Looking after your Solo batteries

[Ian [P13]]

A discussion came up today on the UK Solo group and I found the same on the main Solo group...

I thought it was common knowledge you should avoid taking a LiPo battery lower than 20%, but the Solo has attracted a lot of new users and it turns out many haven't realised.

So just to let people know the Solo does a battery warning at 25% then 15% the intention is for you to have landed by 15-20%, by 10% the Solo will RTL, in the time taken to RTL the battery is potentially getting damaged.

So please keep this in mind, if you abuse your batteries eventually your Solo could fall out of the sky. The battery voltage is logged so if you're routinely pushing it to 3.5v per cell and lower it's not going to be in your favour should you have a brown out due to a battery failure for example.

(Ignore the percentages in the image below as they were changed in the last update to try and reduce the chance of new users doing instant damage to their batteries).

 

[SteveReno]

Good info, I do this, Never lower the 10%
I can hear people saying, "My Battery doesn't work no more?" Bad 3DR, Bad 3DR.

 

[John Bentley]

A discussion came up today on the UK Solo group and I found the same on the main Solo group...

I thought it was common knowledge you should never take a LiPo battery lower than 20%, but the Solo has attracted a lot of new users and it turns out many haven't realised.

So just to let people know the Solo does a battery warning at 25% the intention is for you to have landed by 20%, you'll get warned again at 15% and 10% but by 10% the battery is getting damaged.

So please keep this in mind, if you abuse your batteries eventually your Solo is going to fall out of the sky.

(Ignore the percentages in the image below as they were changed in the last update to try and reduce the chance of new users doing instant damage to their batteries).

View attachment 946

Common knowledge? So is anyone getting 20-25 minutes flight time with 75% of batt use?

 

[Boogieman]

Common knowledge? So is anyone getting 20-25 minutes flight time with 75% of batt use?

No by no means. No camera and gimbal and I have tried being easy with it the max I have gotten is roughly 17 minutes and thats landing at 12-15%. And not bashing either as I love all my quads. I constantly get 18-19 minutes with my P3.

 

[Ian [P13]]

Common knowledge? So is anyone getting 20-25 minutes flight time with 75% of batt use?

It'd be 80% anyway, you can land on 20% or just under, but don't go near 10%.

Nope you won't get 20-25 mins doing that, I'm afraid all multicopter marketing people do flight time assuming there will be no wind which never is the case.

 

[ChrisM101]

So .8 x20 =16 mins flight using 80% of the advertised battery...
Smart Battery isnt smart enough.
So if its all based on voltage anyways, why didnt they change the values to reflect the useable range... obviously its because they cant meet their advertised flight times.

 

[Ian [P13]]

You're making an assumption the advertised time is 100% of a battery which I don't think is true either. I'm pretty sure albeit I've not timed it to the second that I'm getting around 18 mins landing close to 20% but I'll check it specifically at some point.

 

[ChrisM101]

You're making an assumption the advertised time is 100% of a battery which I don't think is true either. I'm pretty sure albeit I've not timed it to the second that I'm getting around 18 mins landing close to 20% but I'll check it specifically at some point.

True but if youve ever recorded your full flight, i would assume youd have the info already if you always land at 20% or so...whats the length of the full video

 

[Ian [P13]]

I don't have a gimbal yet so I don't record any flights. Most of my flights have been switching over to other people with landing part way through so I wouldn't have a suitable log yet either.

 

[SteveReno]

I don't have a gimbal yet so I don't record any flights. Most of my flights have been switching over to other people with landing part way through so I wouldn't have a suitable log yet either.

True but if youve ever recorded your full flight, i would assume youd have the info already if you always land at 20% or so...whats the length of the full video

To get a exact amount of flight time for each solo is impossible!

Some of the variables:
Temperature
Wind
Humidity
Old or New battery
Installed accessories
flight mode.
User

I'm sure there are other variables, the best one can do is get a average. Maybe that's what 3DR did? They are the only one's that can give you a Average from all the data collections.

Thanks to @Ian [P13] for trying to help & investing your time to save our batteries, but without much data collection from many users, even a average would be off target of available flight time.

 

[BackyardScientist]

At 10%, Is the battery actually at 10%, or is it just 10% left until you hit voltages lower than 3.4v per cell?

The solo is smart, It wont let you fly long enough to damage the battery. The LIPO contains 4 cells, 3.7v each. The solo will not let the cells fall below safe levels.,(I believe) 3.4v per cell. Running the battery down will not damage them, they are protected. Next time you fly, pay attention to the voltage.

Just yesterday I hovered my drone 10f above some tall grass until it hit 0%, and it still did not crash. It just kept yelling for me to return home. I did not want it to crash, so i I landed it. At least I know I can push it to 0% now.

 

[ChrisM101]

At 10%, Is the battery actually at 10%, or is it just 10% left until you hit voltages lower than 3.4v per cell?

The solo is smart, It wont let you fly long enough to damage the battery. The LIPO contains 4 cells, 3.7v each. The solo will not let the cells fall below safe levels.,(I believe) 3.4v per cell. Running the battery down will not damage them, they are protected. Next time you fly, pay attention to the voltage.

Just yesterday I hovered my drone 10f above some tall grass until it hit 0%, and it still did not crash. It just kept yelling for me to return home. I did not want it to crash, so i I landed it. At least I know I can push it to 0% now.

But now they are going to say your damaging your battery, whats was the voltage at 0% was it a safe voltage.

 

[Ian [P13]]

One of the Facebook Solo users has confirmed (with screenshot evidence) that 15% is 14.3v so that will be fine to land on, it's not worth pushing to 10% as you'll trigger RTL and then could end up being lower than 3.5v per cell by the time RTL has completed.

I've edited my original post to reflect that 15% is safer than the manual suggests.