Battery - Lower Threshold %

[Bilge]

What is the lowest % one should land with without ruining the battery - 10%

I understand if one lands at 0% than the battery is toast - is that correct ???

Thanks in advance

 

[Greg Parker]

At 10% your most likely to trigger a forced landing or a RTH that you may not have the power to complete; depends of how your parameters are set.

Most here would probably suggest not going much past 20% except in an attempt to get home and down. I try to land at or above 25% unless I just really need to complete a shot. AT 40% I am headed home and down and sooner than that if I am out at a greater distance.

IMO 10% regularly is not a good idea for battery longevity. Buy more batteries and land sooner, it will be less expensive in the long run.

 

[Bilge]

if you take it to 0%...is the battery toast or not....?

 

[Chuck]

if you take it to 0%...is the battery toast or not....?

I believe that earlier, someone had said that "irreparable damage" can occur if you deplete a smart battery to 0%. Especially if you do not get a charger on it, pronto. I would be very leery of a fully depleted battery on future flights. Maybe someone else can add more to this. I just seem to remember that is what someone had said. I have been known to be wrong on occasion...

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

The battery is not destroyed at 0%. Just like your car doesn't implode as soon as the needle hits empty either. However, damage can and will occur shortly thereafter. In my experience, the voltage drops off rather quickly after 0%. The point at which damage occurs can come within 30 seconds or 2 minutes depending on how well calibrated the smart battery is. As a general rule, you should be legs on the ground, motors stopped between 5% and 10% to make the most use of the battery and avoid hurting it. Landing at 20% like some do is a waste.

 

[CS223]

With as sophisticated as the circuitry is in the Smart Battery, I'd be very surprised if there were a way to damage it under normal circumstances. I would expect protection circuitry to kick in. Shorting it, reverse polarity I could see ruining it. Now if you left it in a totally discharged state for an extended period, then I could understand the battery cells being damaged. Just speculation based on observation, someone may be along to definitely say otherwise.

 

[Jubalr]

There is a great deal of varied opinions you can find about LiPo batteries in general. In my experience, they are not as fragile as some will lead you to believe. Early in the use of LiPos in RC, they were much more fragile and dangerous. But like anything else, they have improved. But in my opinion, I'm with Pedals on this one. Landing between 5-10% and getting back up to storage level soon will be the best.

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

Regarding protection and things that can hurt it... If you try to recharge it at a rate of more than 6 amps, it will cut itself off. If you try to charge it beyond it's maximum voltage, or beyond what it determines is 100%, it will cut itself off. If you have no load connected to it at all, it will time out and turn itself off. I do not know if there is a maximum current limit for discharge. If there is, it is probably pretty high, like 100 amps or something that the solo could never conceivably draw under circumstances. It will NOT turn itself off due to low voltage, overdischarge, etc because that would cause a crash if the solo is still in flight. In reality, the solo is going down once the voltage drops below 12.5ish volts no matter what anyway.

 

[Bilge]

Just like your car doesn't implode as soon as the needle hits empty either.

Now that is funny......

 

[User Name]

There is a great deal of varied opinions you can find about LiPo batteries in general. In my experience, they are not as fragile as some will lead you to believe. Early in the use of LiPos in RC, they were much more fragile and dangerous. But like anything else, they have improved. But in my opinion, I'm with Pedals on this one. Landing between 5-10% and getting back up to storage level soon will be the best.

Agree on pretty much all points. I'm still very conservative with the Solo batteries, try to be heading back to land by 25 to 35% depending on how far I'm out, and try to land at 10 to 15% minimum. With a backpack full of batteries, there's just no point taking them down to the wire when you can just pop in a fresh one and be back in the air for another 10-12 minutes.

Also agree on lipos not being as fragile is often suggested. When I got back into RC several years ago, I wasn't really aware of how critical lipo's low voltage limit was, and regularly flew my DIY quads until they literally couldn't get off the ground. Some of the batteries were so low, the charger wouldn't charge them, and I was able to trick it to do so by plugging in a good pack, getting it to start charging and then switch it to the "bad" one really quickly. Let me say, I watch charging packs like a hawk given what can happen if they go... but I still have and use some of those packs and their degradation isn't so much that it's not worth using them. I've also accidently taken packs WAY down powering electronic projects. Like around a volt per cell. Like the others, I've managed to bring them back with minimal degradation.

