3DR Solo with LiIon 9000mAh battery | up to 30min flight time

[Derriell]

@warcelo 25R cells could work but if you go 4S2P I would rather do it with 21700 cells such as Samsung 40T although they probably don't fit the Solo battery case anymore.

In case you have not opened a Solo battery before: In my experience it is quite difficult to open it clean without a lot of damage. 3D printing a new case would probably be an option.

 

[warcelo]

@Derriell Thank you for the answer.
The 25R @ 40A should work and give you about the same flight time and not a lot of headaches with the solo's BMS.
Kinda the path of least resistance
How about using glue buster? I have never opened the battery before.

Thanks!

 

[Derriell]

Unfortunately I have no experience with glue buster. I believe that it is still a difficult task. Thus I would keep a plan B ready. If it is for convenience to be able to us the Solo battery case and plug system you could try to build a pack with the Solo BMS and the 18650 cells such that it is plug an play. A velcro strip holdd the battery good in place in my case. Without the battery case the drone is lighter which is beneficial for the drone (as the drone is already on the heavy side).

 

[warcelo]

@Derriell I will keep plan B ready, I'm very tempted to try a 5000mAh with the 25R, if it does not work with the case I can always add 4 more batts and make it a 7500mAh.... The super light 4S2P is interesting because I fly a Gopro Fusion with a long pole that adds 380 grams.
Thanks!

 

[warcelo]

@Derriell Just out of curiosity, have you tires the 30Q in a 4S2P configuration?

 

[makatanav]

glue buster

This is the real deal for OEM battery disassembly, but still need to work carefully if you want to maintain the case in good shape
have disassembled all my OEM batteries already

I`m not sure if the BMS will work with li-ion cells. will it?

 

[Derriell]

Just out of curiosity, have you tires the 30Q in a 4S2P configuration?

@warcelo No I have not tested it. But I do believe that it works well for a chill photography flying style. Power consumption in hover with 4S3P with gimbal and camera was about 290w (max 22A). 4S2P being about 190g (or 10%, with AUW 1900g) lighter, power consumption in hover is also at least 10% less and should be about 260w (max 20A @ 13V).

@makatanav Nice job! Yes, it works with Li-Ion (2.5 - 4.2V) cells because they have the same upper voltage limit as LiPos (3 - 4.2V). But since LiPos have a higher minimum voltage, the Solo BMS will tell you to RTH / land the drone based on cell voltage, when actually with LiIon cells you still have a little more flight time left. But anyway this little more flight time is not so important and it does stress the battery less if you don't fully discharge it every time.
RTL can be triggered in three ways with the Solo BMS:

• Pack voltage (if the voltage is less than 14V for more than 10s)
• individual low cell voltage (I don't remember this value, but it must be at around 3.5V per cell)
• used capacity in mAh (if used capacity is more than 4900mAh, or less, depending on the health of the battery)

I would recommend to test a LiIon battery in hover 1m above ground and observe how to drone behaves when the battery is low. Keep in mind that the metal case of the LiIon cells dpoes influence the compass of the drone thus you need to disable the internal compass (with 4S3P I had to do that, maybe with 4S2P you don't, I don't know)

 

[warcelo]

@Derriell Thanks, you're very very helpful!
I just got my batteries and will be putting it together next weekend. I will use the Solo battery BMS and probably just reprogram the Artoo to get the right readings. Am I missing something?

I went with the 4S3P configuration and the 30Q, I'm a little concerned that the 2P won't have enough current with the extra load I'm putting on.

Thanks!

 

[LUCKY J]

hello,
my name is lucky am new here i need your help to build my own 3DR solo drone battery pack
can you help me?
many thanks

 

[Mike Boland]

hello,
my name is lucky am new here i need your help to build my own 3DR solo drone battery pack
can you help me?
many thanks

To begin with, start a new thread with your request so it will be seen, rather than in someone else’s thread.

But first search the forum as I am sure this has been asked before

 

[Frank Foster]

The glue buster stuff does work. I had one battery, dead, and a little swollen. Run some glue buster around the seam, and it instantly popped open! No muss, no fuss.