Charging Batteries

[Ed Hahn]

I fly after work a lot just up and down the rd. Most flights are only five minutes. My question is that
I am charging my batteries every night and they still have 60 to 70% charge left is this bad ?
I like to keep my batteries fully charge so if I want to fly a hour or two I can.

 

[Brockrock]

The big thing I avoid with these batteries is leaving them fully charged - often - for an extended period of time. Doing so can possibly cause damage to the cells in the form of swelling, and it is possible that this damage could then evidence itself while flying and be a very large problem.

The P4 manual refers to 65% as a safe, long-term storage level, but I have noticed that the discharge function on my DJI multi-battery charging dock discharges the batteries to 50% for long-term storage.

I believe DJI used to recommend running the batteries down to 8%-10% every tenth or so cycles, but I don't see this recommendation anywhere in the manual, so I do not do this.

So, regarding what you are doing, there should be no issue with repeatedly charging the batteries from the 60%-70% level, but I do wonder about the cumulative effect of the batteries sitting day after day fully charged from the night before, especially since it takes very little time to top off a battery from 60%-70%.

You may want to consider one of those outlet timers set to come on at a time interval that is appropriate to your charging method so they are freshly charged when you get home, and then they will not sit day after day fully charged. The DJI multi-charging dock would be great for this if you do not have one.

Either way, if you charge your batteries unattended, place them on a non-flammable surface/location just in case...

 

[WWK888]

You can always reset the time to discharge each battery, I usually set mine to start discharging after 2 days.

 

[Geoelectro]

I believe DJI used to recommend running the batteries down to 8%-10% every tenth or so cycles, but I don't see this recommendation anywhere in the manual, so I do not do this.

I recall from the P2V days hearing that the deep discharge every 20 charges or so was to re-calibrate the battery electronics. As the batteries age, the length of time per flight would decrease slightly. Discharging them deeply, and then fully recharging them right away allowed the battery electronics to better calculate the remaining charge left while flying.

Perhaps the newer batteries have better electronics so this is no longer needed or recommended.

Geo

 

[FlashBuddy]

I recall from the P2V days hearing that the deep discharge every 20 charges or so was to re-calibrate the battery electronics. As the batteries age, the length of time per flight would decrease slightly. Discharging them deeply, and then fully recharging them right away allowed the battery electronics to better calculate the remaining charge left while flying.

Perhaps the newer batteries have better electronics so this is no longer needed or recommended.

Geo

We need to get AirData up to speed on that. They currently include under maintenance to discharge down to 8% then deep cycle after 20 flights.

 

[John Locke]

I fly after work a lot just up and down the rd. Most flights are only five minutes. My question is that
I am charging my batteries every night and they still have 60 to 70% charge left is this bad ?
I like to keep my batteries fully charge so if I want to fly a hour or two I can.

What you're doing is fine. Keep in mind, if you know you won't fly for 2wks, storing at 60% is advised. Storing at 20% is NOT ADVISED. If I run all my batteries down to 20%, I do not let them set,, I immediately charge them up to 60%. If I know I'm flying within a few days, I charge to 100%. The DJI multi-charger is great to partial charge. Just flick the switch to STORAGE and it will partial charge to about 60%. That's what I do when I don't expect to fly soon, such as being gone on business, etc. But when do fly, topping them off from 60% to 100% doesn't take as long, about 30min/ea, instead of 1hr/ea to charge from 20%.

Recently, the DingDong host from DroneU, Paul, said in a podcast that charging batteries partially would ruin a battery. That is totally false. It's recommended for storage. I don't know where he came up with that BS.

 

[DocDiggler]

I just noticed something weird the other day
Charged my battery to fully 100%
Than just as I wanted to fly the wind got up and the weather turned bad
So my lipo just sitting there for 3 days (autodischarge is set to 3 days)
On the 5th day finally I can have a go
The batterie still shows 4 lights but I put it on charge anyways
And guess what it almost took 25 minutes until it was fully charged again
That's when the lights stopped flashing on the batterie
That's almost as long as it takes to fully charge a depleted batterie say down from around 30%[emoji12]