Assuming no hi-capacity battery this year.

[STMPNGRND]

Im interested to know how solo calculates power usage, is it mAH or just voltage depletion?
I wonder if it would be possible to install the 'smart' pcbs inside Solo, and just swap in and out a normal Lipo onto Solos battery bay .?
Food for thought.

That would work as long as you only use a matching 5200mah 4s battery. As it is right now none of the info like battery charge/cycles that the smbus module tracks is presented to the app or mission planner. All that is needed is the current/voltage monitoring like the old 3dr power module.
Most likely reason the batteries are "smart" is so average joe consumer doesn't have to deal with all the fun of charging hobby lipos.

check out https://www.facebook.com/spektreworks/ they have the smart module on their DIY carrier board.

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

Steve can confirm this, but I believe the smart battery is reporting MAH used, percent remaining, and voltage to the solo. This is unlike the DIY pixhawk and APM stuff, where the flight controller is doing all that measurement with a module. So, anything you change with the battery related to capacity would have to be reprogrammed on the battery's brain, or it will be inaccurately reported to the solo.

 

[RolandS888]

So tell what you think would happen if a 6600mah 4S battery was used with the Solo module.
Would it try and land as the mah ran down to zero, or would it report negative mah and kepp flying?
What do you think...?

 

[STMPNGRND]

Steve can confirm this, but I believe the smart battery is reporting MAH used, percent remaining, and voltage to the solo. This is unlike the DIY pixhawk and APM stuff, where the flight controller is doing all that measurement with a module. So, anything you change with the battery related to capacity would have to be reprogrammed on the battery's brain, or it will be inaccurately reported to the solo.

Well that would be a bummer if either the PXH2 or companion computer both offload those calculations to the battery itself :-(

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

So tell what you think would happen if a 6600mah 4S battery was used with the Solo module.
Would it try and land as the mah ran down to zero, or would it report negative mah and kepp flying?
What do you think...?

The % remaining is based on the 5200mah capacity the smart battery believes. And the failsafe RTH triggers with 520mah remaining by default. You can change the remaining number, but it will still be based off that 5200 number.

So if you have 6600mah battery that thinks it's a 5200mah battery, it will report improper % remaining, and it will initiate an RTH earlier than needed. To avoid that, you would have to disable to MAH remaining failsafe, and ignore the % remaining on the controller. You would just need to watch the voltage and land when it's about 13.9 volts.

 

[RolandS888]

Yep, ok, that makes perfect sense.

 

[Jubalr]

Hey Roland, Be interested in what you find on the donor when you get a chance and have time to do some experimenting. It would be great if the FSs are based on voltage instead of %used, and it certainly could be. Since with the Solo we are dealing with a single, fixed battery for testing it should be easy to verify. Most FSs in the past have been determined by voltage. Total current used against a know quantity (bat cap) and given a % used/remaining is just an easy read for new pilots to watch, similar to a fuel gauge. But it's actually the voltage that triggers FS behavior.

Or I could be full of s**t.

 

[RolandS888]

Hey Roland, Be interested in what you find on the donor when you get a chance and have time to do some experimenting. It would be great if the FSs are based on voltage instead of %used, and it certainly could be. Since with the Solo we are dealing with a single, fixed battery for testing it should be easy to verify. Most FSs in the past have been determined by voltage. Total current used against a know quantity (bat cap) and given a % used/remaining is just an easy read for new pilots to watch, similar to a fuel gauge. But it's actually the voltage that triggers FS behavior.

Or I could be full of s**t.

I really hope you are right Jubal, as this would allow substitution of a larger battery with no adverse sideffects.
Time (and experimentation) will tell.
If it is solely voltage based, Id be looking to snug the battery module into the Solo fuze and go with larger capacity packs, and have the main battery connection point and balance connecter socket somewhere on the outside of the fuze.

