Some battery questions

Isn't it great? I wish this was the case for general R/C LiPo packs!

Funny ... I wish it was the other way round ... or should we say a halfway house.

I would much prefer to have more user control over the battery and its cells. I have a bank of Programmable LiPo chargers ... B6, B6mini, Accucel 6 etc. ... the mini and Accucels have LiHV mode and full balancing ...

I can charge my P3 batterys and have direct display of charge level, amp rate, mA in ... but because the board shuts off when it detects 17.4V and that the balance lead is hidden inside - I cannot do a full balance of the pack with the chargers. I have to blindly trust the board.

The LED's are no help as they actually go solid all 4 LED's at 87.5% charge level. I agree that during charging - they scroll through till battery hits 17.4V but thats only time they actually equate to a full charge. Checking battery charge level is not accurate at all via those LED's ... Check out the manual and you will see the table of % vs LED's.

But I know I am along with many RC flyers - not the target market for these batterys. DJI have designed a system to try and reduce the error margins for beginners and those not so used to LiPo batterys.

Nigel
 
Funny ... I wish it was the other way round ... or should we say a halfway house.

I would much prefer to have more user control over the battery and its cells. I have a bank of Programmable LiPo chargers ... B6, B6mini, Accucel 6 etc. ... the mini and Accucels have LiHV mode and full balancing ...

I can charge my P3 batterys and have direct display of charge level, amp rate, mA in ... but because the board shuts off when it detects 17.4V and that the balance lead is hidden inside - I cannot do a full balance of the pack with the chargers. I have to blindly trust the board.

The LED's are no help as they actually go solid all 4 LED's at 87.5% charge level. I agree that during charging - they scroll through till battery hits 17.4V but thats only time they actually equate to a full charge. Checking battery charge level is not accurate at all via those LED's ... Check out the manual and you will see the table of % vs LED's.

But I know I am along with many RC flyers - not the target market for these batterys. DJI have designed a system to try and reduce the error margins for beginners and those not so used to LiPo batterys.

Nigel

I fully appreciate what you are saying as far as it applies to me personally. Not so much for other pilots who I fly with or may employ.

As I mentioned I don't do any club flying anymore so I really do little dumb battery charging. Mine is a 4 channel charger and I have all the charge docks for the various DJI birds so I've made leads to the various docks and like you I will just plug in all the docs, dial up the voltage and charge the various packs at the same time in groups of three here in the office while I'm working at the P.C. doing the flight plans the day before a job. It saves on 240v sockets and desk space over using the DJI bricks at any rate even if the onboard controller of the pack is doing the "heavy lifting" control wise.

Also like you, I monitor voltage and current draw so I'd know if anything drastically went out of shape but ideally would like to be able to use the internal balance system of the charger (which I switch off as there's no balance board to plug in) and be able to get a more accurate view of the cell balance than the battery pack LEDs, Yes, I've read the blurb on what the LEDs actually signify. To me, I would like to see the 4 solids take more than 87.5% as well.

Once again, like you, I just remind myself that these batteries aren't made with people like us in mind. Off the shelf R.P.A. technology has been made with "lowest common denominator" mentality in place as far as operator expertise is concerned and I comfort myself with the flip side being that if any of my pilots are using my birds even if they don't come from an Aero Modeller background and aren't as switched on about Lithium cell management as we are the odds of one of them cooking one of my (not cheap) battery packs is reduced significantly.

I don't say eliminated because you'd be surprised how many certified operators I meet, and the certification training takes in basic LiPo characteristics along with "care and feeding", who think it's perfectly fine to take a hot cell right out of the landed aircraft and wack it stright into the charger ... some of them are great pilots and really on the ball with the regulations and public safety but batteries? "Oh she'll be right mate!". My teeth are ground down at least an extra 2mm from people like that so I KNOW the onboard controller is saving me from even worse. I have to remind myself that they are "appliance operators" and Aero Modellers are true enthusiasts.

As I tell people, in 27 years flying I've never actually seen a battery fire from a crash (probably just lucky as I know it happens) but I've seen 30 or so during charging.

Regards
Ari
 
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