P4 battery, - redundancy embedded?

[Yiannis.B]

Hello,

I was just wondering, about the purpose of the 10-pin battery connector. Is there a possibility that they made it like that, to have cell redundancy?
I mean that assuming you have 4 x (4 cells in series), being parallel connected via some kind of semiconductor switches, and the full capacity of the battery is 5350 mAh, then if a cell brakes down during flight, the intelligent battery monitor board, could disconnect 1 row of (4 cells in series), and run the aircraft with the remaining (3/4) X 5350= 4012 mAh.

The other obvious reason to have the 10-pin connector, would be for larger contact area and thus lower resistance on the current path.

I have not yet seen a P4 battery disassembled, to have more data.

(If at least 4 power cables connect the cells to the monitor board, perhaps that is the case)

Thanks

 

[aaronplant]

I would love to know the answer to that too!


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots

 

[Yiannis.B]

(If at least 4 power cables connect the cells to the monitor board, perhaps that is the case)

Update - No cell redundancy. You can see only a pair of power connectors (red/black) connecting the cells to the board.

 

[WilsonFlyer]

If there were redundancy in the pack, you can bet your bottom dollar DJI would be spin-marketing it and people would be screaming how it increases the price of batteries unnecessarily.

We call that a no-win scenario for DJI. For that reason, it will likely never happen, at least not until the greediness of manufacturers on battery margins gets back in-check; assuming it ever does.

 

[WilsonFlyer]

Does anybody know what the formal name for the 10-pin connector is? There's gotta be a solder-n-play out there. Looks like a pretty common connector, though it may be proprietary I guess.

 

[Yiannis.B]

If there were redundancy in the pack, you can bet your bottom dollar DJI would be spin-marketing it and people would be screaming how it increases the price of batteries unnecessarily.

We call that a no-win scenario for DJI. For that reason, it will likely never happen, at least not until the greediness of manufacturers on battery margins gets back in-check; assuming it ever does.

There is another scenario, that is win-win, but waiting to come.

Four IGBTs or mosfet DC high current switches, on aircraft (remember you have to switch off durring full propulsion output) . Not on batteries. Battery board will have only 4 low current (no load switches) to transfer cell output to aircraft. (Now they have one.). Since I do design work on power electronics, the difference on battery price would be negligible. The aircraft board with the switches, would not be more than 50 bucks on customer price.