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

Hey Roland, Be interested in what you find on the donor when you get a chance and have time to do some experimenting. It would be great if the FSs are based on voltage instead of %used, and it certainly could be. Since with the Solo we are dealing with a single, fixed battery for testing it should be easy to verify. Most FSs in the past have been determined by voltage. Total current used against a know quantity (bat cap) and given a % used/remaining is just an easy read for new pilots to watch, similar to a fuel gauge. But it's actually the voltage that triggers FS behavior.

Or I could be full of s**t.

The latter

It is both. Arducopter has both an MAH remaining failsafe, and a low voltage failsafe. Both are enabled on the Solo. The MAH remaining failsafe is 520 MAH, which you can change or disable in Tower or Mission Planner. The voltage failsafe is 14 volts, which you can also change or disable in Tower or Mission Planner. The % remaining is also based on MAH used vs MAH capacity. The % remaining is NOT based on volts.

 

[Jubalr]

The latter

It is both. Arducopter has both an MAH remaining failsafe, and a low voltage failsafe. Both are enabled on the Solo. The MAH remaining failsafe is 520 MAH, which you can change or disable in Tower or Mission Planner. The voltage failsafe is 14 volts, which you can also change or disable in Tower or Mission Planner. The % remaining is also based on MAH used vs MAH capacity. The % remaining is NOT based on volts.

Could be. But still shouldn't hinder using larger batteries. You could always either load a saved profile based on the battery you are using or disable the fields and use voltage like we always have.

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

It's not "could be". The settings are all there in Tower and MP. They are enabled and configured just as I described. You would have to disable it all and ignore the % if you don't reprogram the smart battery to account for the higher capacity.

 

[Jubalr]

It's not "could be".

Sorry for my choice of words. Didn't mean to question your answer. I'll rephrase.
"You could always either load a saved profile based on the battery you are using or disable the fields and use voltage like we always have".

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

No worries. If I remember correctly from what @PdxSteve found, the battery capacity parameter the Solo references comes from the smart battery. If you change the Arducopter battery capacity parameter using Tower or Mission Planner, it will be overwritten by the capacity reported by the Smart battery. So you couldn't just go in tower/MP, change the capacity parameter to 6000, and save the parameter file for future use.It would be overwritten. If you don't reprogram the smart battery with the increased capacity, there really is no way to fake it. You would need to ignore the % and MAH stuff, and just use voltage. Which is fine with me, that's what I use for the most part. I think most of us would be doing this stuff would be perfectly content with just voltage monitoring and a timer as well.

 

[STMPNGRND]

So just thinking out loud....

So smBus is just a protocol which most manufactures use to have consistency in battery communications.
Assuming that Solo just listens and does no talk to the battery(no evidence either way) for the values we could be in business.

Not hard but not easy just a bit of elbow grease and time but we could make our own bad@ss smart battery module. Take a current module like this one form sparkfun and a Adafruit Trinket. The right code on the Trinket would assign the proper protocol to the voltage and current values so the Solo app would be happy! The components are fairly basic easy to source(mouser/digikey/amzon) so we could even draw up simple board with an onboard flashed arduino chip and get them made at oshpark .

In principle it would work. Time to read up on smbus some more. I've got the stuff laying around to give it a try.
Thoughts?

 

[cameraguy]

Solo, Gimbal, GP, and battery = 3.9 Lbs = 62.4 ounces

Solo Smart Battery = 1 Lbs = 16 ounces
Gimbal & GP = 0.6 Lbs = 9.6 ounces
Motor Pods = 1 Lbs = 16 ounces estimated.
Frame, electronics, and wiring = 1.3 Lbs = 20.8 ounces approx.

Not sure where you can reduce weight or what increase a higher capacity battery could offer to flight times. If an equal capacity battery could be provided less the "smarts" and housing, I'm certain there would be a gain. There is always a trade off for a larger capacity battery by the increase in weight.

