Battery Alternative-

[Michael Lione]

Hey folks. Been lots flying around regarding Batteries. This is hot off the press. Not a perfect solution but if you're willing to risk blowing your head off prying out the BMS one worth considering until something better comes through. As Daniel offers up there is the safer solution to buy the $15 adapter and fly with a timer.

One thing that I'm still apprehensive about is using the suggested 35C pack as replacement for the original 10C Solo pack. There was some discussion regarding overpowering the ESC's. Any comments will be much appreciated.

 

[Derriell]

Because you use a 35C 5200mAh battery you can not overpower your ESCs. At least not in this case. Solo takes max 40-45A if you push it really hard. So basically any battery that can deliver 50A continuous is completely fine. Be aware that the numbers on the sticker often are higher than reality!

I would go for 20C + battery. Remember as well if you use a higher C battery it will probably last longer because compared to its capability the stress when flying is less on the higher C battery.

Have a look here too, everything is there: 3DR Solo with LiIon 9000mAh battery | up to 30min flight time

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

Anyone who is suggesting that a higher capacity or higher C rated batter will "overpower" anything needs to be ignored. They lack basic fundamental electrical knowledge that I learned when I was in middle school. Current is pulled by the device, not pushed by the battery. If the motor requires 10 amps, it will pull 10 amps whether you have 10C, 20C, or 35C battery or a small fusion reactor attached to it. There is no such thing as "pushing" too much power from the battery into the ESCs. If someone is giving advice to the contrary, they are unqualified to be speaking on the matter. There is no such thing as "over powering" your ESCs like this. It's absurd.

A higher C rating will run cooler and be less susceptible to damage and imbalance. The higher C rating can dissipate heat faster and will be a healthier battery. But it will also be heavier, which will negatively affect flight characteristics and flight time.

 

[Derriell]

@Pedals2Paddles Absolutely agree with what you said. I just want to say that there is still a very tiny truth in it. Because a higher C battery has less internal resistance and thus voltage will drop less under load resulting in higher voltage (talking about 0.5-1V difference max) and because of that the ESCs and motors will be able to draw more power from it. But the difference is small.

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

That's not truth to it either. That's not pushing more power to the ESCs. That's the ESCs pulling the power they need, and that power being available to it. It's not exceeding any voltage limits. It is an improvement in fact.

 

[Derriell]

My words.

 

[Michael Lione]

Anyone who is suggesting that a higher capacity or higher C rated batter will "overpower" anything needs to be ignored. They lack basic fundamental electrical knowledge that I learned when I was in middle school. Current is pulled by the device, not pushed by the battery. If the motor requires 10 amps, it will pull 10 amps whether you have 10C, 20C, or 35C battery or a small fusion reactor attached to it. There is no such thing as "pushing" too much power from the battery into the ESCs. If someone is giving advice to the contrary, they are unqualified to be speaking on the matter. There is no such thing as "over powering" your ESCs like this. It's absurd.

A higher C rating will run cooler and be less susceptible to damage and imbalance. The higher C rating can dissipate heat faster and will be a healthier battery. But it will also be heavier, which will negatively affect flight characteristics and flight time.

Thanks for this! Finally words from wisdom. It's really tough anymore to know who to believe but your good advice went directly to my bank.

As you may have picked up on my focus has been on the incredible and inherent danger associated with cracking open the pack. No argument that many have the skill set to accomplish the task but that doesn't reduce the danger. I have several times posted your photo of the expanded cell to try to illustrate my assertion.

I put a tremendous amount of effort over the past several months in an attempt to entice a professional LiPo/NiCad battey refurb shop (they specialize in the electric bike batteries but do Makita, DeWalt, and several others) to set up a Trade-in operation for our packs. My hope was to have them swap out the cells like you did a while back. I sent them a battery and he seemed all in at first. He even bought a Solo, several more batteries from B&H and the SoloTool, and joined the Owners Group. As you can imagine he has reliable sources but apparently they could not come up with a direct replacement. I think he was striving to match the 10C rating of the original pack and after at least two attempts that wouldn't fit in the pack walked away.

I haven't bothered him in several weeks but I will email him once more to confirm he has in fact lost interest.

Hope all is back to "normal" at your end. Best!

 

[Wirednot]

Has anyone tried to maybe 3D print a replacement battery enclosure that could then be serviced by a battery shop, or some such? In my mind it makes perfect sense. Like don’t try to dork with the existing batteries but recreate the form factor in a way that can be serviced safely.

 

[Derriell]

@Wirednot Check out Drone Worships youtube channel. They have it in the pipeline. Though I only see optical improvement and a bit rain protection from it. It takes a loooot of time to print, it is quite heavy and the snapping mechanism wont hold as good as the original one. Thus I would still use walkro. With the BMS protected and the battery plugged in safety it isn't much worse than before in my eyes. Because batteries are not that kind of thing you are throwing around. In case of a crash problems could occur faster I agree but then things went bad anyway.

