Battery cycles???
- Thread starter Duchunter
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Depends on how they are used and maintained. There are a pile of threads regarding battery life and discharge cycles and good advice on what and what not to do. I have about 70 cycles on my batteries and I check the health of them before and after each flight. I have read that properly maintained batteries can achieve 200 full cycles and I hope to get there.
That's no longer recommend. If you see anomalies such as cells having significant charge differences, then doing that might help but you shouldn't have to do so often.
I once read about 300 cycles. Ir you have 2 or 3 batteries, that is pretty much the lifetime of the Phantom.
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I've seen battery mods using standard RC batteries but I just don't want to mess with that any time soon. Maybe when it's older and well out of warranty. If it was a simple mod like it is on the Upair One I would do it but it's a pretty serious mod on the p4. I'm thinking about getting an Upair One for just messing around the house and save the p4 for strictly videography. I can afford to loose an Upair One, I can't afford to loose my p4.
No, more like about 66, which isn't very good, but I've always been real bad about letting the batteries sit too long on a full charge. (About 2-3 days average.)
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I have 5 batteries for my P3P. I have about 40 cycles each in them. The cell health on them are in excellent condition. Storage is huge. I try to not charge until day of flight. Weather changes on the drop of a dime. Never let a full charge battery sit. Temperature is another. 50 to 60 degrees seems to be the Lipo love temp. I fly to 30 bring her down and try to never get below 20 and storing at 25 to 30 have kept my batteries in tip top shape.
I have never seen a DJI battery manual, the P4 IFB safety guide lines (included in the box) don't say anything about regularly deep cycling the battery and although the P4 manual does tell you how to discharge to 8% (presumably prior to transporting on commercial aircraft if the carrier requires it) it doesn't recommend to do it.
I understand manuals for earlier Phantoms did suggest regular deep cycling but that was at a cost. It reset the "fuel gauge" on the battery allowing you to fully use the remaining capacity on the battery but reduced the overall battery life every time the battery was deep cycled. The microprocessor on P4 and later P3 batteries is much better at keeping track of the available power left on the batteries as they age and they don't need deep cycling. If the cells don't balance with a normal full charge or you suspect the "fuel gauge" is incorrectly displaying the remaining capacity there maybe a case for deep cycling as a last resort.
If you avoid discharging below 20%, store at 40 to 50% in a cool, dry, dark place, avoid high temperatures and time at 100% charge and use them regularly then your battery will last well past 200 cycles if there isn't any imperfections in the individual cells.
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Very good info everyone. So yesterday I had a close call and almost didn't have enough battery to get home. I landed at 7%. So I guess that's not a good thing to do? I have it set to discharge after 5 days. That PO had it set to 1 day.
You should contact AirData. They are still recommending after 20 cycles, fly it down to 8% then deep cycle. Makes me wonder what other mis-information is being promulgated, or is there?
<insert confused emoticon here>
I usually charge the RC and battery just before I fly so that I know I don't need to worry about battery life. Worse case is that your RC goes flat and disconnects and the drone comes home. Drone battery not fully charged and goes flat during flight = no come home. I don't like either scenario. Quamera's tips about charging and storing are a good routine to get used to.
Your suggestions on use and storage is pretty much my routine. While these DJI packs have smart boards and the LiION performance generally has improved over time this just enhances ease of use (charging convenience, self discharge and telemetry etc). The shortcomings and constraints inherent to the LiION technology are a constant. Using a pack close to full depletion will impact the cycle count, this is an inescapable fact. Why we might think it's a good idea to do the previously recommended 20 cycle discharge routine has never made sense to me (and yes I am from the camp that expects calibrating the mah and available percentage accuracy as the only likely benefit). By all means keep them charged and top them off constantly if you have a need to fly at short notice but expect to get significantly fewer charge cycles and service life as a consequence.
I can't see storage in a dark place as providing any benefit (I suspect it is of no relavence), I'm curious about that now. Are you able to shed some light on this?
I've been waiting for you to chime WTB and look forward to your advice. You had me scrambling looking for your reference to LiIon versus LiPo batteries and it makes sense. I always store and charge my batteries in a part of the house which is incidentally cool, ventilated and relatively dark to manage the charging of all my quad related batteries.My history with batteries are primarily submarine lead acid batteries and it was absolutely critical to maintain a charging environment where gassing, SG and ventilation were paramount. Over the top for sure, but I carried that mentality over to the phantom batteries and whilst there are fundamental differences in both technology and expectations, I stick by that.
LiPO are a style of LiION (the soft pouch vs Rigid packaging being the principal difference). Thankfully we don't need to work about hydrogen gas being produced during the charge cycle.
Yes I found out after you flagged it, as for hydrogen, I used to work in a 3-4 ft gap between the cells and the deck head and was almost too scared to breathe.
