Solo Support On Flight Time

Boogieman · Jun 20, 2016

I am only getting around 8-10 minutes in flight. I recieved this responce from 3dr support.

Hi Boogieman
thank you for contacting Technical Support.

I checked the logs and noticed that the flight time registered is around 9:40 minutes with a remaining battery level of 21%.
I also saw that the battery capacity parameters was set to around 4410 and it should be 5200, by chance, did you moved this parameter?
Would you kindly set this value to 5200 please?
If you need assistance with this let me know!

Have a good Day!

I dont have access to android and need to know how to change this to what he is asking.

Flashy · Jun 20, 2016

you have to set the parameter BATT_CAPACITY to value 5200 with tower or Mission planner.
Complete Parameter List — Copter documentation

Maddog · Jun 20, 2016

Boogieman said:
I am only getting around 8-10 minutes in flight. I recieved this responce from 3dr support.

Hi Boogieman
thank you for contacting Technical Support.

I checked the logs and noticed that the flight time registered is around 9:40 minutes with a remaining battery level of 21%.
I also saw that the battery capacity parameters was set to around 4410 and it should be 5200, by chance, did you moved this parameter?
Would you kindly set this value to 5200 please?
If you need assistance with this let me know!

Have a good Day!

I dont have access to android and need to know how to change this to what he is asking.

I've never checked that parameter- I have tower and Mission Planner but don't know how to check my batteries or change that parameter. Does anybody else know how?

LAK-USA · Jun 21, 2016

Boogieman said:
I am only getting around 8-10 minutes in flight. I recieved this responce from 3dr support.

Hi Boogieman
thank you for contacting Technical Support.

I checked the logs and noticed that the flight time registered is around 9:40 minutes with a remaining battery level of 21%.
I also saw that the battery capacity parameters was set to around 4410 and it should be 5200, by chance, did you moved this parameter?
Would you kindly set this value to 5200 please?
If you need assistance with this let me know!

Have a good Day!

I dont have access to android and need to know how to change this to what he is asking.

I would re-contact 3dr for "assistance" 1st.

Boogieman · Jun 21, 2016

I am emailing them back and forth. I have 3 batteries in all orginial oem shows 3350mah as max. the second one is about 5 months old and shows 4100mah as max. My newest one about 2 weeks old shows 4410mah as max

Maddog · Jun 21, 2016

Boogieman said:
I am emailing them back and forth. I have 3 batteries in all orginial oem shows 3350mah as max. the second one is about 5 months old and shows 4100mah as max. My newest one about 2 weeks old shows 4410mah as max

How/ where are you getting that information?

Boogieman · Jun 21, 2016

Maddog said:
How/ where are you getting that information?

By using APM Planner then viewing all parameters. Support showed me how and thats how they saw the total MAH for the batteries was low.

LAK-USA · Jun 22, 2016

Boogieman said:
By using APM Planner then viewing all parameters. Support showed me how and thats how they saw the total MAH for the batteries was low.

That's good to know, thanks.

Jim..... · Jun 22, 2016

I had this happen to me. BATT_CAPACITY kept showing 3800 ish so I changed BATT_CAPACITY to 5200, then saved values but it would revert back to 3800. After back and forth with 3DR they replaced the battery and it has been fine since.

Pedals2Paddles · Jun 22, 2016

It's the smart battery being stupid. And it's also 3dr support not knowing what they're talking about. The battery capacity parameter on Solo is overwritten at startup by the capacity reported by the smart battery. The smart battery should always be reporting 5200mah. So if you were to manually change the parameter in solo, it would revert back to 5200mah at next boot because that's what the battery says it is.

I'm not aware of any circumstances where the smart battery would change it's own reported capacity level other than the battery's brain malfunctioning. @PdxSteve might have some insight I to that.

Maddog · Jun 22, 2016

I looked at my batteries using Tower and they all showed 5315.
Is it odd that they were all exactly the same?

Mr GruntHunter · Jun 22, 2016

Is there a way to check them with just the SOLO App?

Maddog · Jun 22, 2016

Mr GruntHunter said:
Is there a way to check them with just the SOLO App?

No- wish there was.

PdxSteve · Jun 22, 2016

As batteries go through usage and charge cycles, it's capacity lessens bit by bit. You can never charge them to a true 100% again, and it goes down over time. And since these are balanced, it means that each cell will only take a max charge equal to the weakest cell of the 4. If one cell will only charge to 4.1V instead of 4.2V, then all will only charge to 4.1V so they are all balanced giving you 16.4V instead of 16.8V. I suspect that's what's going on but don't know for a fact.

Edit: It's also correct that it is impossible to set the stock solo smart batteries capacity via mission planner or any other GS. Unlike all other traditional batteries used in ardupilot, the smart battery reports it's own level and isn't something that can be set. It can only be read through the battery interface.

Pedals2Paddles · Jun 22, 2016

@PdxSteve is the smart battery updating it's own capacity over time?? All the times I've looked at the battery parameters on mine, it has always reported the spec 5200mah. For these guys, it appears that the smart battery thinks it's capacity has been reduced, or is otherwise not fully charged, and is reporting that lower MAH value to solo. I don't recall reading anywhere that the battery would report anything but it's specification capacity of 5200.

For what it's worth, this stuff is why I watch the voltage more than I watch the percentage. The voltage can't lie to me.

PdxSteve · Jun 22, 2016

I believe it does self adjust over time but that is speculation. No way to know for sure as the BMS circuitry from BMSPOW isn't open source and no schematics/code available. I can say that two of mine are no longer reporting at 5200 and they used to.

Pedals2Paddles · Jun 22, 2016

Sounds like that's the case then. So I guess this is good and bad. It's good because the reported battery % will be more accurate. It's bad because it relies on the smart battery not being wrong and screwing your flight time over because it's confused.

In any case, their batteries reporting capacity in the 3000s is clearly a defective battery. Whether it's actually that low, or it's confused, it shouldn't be the case.

Boogieman · Jun 22, 2016

I (and guys not flaming here) like how on my DJI stuff I can see the battery cells in real time as Im flying with their app. I hope 3dr impliments this in the future it would be nice if their app did this.

Maddog · Jun 23, 2016

Boogieman said:
I (and guys not flaming here) like how on my DJI stuff I can see the battery cells in real time as Im flying with their app. I hope 3dr impliments this in the future it would be nice if their app did this.

I'm not familiar with DJI products but that sounds like a useful feature.

PdxSteve · Jun 23, 2016

And it would be extremely easy for 3dr to implement as most of the code is already there - they just aren't displaying all of the data. Just like showing current lat/lng position would be extremely easy and useful for a lot of people, especially in search and rescue.