I'm running 800kV T-Motors with APC props, which was detailed to be more efficient in the motor thread. I'm actually running heavier with 3 additional ounces on my bird. But maintaining a 15 minute average flight time. I land at 25% as a habit, with these 6 month old batteries

Using 65 ounces as my flight weight, that equals to about 14.1 seconds per an ounce. Where are you going to lose enough weight to gain flight time?

Keep in mind, if your batteries are starting at a lower voltage than spec, then you'll see less flight times from the battery. A fully charged battery of 14.8VDC versus a 14VDC charged battery has lost a significant amount of flight time. My guess is that it could be 1-2 minutes. The battery discharge is not linear to the actual flight times. Lower voltage, faster discharge.

Sorry I was bored and wanted to play with numbers....use at your discretion. I'm no expert on Li-Po batteries or BL motors. Correction to the numbers above are appreciated, as I just used published info to extrapolate the assumed.

Could you provide links to the motors and props. Does it provide the opportunity to carry more weight, like perhaps a better camera. I'm keen to find a way to fly a Sony rx100-M4.

I'd appreciate any info you have

Thx

 

[RichWest]

Could you provide links to the motors and props.

Motors Swapped to T-Motor 2216-12 800kV

 

[franknitty69]

i'm just curious...if you could get a higher capacity battery that would increase flight time to 20 minutes what would be the added value? what does 5 extra minutes get you?

even if its possible, a higher capacity battery would definitely cost over $200? people complain about the battery price now.

 

[RichWest]

i'm just curious...if you could get a higher capacity battery that would increase flight time to 20 minutes what would be the added value? what does 5 extra minutes get you?

even if its possible, a higher capacity battery would definitely cost over $200? people complain about the battery price now.

If you apply your question for a commercial application, then what would be the answer?

2 miles of flight distance
10 more acres surveyed
Full scan of a transmission pole
5 more minutes of video

What if your safety regs requires an inspection after every battery change. That five minutes of additional flight time adds up in a day or week. Time is money.

Why would the battery be $50 higher? Your cost for the smart components are the same for 5400mAh or a 7200mAh? Increasing capacity is a nominal cost at that point.

I agree, if it would work, would it be worth it. The added weight alone would be an impact to performance or the ability to handle additional payload. To that it would be the deal killer for me in the present configuration.

food for thought...

 

[fpvsteve]

In order to increase flight time by ~5 min you would need likely a 6000mAh battery (10-15% improvement) combined with more efficient, high end props (5-10% improvement)
Going to more than 4s or to HV lipos will get you nowhere since all electronics are tuned for 14.8V.
Adding more capacity beyond 6000mAh neither, since weight would become an issue, as well as the ability to take such packages into a plane for travel.

The main challenge is to find a 6000mAh 25C 4s pack with a form factor which fits into the battery space.
The battery bus still displays the actual battery voltage which you can use to monitor the remaining battery capacity as long as the BMS settings inside the battery are not disclosed or changeable.

 

[Jubalr]

In order to increase flight time by ~5 min you would need likely a 6000mAh battery (10-15% improvement) combined with more efficient, high end props (5-10% improvement)
Going to more than 4s or to HV lipos will get you nowhere since all electronics are tuned for 14.8V.
Adding more capacity beyond 6000mAh neither, since weight would become an issue, as well as the ability to take such packages into a plane for travel.

The main challenge is to find a 6000mAh 25C 4s pack with a form factor which fits into the battery space.
The battery bus still displays the actual battery voltage which you can use to monitor the remaining battery capacity as long as the BMS settings inside the battery are not disclosed or changeable.

Yes, but why 25C? Weight savings in batteries can be achieved as the C rating drops. An 8000mAh 15c Lipo can be had for roughly the same weight and cost of the Solo battery. For me, the primary reason I would like to see a 'battery case' designed for the Solo is the freedom of choice. If I want to run a larger/smaller battery to fit my mission requirements, I have that choice. Same reason I use an Android; I don't want Apple deciding for me what app I can run (screen recorder for example).