery to the Solo? Why the need for a chip? (The answer is obvious. They want you to spend $150 dollars on a battery that cost them $25).
If they did not "make it hard" and everything is open source, how come I am pretty much the only one to ever take a battery apart, use the battery board and hook up my own battery. You would think that more people would do that. After-all, it wasn't even that hard to do. I just cracked the case open, de-soldered the battery from the board, soldered my own battery connectors and balance port to it, DONE. Believe me, if I can do it, a MONKEY can do it, ha ha.

Anyhow, I don't want to get into a long argument with you. I just wish my damn board would work so I can try the 8000 mAh battery.

Thanks.
 
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soloinig your theories about the battery are mostly correct. the smart battery circuitry only cares about the lipo battery when it comes to reporting telemetry and charging. if you connect a larger battery to the chip, telemetry is still reported but some of the information will be inaccurate. and of course if you are charging, it will get under charged because the chip is still using the stock battery parameters.

but as far as powering solo directly, it works with only pos and neg applied and can even be armed. the problem is that failsafe will kick in because capacity isn't being reported. you can get around that by disabling battery failsafe. i currently use a 12v power supply connected to solo with a female molex ten60 connector (pos and neg only) and i can power solo. if i boost the power to 15v i can arm.

i've not seen any specifics on the self discharge either way. i do know that if i leave my batteries for 2 weeks, they lose charge. so i'm assuming that they self discharge and won't go past a specific level.
 
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