Propulsion Limited Warning - starting to trust it....

[WetDog]

The other thread on the 'Propulsion Limited' warning got me to thinking. I've hit this a bunch of times recently - probably as the result of flying in Alaska in the winter (despite Global Warming). When I first hit the warning I brought the P3 back immediately (uh oh, crash time) since I'm either over water or 150 foot trees that I don't want to try to climb.

Lately, I've watched it for a bit. I can trigger it (or it's friend, the yellow low voltage warning) pretty easily. But backing off and just hovering for a bit and going up slower seems to allow the battery to complete a pretty normal discharge cycle. So I'm beginning to get less paranoid about it and continuing to flying. It ** seems ** that the new firmware that allows the P3 to throttle down a bit without performing a self inflicted CSC actually works.

The one thing that does worry me is that I likely (????) don't have reserve capacity to fly against a strong headwind - something that happens on occasion. All of my batteries have between 10 and 20 cycles and it seems to be battery invariant.

Any similar experiences?

 

[LuvMyTJ]

Anytime you speed up or fly into winds you will definitely use more power, maybe enough to trigger the warnings if it is cold. The battery chemistry like to be just so to provide the best power, if things like cold temps are introduced into the mix it will certainly impact it's performance. If you have never read up on lipo batteries find the info on the web and check it out... they are not like your average household alkaline batteries most people are used to.

 

[WetDog]

Yeah, that's pretty well drilled in. My point is that I'm beginning to trust the DJI's engineers (to a point). I'm still ** very ** conservative. Over water from a boat I land at just below 50% - I've had one episode where the boat moved, the RC didn't update it's location and I lost visual. It's hard to see a 24 foot boat from a P3. Surprisingly hard. Took me a while to sweep around and find the boat. Then it took me a while to land it in a wind and chop.

Compared to P3, batteries are cheap. But I'm still trying to balance flying time and aircraft risk..

 

[Air Ontario]

When -15 to -20 below, if I combine commands, I will get a yellow 3.6v warning/ indicator.
Meaning if I max ascend speed and do a full throttle forward at the same time in 20 below zero weather, I will drop voltage, as expected and as indicated in yellow on the top right menu banner under battery %.

When cool outside, I fly extra slow. Videos look better too.