How many charge cycles can you get out of a battery

[Quick Cal]

I'm looking at a P3A. The guy says he's flown 100+ flights. Then the last one he had a bit of a rough landing and tore the gimbal up. He says he's a Pro photographer so it was time to move up to a P3P and he's selling this one cheap.

So I'm wondering how long the battery will last. How many cycles can one expect. Thanks

 

[With The Birds]

There is no simple answer. 100 full discharge cycles with good health is a reasonable number with hi voltage lipo cells in a phantom application. Storage practice (temp and SOC) and depth of discharge in flight are the main determinate factors. If you keep your packs at 100%charge ready for flight and fly them down to 10% every use you might only get 50 cycles or less. Land at 30% and maintain them at 40% charge level and keep them in a cool place when not flying and you may get well over 100 cycles. Allow them to fully discharge and sit around and you should expect a very short life.

 

[Fly Dawg]

A professional photographer with only one battery?? As the previous answer mentioned, with great care you can expect that out of a single battery. Personally, after that many cycles, I would ask for compensation for the battery before purchase.In addition to the gimbal.

 

[Quick Cal]

A professional photographer with only one battery?? As the previous answer mentioned, with great care you can expect that out of a single battery. Personally, after that many cycles, I would ask for compensation for the battery before purchase.In addition to the gimbal.

I'm sure he's keeping the extra batteries for his P3P.

Is $250 cheap enough you think?

 

[Fly Dawg]

Is $250 cheap enough you think?

Just me, but I would not touch a "crashed" or even minor damaged AC, without knowing that I could personally do any "repairs" that might be needed. Having someone else, or even purchasing all the required parts would exceed what you are paying. A relatively new battery along with it might be fair compensation, otherwise, you have to make your own decision on that. It's a gamble though IMO.

 

[Quick Cal]

Just me, but I would not touch a "crashed" or even minor damaged AC, without knowing that I could personally do any "repairs" that might be needed. Having someone else, or even purchasing all the required parts would exceed what you are paying. A relatively new battery along with it might be fair compensation, otherwise, you have to make your own decision on that. It's a gamble though IMO.

I just replaced the gimbal arms and ribbon cable on a P3S. So I'm confident I could do it on this one as well.

Ya. I know it's a gamble. But I don't have $500, or how ever much a used perfect one is. Poor people have poor ways,,,lol.

 

[PaulW]

There is no simple answer. 100 full discharge cycles with good health is a reasonable number with hi voltage lipo cells in a phantom application. Storage practice (temp and SOC) and depth of discharge in flight are the main determinate factors. If you keep your packs at 100%charge ready for flight and fly them down to 10% every use you might only get 50 cycles or less. Land at 30% and maintain them at 40% charge level and keep them in a cool place when not flying and you may get well over 100 cycles. Allow them to fully discharge and sit around and you should expect a very short life.

What do you mean by "...maintain them at 40% charge..."?
Does this mean that if I'm not going to use them for awhile, I should only charge them up to 40% and then put them away?

 

[quaddamage]

Does this mean that if I'm not going to use them for awhile, I should only charge them up to 40% and then put them away?

I usually go more like 65% - the battery discharges itself over time, and if the charge drops below 15% - effects are very bad.

General LiPo rules:
- Battery charge > 70% will cause it to slowly release hydrogen gas. If this lasts a few weeks, the battery will become puffy and will lose some of its capacity, like 2% per week
- Battery charge < 15% will cause crystals to form within it over time. If these are able to form, it reduces capacity by around 30%. It is possible to partially restore the cells (approx. half of the damage) with special charger. But you have to disassemble the battery and attach to the cells directly to do that.
- Battery charge near 0% completely damages chemical balance within the battery. Often batteries will not recover from that state at all - will be seen as a short circuit, and explode when trying to recover. And even if the cells do recover, what will remain is less than half of the original capacity.
- Even if stored correctly, the battery will be aging and slowly reducing its capacity. The battery starts to wear off as soon as it leaves the assembly line.

 

[gingerbloke]

A mate has my old P2V+ and one of the two batteries has 160+ flights and works fine. I have a genuine P3A battery with 40 flights that's just over a year old and it's unusable (Damaged Battery message). I treat my batteries properly (the other 4 P3A batteries are fine) so this was just unlucky or slightly faulty.

I view Phantom battery costs like this : Your first flight costs £110, after two flights your cost per flight is £55, after three it's £36. Before long the battery costs are dwarfed by the fact that you have £1000 in the air

 

[ct17]

There is no simple answer. 100 full discharge cycles with good health is a reasonable number with hi voltage lipo cells in a phantom application. Storage practice (temp and SOC) and depth of discharge in flight are the main determinate factors. If you keep your packs at 100%charge ready for flight and fly them down to 10% every use you might only get 50 cycles or less. Land at 30% and maintain them at 40% charge level and keep them in a cool place when not flying and you may get well over 100 cycles. Allow them to fully discharge and sit around and you should expect a very short life.

I am quite interested in the life on P3 Batteries and just want to clarify for myself. I usually fly on a full charge and then discharge until about 30% maybe 20% if I am filming something worth discharging the extra 10%. I then take it home and recharge it fully and keep until my next flight... is this the wrong thing to be doing? Also, after the battery starts to deteriorate, what can I expect to happen to my drone??