Not saying there's been no damage, but it's far from "hit this voltage and the pack is kaput". But given the cost and questionable availability of Solo batteries going forward... I play it safe.

 

[pyrate]

Since reading some of Philips posts, I have started targeting 10% at land.
seems to be working just fine

 

[Greg Parker]

I have one battery that was taken to 8% it is the only battery I have that reads under 70% when fully charged to 16.8 volts. YMMV

 

[Jubalr]

Agree on pretty much all points. I'm still very conservative with the Solo batteries, try to be heading back to land by 25 to 35% depending on how far I'm out, and try to land at 10 to 15% minimum. With a backpack full of batteries, there's just no point taking them down to the wire when you can just pop in a fresh one and be back in the air for another 10-12 minutes.

Also agree on lipos not being as fragile is often suggested. When I got back into RC several years ago, I wasn't really aware of how critical lipo's low voltage limit was, and regularly flew my DIY quads until they literally couldn't get off the ground. Some of the batteries were so low, the charger wouldn't charge them, and I was able to trick it to do so by plugging in a good pack, getting it to start charging and then switch it to the "bad" one really quickly. Let me say, I watch charging packs like a hawk given what can happen if they go... but I still have and use some of those packs and their degradation isn't so much that it's not worth using them. I've also accidently taken packs WAY down powering electronic projects. Like around a volt per cell. Like the others, I've managed to bring them back with minimal degradation.

Not saying there's been no damage, but it's far from "hit this voltage and the pack is kaput". But given the cost and questionable availability of Solo batteries going forward... I play it safe.

That's interesting, I had to do that trick a few times back in the day as well after taking them so low they wouldn't charge. Managed to continue using them on the ones it worked. It's going to be interesting getting the battery diagnostic tool I ordered and see what the status is on some of my older Solo batts still in use. Remember that 21min flight I had that took it to 0% and still landed?

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

I ordered one of those the other day too. New toys!

Last night I took two of my Solo batteries and did a full discharger on my LiPo charger. I took them gently down to 12.1 volts. That way the charger will have an opportunity to put every last drop of MAH back into the battery. One of them now shows a capacity of 4900 and the other 4800. I don't remember what exactly they were before, but it was in the neighborhood of 4600-4700 I think. That's not a huge change, less than a minute, but every drop counts.

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

Did one more today. It's reported capacity was only 4200mah. I gently discharged it down to 12.1 volts, then recharged it fully. Now it reports a capacity of 4800mah. That's two minutes of flying time right there!

 

[Solo Keith]

3DR Solo Battery charging adapter and diagnostics tool. – Madhacker.org

Thanks for the link @Jubair. I need one of these

 

[Bowtech2]

The battery is not destroyed at 0%. Just like your car doesn't implode as soon as the needle hits empty either. However, damage can and will occur shortly thereafter. In my experience, the voltage drops off rather quickly after 0%. The point at which damage occurs can come within 30 seconds or 2 minutes depending on how well calibrated the smart battery is. As a general rule, you should be legs on the ground, motors stopped between 5% and 10% to make the most use of the battery and avoid hurting it. Landing at 20% like some do is a waste.

Yep! what he said...

 

[Greg Parker]

Landing at 20% like some do is a waste.

Since the voltage drop off is nonlinear, effectively using the last 10% or 15% when doing filming missions is problematic. I like to be close to Home and headed down before the warning. With 6 batteries in the backpack I don't think I have ever felt I wasted that marginal 10%.

If you are just burning holes in the sky and are close to your landing point then the risks are less.

I find little utility in trying to push things into the 10% or less range. For me it is there for emergency use. YMMV.

 

[andrew.baker.142]

As Greg mentioned above, battery consumption is non-linear. Probably the main culprit of this is (assuming the power required is constant (flight conditions remain similar)) is the fact that as the battery voltage drops, the current needs to go up to make the same amount of power at the motors. Power = Voltage * Current.

 

[Dmitry]

I ordered one of those the other day too. New toys!

Last night I took two of my Solo batteries and did a full discharger on my LiPo charger. I took them gently down to 12.1 volts. That way the charger will have an opportunity to put every last drop of MAH back into the battery. One of them now shows a capacity of 4900 and the other 4800. I don't remember what exactly they were before, but it was in the neighborhood of 4600-4700 I think. That's not a huge change, less than a minute, but every drop counts.

Hi, Do you have a charger (discharger)? Brand, model