My advice to you: Get yourself a bad battery (no humidity death) and rescue the BMS or let it do somebody for you. Solder the plugs, protect it and you are good to go : )

 

[Michael Lione]

Has anyone tried to maybe 3D print a replacement battery enclosure that could then be serviced by a battery shop, or some such? In my mind it makes perfect sense. Like don’t try to dork with the existing batteries but recreate the form factor in a way that can be serviced safely.

bateria solo 3dr -3dr solo battery by Juanjojjjjjj

 

[RogueWarrior65]

This looks interesting. Personally, I would rather try to salvage the original case but the ability to use newly minted packs might be worth it.

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[Pat Drone]

Please excuse me if thi has been discussed in earlier posts. It seems to me 3DR should have the same issue with the batteries even if they had a huge inventory they are coming to the end of their shelf life. What are they doing to keep the drones flying on the commercial side?

 

[IrishmanPDX]

I dunno about all of this so called talk about "electricity", sounds very modern. I just know I plugged my solo into a wall outlet and it "DID" blow the shite out of the ESC's... and everything else on board. Next time.... I'm using a surge protector....

 

[RichWest]

Just food for thought.... The individual cells are common. What is different is the offset of the one cell and the associated junction circuit board. Why not get a battery manufacture to build a pack with the offset cell and the unique circuit board packaged like any common non-smart pack done today. I bet they would build with the correct connector, CB and stubbed leads for a 500 piece order....

As to removal and reusing the battery housing. I believe the housing could be cut away, with a cnc router and end mill, to allow a near factory look and still maintain the battery latch... See image below...

 

[Mike Boland]

Here in Australia we are sort of cut off from ready supplies of Solo batteries and all mine are starting to fade with age.
So I have been reading with interest anything that might fix this situation short of pulling the guts of the Solo and putting it into a new frame.
I kinda like my 2 Solo's.
So... ideally it would be nice to grab any new 5200 4S and use it to power the Solo.
But the battery information is critical to the safe operation.
I certainly wouldn't want to be flying around with no battery info.
In tinkering in the workshop I came up with this solution :


Taking the circuit board out of an old defunct battery, adding an XT60 and a balance plug to it, printing a small case to enclose it in, and we have:



Any 4S battery in a Solo.
The Hyperion 4S 5000mAh here fits perfectly.

Now the tricky part was to find out how to reset the SBM (Smart Battery Monitor) to be aware of the new battery capacity.
I noticed first that when turned on it was flashing a single LED, which was the capacity left in the old battery pack before disassembly, and this gave me a clue.
The SBM has a memory, so how do I reset the memory.
It turned out to be simpler than a lot have hypothesised on the forums.
With the SBM turned on, unplug the battery and balance lead.
Then plug the battery back in, followed by the balance lead, and the monitor is reset.
This will also happen when you change batteries if you don't turn the SMB off while changing batteries.
If you have it turned off, with say 2 LED's alight from the previous flight, and you put a fresh battery in, you will see only 2 LED's.
Now leave it on, unplug the battery and balance, plug the battery then balance back in and it should reset.
Works for me.

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

With the SBM turned on, unplug the battery and balance lead. Then plug the battery back in, followed by the balance lead, and the monitor is reset.

Can you define "reset"? Does it reset back to a 5200mah capacity and 0 cycles? Presuming that's the case, you would definitely want to make sure you're using 5200mah batteries. Since I don't think there is any means by which to change that capacity.

 

[Hans Solo]

Try this, I'm on step three of the instructions, I will be doing a battery flight test soon. and will report my results. This battery had less than a 2 minute flight time, so fingers crossed.

Solo Smart battery re-calibration procedure.

 

[Stephen MacDonald]

I don't have access to a 3 d printer can you possibly give the dimensions for the chip enclosure? I do have a Bridgeport mill and can probably cut the enclosure out of some delron. Also I'm not a electronics guy where did you get the female plugs for the new battery to plug into ? I have a battery disassembled and think the chip is in good shape. Thanks Steve

 

[Hans Solo]

Try this, I'm on step three of the instructions, I will be doing a battery flight test soon. and will report my results. This battery had less than a 2 minute flight time, so fingers crossed.

Solo Smart battery re-calibration procedure.

Never mind this suggestion, tried to revivify a battery that only had 2 minutes flight time using this procedure, and battery test after following instructions correctly, yielded the same 2 minutes flight time. Not sure what is wrong with that battery, it's not swollen, my best guess is some kind of internal shorting going on during discharge.

 

[Mike Boland]

I haven't finished tweaking the .stl files yet so these will need some sanding and shaping to get it to fit snugly.
But as I am not sure when I will get a chance to do that I am posting the current files here.
You need to round off the end a bit to fit the contour and cut 2 slices out of the side to clear the lock down tabs.
If I have a chance to day I am going to do some capacity/flight time tests.