smart battery capacity drop down to 4528 mAh

[looninho]

Hi all,

After upgraded my Solo to GC, i check the parameters ans see that my battery capacity dropped from 5199 (may 2017) to 4528 mAh (february 2018). The mean usage is about 1 charge per week so approximately 30 cycles. i didn't notice any change in flight time, about 13mn. I tried only about 3 times in sport, acro modes most of time are gentle fly for filming.

So i wonder what can change the capacity since changing smart battery manufacturer values needs to unseal the BMS with manufacturer access password.

As P2P said, MP or Tower can't change this value since it's readed from BMS.

I also check my 2nd smart battery and it has only 5153 mAh (feb 2018). i didn't save its value before (august 2017).

any idea?

@pious_greek : as you have opened the battery, could you give the chip reference on the pcb? If it starts with bq20zXX, i can try to unseal to change the manufacturer values.

i will fly tomorrow to check flight time...

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

I'm not sure what you're asking. The battery is reporting it's capacity is 4528mah now. A few months ago, it was reporting 5199mah. Sounds normal to me. It's not something you can change since the battery is metering itself and reprtirep that.

FYI, that is about 2 minutes flight time.

 

[looninho]

OK, if i understand my battery is getting 2 minutes older.

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

Basically. If you gently discharge it down to empty and fully recharge it, you may gain a bit back. You can monitor the cell voltage in Solex or Mission Planner. Shut down when one of the cells reaches 3.0v. So fly around like usual, but when the battery starts getting low, just hover over the landing site until 3.0v on a cell. Or with it on the ground in stabilize mode and <50% throttle, again just to wear it down. YMMV.

 

[Dash Hewes]

I've got several batteries used from 2015 around (30 cycles) showing around 4250mAh, they will show a full charge of near 100% on startup. When the percentage reaches 25% it plummets to near zero in less than a minute. With a 75% capacity over new I keep it close and mostly use it for testing.

Thanks P2P, I'll try your recommendation of discharging to zero.

 

[looninho]

Basically. If you gently discharge it down to empty and fully recharge it, you may gain a bit back. You can monitor the cell voltage in Solex or Mission Planner. Shut down when one of the cells reaches 3.0v. So fly around like usual, but when the battery starts getting low, just hover over the landing site until 3.0v on a cell. Or with it on the ground in stabilize mode and <50% throttle, again just to wear it down. YMMV.

Thank P2P, I will try too!

 

[Deleted member 12314]

The solo battery packs are not new none of them are in fact they are more likely 3 years or more older, they will never give you 100 good cycles, they lose capacity after a couple of cycles mainly due to age during storage, there hasn't been a production run of SOLO batteries in years and who knows if they will ever run them again, people keep rumoring about it but who knows.....