Newbie here with Phantom 2 on the way. Looking at the best way to get more flying time with the Phantom. Has anyone setup a dual or parallel battery setup with the Phantom 2 yet? If so what battery specs are you using. Cheers
Parallel Battery for DJI Phantom 2
- Thread starter phantomnz
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The reason for getting a Phantom 2 is to do away with parallel battery setup. You'll get anywhere between 15-25 mins with the P2. You might be thinking of a Phantom 1. If you do end up loading extra weight on your setup, don't go pass the recommended weight as you can cause stress fractures on the frame.
Thanks for the reply. My thoughts were to have a parallel setup on the Phantom 2 as well as the main unit. Hoping to fly the main DJI battery, then once it has run out, use a few parallel batteries incase i need to fly for longer. I thought it would be cheaper to do the parallel setup as well instead purchasing more DJI Phantom 2 batteries at about $160 a pop.
The Phantom 2 battery has a unique connector.I have not seen or heard anything that would allow you to get anything in there other than the phantom 2 battery. Probably the reason why its so expensive.
The power connector can be replaced with something 'normal' (ie: xt60 like phantom 1), but supposedly the system also checks for a smart controller that's on the battery itself (which is connected on a different pair of pins).
So we need to either clone the chip or hack the firmware to bypass the check.
So we need to either clone the chip or hack the firmware to bypass the check.
LeoS said:
I have always thought about two possibilities..
One ( harder) would be to do some hack on the 2 data pins and make accept any battery...and also change the P2 connector to a XT60 male....this way we could buy cheap 25 usd 5000 mah 3s battery and use it to connect to the phantom 2...
Another possibility that i thought ( more probable, but i dont know if doable yet) is to open up the 5200 mah battery, disconnect all wires ( + and - and the balance wires from the board and solder wires to the smart battery board to a XT-60 male and solder also the balance pins ....)
This way you could use only the smart battery front ( with the power button and the smart board) to connect to any lipo and fly.... it´s very easy.... the problem is :
Smart batteries ( on laptop at least) have a floating memory, meaning that if you disconnect the power to the board, it lose the " programming" of the smart board and became useless... I dont know if this DJI battery uses also floating memory.. I would guess that they dont use..... because it would make it more susceptible to problems... any major problem could make this memory lost and they would have much more RMA.... I believe the smart board on the DJI battery use the voltage readings to give data to the phantom 2..... I have been looking for a high resolution picture of the smart board inside the battery to check for the main IC model to search for specification to see if it does use or not the floating memory...
I could simply test, but i would risk loose one 159 usd battery...If anyone wants to donate 159 usd I will do it
otherwise, i have to investigate more first....The best of all solution would be the hack to the data pins... It would mean removing the smart battery system of the equation ( so less chance of power problems) and a really strong connection using xt60....i have flown my Phantom 1 using the XT-60 connection for so many flights without a problem.. I do not trust so much in this smart battery for high current application... There are mosfets inside making the " on-off" switch for the power pins... and mosfets are much more susceptible to problem than a simple XT-60 connector
I guess the data pin hack is not so easy... because its should be really data being sent to the naza controller, so to hack this, may not be simple...
I bought an oscilloscope.. i am waiting for arrival.. and i will try to find something more about those datapins.....
But for now.. if anyone have a good picture of the IC inside the smart battery or knows the model of the IC... Please tell me...
Did someone ever try to replace the naza in the p2 with a regular one to see if it still checks for a smart battery before it is willing to start?
macheung said:
This should work.
But then again, might as well go for the cheaper (and well tested) Phantom 1 as the base and modify it to your liking.
You can even buy the P2 body\shell for it.
leos... it seems to be the better option..LeoS said:
Buy an phantom 1.1.1, buy the p2 shell, and use 5000mah battery costing 20 USD each pack instead of 159 USD...
And better yet, its much more trustworthy than using smart battery..
The problem i see now is to find a 5000mah battery that fits.. I have been looking and the length seem to be the problem.... They are thin but too big in length..
