Battery Storage

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Talk about a confusing subject. Long term, short term, in between term.

On the matter of battery voltage while not using them for a week or so I see in many video's Tom's Tech Time for example that he states that a Phantom 3 Professional Flight battery should be stored at between 40% and 50% of its total capacity.

My question is, can you go by one solid green as an accurate indicator of a battery at 25% charged, and 2 solid greens as an indicator of 50% charged and so on?

If not, can a more reliable/accurate method of determining the battery voltage level be established by using a volt meter? If so, where does one put the leads? I see two gold terminals as in the photo I've provided but don't know whether this is the correct place to put them or not.

For example, on a Flight Battery with two solid green lights I get 0.15v

Can anyone help me with this and perhaps tell me how to get an accurate reading of the voltage on my flight batteries?

Thank you kindly.

Bud
ps
Photos attached.
 

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Here's what I do:
  • I set the appropriate days to discharge time in DJI GO for each battery (2 days in my case since I mostly only fly on weekends)
  • I don't constantly press the battery button to check the current charge level (since that resets the time to discharge counter)
  • I check the charge level on my batteries once per month by pressing the battery button
  • When the 2nd battery light is blinking, I charge the battery until the 3rd light starts blinking (that way it doesn't have to discharge down from 100% again)
Pressing the button on the battery shows its current charge level. Here's what the lights mean:

BatteryLevel.png


Note: The red box is where you want your batteries to be while in storage.
Note: DJI recommends storing batteries between 40%-65% charged in the Battery Safety Guidelines.
 
Last edited:
The best way is simply don't put them away nearly empty.
If they are at least 50% the self discharge will take them down to about 50% and they seem to sit like that for several weeks, though it would be wise to check they haven't discharged to one LED periodically.
It might also be best to charge and allow to discharge even if not using every month or so as sort of exercise.
 
What a terrific solution. Thank you so much for sharing that, I appreciate it very much. That sure saves a lot of messing around and figuring this and that and there's really nothing to keep track of.

Thanks again for a great solution, and that chart/red box thing is just the greatest.

Bud


Here's what I do:
  • I set the appropriate days to discharge time in DJI GO for each battery (2 days in my case since I mostly only fly on weekends)
  • I don't constantly press the battery button to check the current charge level (since that resets the time to discharge counter)
  • I check the charge level on my batteries once per month by pressing the battery button
  • When the 2nd battery light is blinking, I charge the battery until the 3rd light starts blinking (that way it doesn't have to discharge down from 100% again)
Pressing the button on the battery shows its current charge level. Here's what the lights mean:

View attachment 66444

Note: The red box is where you want your batteries to be while in storage.
 
Seems like a pretty good way to "keep track" of the batteries when not flying for several days.

Thanks for the tip.

AD
 
Great tips msinger. I just got a new battery from Amazon and it came with only 1 bar lit up.
 
So what if upon the end of your flight your battery is 25%-30%? Should I just charge it to 50% then store it, or fully charge then discharge to 50%?
 
So what if upon the end of your flight your battery is 25%-30%?
30% would be fine for short-term storage. If you're going to be storing it for a while, then charge it up to 50%.
 
30% would be fine for short-term storage. If you're going to be storing it for a while, then charge it up to 50%.
Thanks for the quick reply. Sounds great. One more quick thing, short-term storage=couple of weeks or so? For a while=months? If not then what is short-term and for a while?
 
30%-50% is a good range to keep the batteries charged when not in use. You should do whatever it takes to keep the charge within that range while your batteries are in storage. Per the image I posted above, that means you should charge your batteries when the second light is no longer blinking.
 
My P4 battery charging hub has a storage mode that automatically keeps the batteries at 50%.
 
I have an iCharger, I use for my helis, quads, and cars. When I won't be playing for a while I put those batteries on a storage charge.

I found a charge cable for the P3 batteries but I'm unsure with the "smart batteries" if I can put them on a storage charge w/o damaging them.

The storage charge will either charge or discharge the battery to the proper level.

Thanks

Tom
 
Use of the iCharger or other LiPo charger is fine for storage setting of your P3 batterys .... and charging to full .... whatever you want to do ... just set to LiHV and 4S ..... 5A max charge rate.

Just switch the battery on before connecting to be able to have LiPo charger connect and act.

Nigel
 
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Hey thank you for your reply, it is most helpful as I did not want to damage batteries since I fly mostly on weekends too.
 
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I'm putting my P3S away for a few months & want to put the batteries into 'Storage' mode. Per the excellent chart above put together by msinger it appears I should be fine and I set the batteries to discharge in 1 day. Do I need to do anything about the controller battery before it goes into storage?

Battery #2 is my problem child and I get a "Battery Error" message although I can still fly. If I understand it correctly the error is because of the voltage difference between cells 1 & 2 vs. 3 & 4. Is there a way to balance the cells in Phantom battery #2? I've charged it to 100% before & flown it with the error but I'm a bit OCD about these things (and I like to learn).

My Typhoon H doesn't use intelligent batteries & its 4-cell LiPO batteries can be balanced using a balancer / charger with an adapter cable.
 
The RC controller battery works in a low demand job and can be like many other RC radios literally left charged. I know this goes against LiPo wisdom and my own advice for Flight Packs.

There is no way to storage charge the RC battery unless you switch on and leave it to run down the battery still only 2 / 2.5 LED's lit.
But then you run risk of letting it self discharge too low.

My regime if I was to store my gear for significant period :

Charge up flight packs and RC.
Have flight packs set to 2 - 3 day setting to start auto-discharge.
Once a month or so - charge up both flight packs and RC to avoid them going into too low a charge situation.

Simple - no hassle.

Nigel
 

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