Phantom 3 battery's- how do you charge/discharge? Life expectancy?

[NoBiffBetter]

Hey guys I'm making this topic because I'm fairly new to dji. And I wanna make sure I do things right the first time. I have only one battery thus far on my phantom 3 adv but am getting more soon.

First off, where is the cheapest place to buy official dji batts? I usually use eBay, what about Amazon or other sites? And are there other company's who make a better battery? Or a battery with more mah for less/more money?

Also I have read that around every 20 cycles you wanna bring the battery down to about 8% to lengthen the life, I have also heard that this is not for the making the life better for the battery, but only to keep the the battery reader inside the drone to always know what full charge and low charge is on the battery, so that it like updates or resets the memory for the drone so that it can more accurately read the correct voltage remaining of the battery as you fly.

I have also read that some ppl say never to go below about 20-25% as this can shorten the life.. Which I guess in a way this can make sense as well, because as the lipo cells reach near empty even at 20-25% left , if under a heavy load the voltage of each cell could drop to a more chemically unbalanced level which can hurt the cells.. I know this from being a brushless Rc maniac.

Also why did dji remove the battery % -life of battery from the dji go app when they use to have it in the pilot app? Is it becuse it wasn't accurate? Now I hear the only way to check the life is to hold down the battery button for more than 5 seconds? Or to just keep an eye on the "total battery capacity" which I do..

So basically I just wanna know from the guys who have had dji drones for a long time and who have excellent experience with these birds and their batts to tell me what they do, and how exactly they get the BEST life out of their battery packs..

Last but not least, when I first got my drone, brand new in the box the battery was only at 1 bar, which is under 50% storage.. And now I only have 8 cycles on my pack and the total capacity has already dropped from 4500mah to 4380mah in only 8 charges! What am I doing wrong? Is it cuz it was shipped out and under half power when I got it? I usually run my voltage down to about 20% during fleight give or take a few %.. Lowest it has ever been while NOT flying is 12% give or take.


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[msinger]

where is the cheapest place to buy official dji batts?

Amazon usually has the best deals. You can buy OEM Phantom 3 batteries here on Amazon.

I have read that around every 20 cycles you wanna bring the battery down to about 8% to lengthen the life

DJI used to recommend this, but they removed all mention of this from their manuals some months ago. It's really not needed unless the battery cells are really out of balance or the DJI GO app recommends it be done.

why did dji remove the battery % -life of battery from the dji go app when they use to have it in the pilot app?

The percentage doesn't really tell you much about the battery. It's best to monitor the battery voltage as you fly.

 

[NoBiffBetter]

Ok yah I always Watch my voltage I even have "show voltage on main screen" on , so really the only time I should bring it down to 8% is if the cells become un-balanced is what your saying? Also does my "total capacity" sound bad to you for only having 8 fleights on it? It appears I have already lost 100mah just in 8cycles? I'm wondering if it's cuz the voltage of my pack was lower than "storage voltage" when I recived it.. Or do you think this is cuz I have almost constantly flown it down to 20-25% and it hurt the lipo?

Only other thing I can think, is i heard from this forum ppl who once their packs are fully charged they unplug it, turn the battery on, then plug it back in and this will fully top off the battery. If this is true which I heard it works.. I have never done this yet. So I wonder if that's why my "total capacity" has went down so much in just 8 cycles .. Maybe I'll try to do this and FULLY top it off then slap it in my p3 and see what it reads for "total capacity"


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[NoBiffBetter]

Also now that I think about it.. I don't think I have ever flown my battery at a lower cell voltage than 3.6v or 3.5v so I am almost postive this is not why my capacity has gone down..

It's gotta be one of two reasons..

A. Because I am not FULLY topping off my battery after each charge.. Or

B. Because when it was shipped it was initially only at 1 bar or equal to about 25% life instead of 50% like 99.9% of lipos read when shipped new.. Aka- storage voltage .


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[Mikepoo]

Upto 138 charge cycle here going to retire this pack once I hit 100 flight battery% all over the place not bad over 32 hours usage in 8 months not one single problem.

Great tip after flight always store your batteries at 40%
Battery 1 @89% after 97 flights 138charge cycles
Battery 2 @100% after 54 Flights 63 charge cycles
Battery 3 @100% after 62 Flights 70 charge cycles
Battery 4 @100% after 34 Flights 38 charge cycles

 

[NoBiffBetter]

Good to know, I found out once I charged my batt fully with it off , it had around 3340mah but once I had it fully charged while it was off, I unplugged it from the charger, turned the batt on, then plugged it back into the charger, 5 min went by and it was fully topped off, I then put it into the drone and it read 4460mah.. So clearly I was just not charging the batt up fully for the first 7 or so charges.. Which must be why the mah was dropping so fast from where it originally had started... So now, Everytime I charge my batt I charge it starting with it off, once it finishes , I'll power it up and charge it the rest of the way to top it off before I fly.. And it works great!!

Ps. My last flight log I flew almost around 7800meters total distance, which is a lot, and held my Phantom 3 up in the air for 21min and 20sec!! That's excellent batt life if you ask me.

I also found that if I fly only between 70-80% throttle when traveling that I get the best distance per batt charge.. Vs 80% and up.. I only get 20 min but usually under 20.. I think 75% throttle is prolly the sweet spot.

I also hear ppl with the phantom 4 are only getting 24-25min flight times.. If you ask me, the p3 does pretty **** good on the older batt technology. A guy on YouTube did a test between the p3 and the p4 on gps hold in the same conditions at the same time.. And the p4 only flew about 2min longer in the air consistently.. 28min of flight time? I think not


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[NoBiffBetter]

Upto 138 charge cycle here going to retire this pack once I hit 100 flight battery% all over the place not bad over 32 hours usage in 8 months not one single problem.

Great tip after flight always store your batteries at 40%
Battery 1 @89% after 97 flights 138charge cycles
Battery 2 @100% after 54 Flights 63 charge cycles
Battery 3 @100% after 62 Flights 70 charge cycles
Battery 4 @100% after 34 Flights 38 charge cycles

How do you know exactly how many flights you have on them vs just knowing the charge cycles? Does it tell you somewhere or did you just keep track and do the math...

Also is there a way to figure out total amount of fly time on a pack as well as your drone? Other than what just shows up in the flight logs? Cuz once you delete a flight log the number of flights and time will go down


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[Tommymonkey]

How do you know exactly how many flights you have on them vs just knowing the charge cycles? Does it tell you somewhere or did you just keep track and do the math...

Also is there a way to figure out total amount of fly time on a pack as well as your drone? Other than what just shows up in the flight logs? Cuz once you delete a flight log the number of flights and time will go down


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Use healthy drones it's keep a nice log on your batteries.