Going through batteries too quick need help

[Cody_1980]

I have only had my phantom and for about two weeks now. I have gone through 3 batteries so far I can't seem to be able to fly my phantom and recharge my batteries. I have never owned a Quadcopter before and have no real clear understanding of first level protection second-level protection on my naza my setup. Here are my settings for the phantom 2200 battery. I bought a lipo battery meter and this is the settings I used according to the software suggested settings. I did the suggested flight for one minute and got the loss at .80.

Current voltage: 12.5
First level: no load: 11.5 Loss: 0.80 v Loaded: 10.70v
Second level: no load: 11.40 Loss: .80v Loaded: 10.60v

After a six minute flight my meter reads 11.42v and the red light didn't come on. Shouldnt it have come on and if it was close to second level land itself? Each cell was at or around 3.8 volts with 40 percent power. Any more than this and I lose the third cell and the charger wont charge the battery then it's lost. What can I do? I want to fly my phantom and attach a go pro and eventually a fpv system but if I keep burning batteries after first use this isn't a good thing. I could use some help and the online manual doesnt provide enough. What should the settings be? If the Naza m system isn't working how does one trigger the light it's turned on and says write when. Enter data so I assume it's been set. Just frustrated and need some pro help. Also If I want to get a bigger battery how do I avoid losing a cell and the ability to charge them. I like flying the phantom but this battery issue isn't for beginners.

 

[Big Ben]

I have only had my phantom and for about two weeks now. I have gone through 3 batteries so far I can't seem to be able to fly my phantom and recharge my batteries.

This I don't understand. Why wouldn't you be able to recharge your batteries?

 

[OI Photography]

The auto-land won't kick in until you hit the 2nd-level "loaded" figure (when you're flying, your batteries are loaded with the power draw of the aircraft).

Once you land, wait a few minutes, then test your battery level. Batteries will "bounce back" to a certain voltage during that time, and that's when you should measure to get the best idea of how much charge is really left on them.

 

[FangsCPO]

I have only had my phantom and for about two weeks now. I have gone through 3 batteries so far I can't seem to be able to fly my phantom and recharge my batteries.

This I don't understand. Why wouldn't you be able to recharge your batteries?

That was my first question. if you are currently flying your Phantom naked, you should be able to fly for about 8-10 minutes with the stock lipos. If you keep worrying about hitting certain load numbers, it's just going to kill your fun. Just fly until you see the red light flash, then it's time to start coming back down. Easy stuff my friend.

I'm flying a P1 with a Arris CM2000 Gimble, Carbon Fiber Props, T-Motoes and HERO3. The most flying time I get is about 6 minutes (using Dronefly 2250 mAh 45C Lipos). I rarely go into the first red light because no sooner that I see that, the P1 goes into the 2nd safety and at that point due to the weight of the setup I have, it comes down rather quickly.

Here's my latest video flying around my neighborhood. Nothing fancy and it's not perfect but I'm having a blast and that's all that matters. Happy flying!!

One bit of advice....dump the stock batteries. They are crap. If I use my stock batteries, with my setup I'm getting about 3:30 minutes of flying time.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tWXFQ4YF7Q[/youtube]

 

[Cody_1980]

I am flying my Quad without anything on it yet. The first time out of the box after calibrating the remote and aircraft i flew it for about 8 minutes no lights came on. Then I tried to recharge the battery and the third cell wasn't being recognized by the charger as it must have drained past a point that the charge thought it was only a 2S battery not a 3S? Not sure why, then I read that I had to set up the voltage protections and with very little online, or manual help I set it and flew a brand new battery did the recommended first flight to find load loss entered the data and flew for about 7 minutes went to recharge with it correctly plugged in and only 2 cells were recognized again for charging. So I bought a new charger thinking that was the issue, but after a new battery and charger I still don't get much flight time and my warning lights don't seem to be triggering. I guess I will just fly shorter times and adjust my settings until it starts kicking on sooner? At this point I'm frustrated that the "out of the box" ready to fly phantom isn't quite that easy. Kind of wish they would give you all the setup information including numbers for stock battery so beginners can just enter the data and learn to fly. Then worry about upgrading to more equipment. Can anyone tell me how they set up their voltage for the NAZA-M system on the software? Maybe that will give me something I can actually use??

Thanks

 

[EMCSQUAR]

Then I tried to recharge the battery and the third cell wasn't being recognized by the charger as it must have drained past a point that the charge thought it was only a 2S battery not a 3S?

That's an awful lot of assuming. How long did you actually leave it on the original charger? They do take almost an hour or more to recharge and alot of times you may only get 2 lights initially because charger is balancing.

I doubt you have bad batteries and you're reading more into it than need be. Fly it until lights go red (without altering battery warnings) then leave your batteries on charger for an hour +, then check them w/voltmeter.

 

[Gizmo3000]

Well, if one of the wires is broken to a balance lead, then the charger *might* think the battery is only a 2s.
So make sure everything is solid.

But on a naked Phantom, you should indeed be able to fly for many minutes before the red lights come and eventually failsafe kicks in.
there's NO harm is flying until that occurs with your current battery failsafe levels.
leave them as they are (the default settings) until you become more experienced and familiar with your batteries and the failsafe levels.

Just go to a big park, fly around until you see the flashing red lights, then fly around a big closer until 2nd level kicks in, you'll notice then that the throttle stick will need more movement . and then fly even closer to you until it auto-lands, taking note of how long it takes between each occurrence.
obviously tho, once you add a camera and/or gimbal, flight durations drop, as well as the duration between failsafe levels