This third party Smart Battery charger deserves a plug...

[Ezookiel]

Re: This third party Smart Battery charger deserves a plug..

I land all mine at 20% or sometimes a bit more, but so far never less than that.
It's surprising how long you have to run them on a table at idle, to get from 20-30% down to 8% or below.
So I can definitely see advantages to being able to discharge in a controlled manner without running the quad.

 

[Mori55]

Re: This third party Smart Battery charger deserves a plug..

But the latest DJI battery update will discharge them to 50% after 10 days. It does work , I've had it work for me.

 

[hdcharlie]

Re: This third party Smart Battery charger deserves a plug..

DJI batteries will self discharge to 50% for storage. Lipo's should be stored at 50% charge

AFAIK DJI batteries will not self discharge to 8%. You will have to manually discharge to this level as the aircraft auto lands at 12%.

This is addressed to anyone who is already using this charger. Have any of you been using it with the latest generation DJI "Smart" batteries that have the self-discharging feature? If so, does it seem to work as advertised?

I suppose I worded my question wrong. What I want to know is whether anyone who has one of these chargers is using the latest DJI batteries in their Phantom, and, if so, whether the charger works to discharge and charge those batteries, using the instructions provided with the charger.

 

[tcope]

Re: This third party Smart Battery charger deserves a plug..

I land all mine at 20% or sometimes a bit more, but so far never less than that.
It's surprising how long you have to run them on a table at idle, to get from 20-30% down to 8% or below.
So I can definitely see advantages to being able to discharge in a controlled manner without running the quad.

I bring the drone back at 20% and then just hover it around me and about 10' off the ground to drain from 20% to 8%. Takes a couple of minutes. This is done only after 20 flights or so, as recommended. If you followed DJI's instructions you'd be using the discharge feature on the charger only after 20 flights as well. So after 20 flights, this is saving a couple of minutes on each battery... in my case, 8 minutes (of extra flying time).

 

[J.James]

Re: This third party Smart Battery charger deserves a plug..

DJI said they had not yet tested the charger so had no comment on it.

Well I'd still like dji to even try doing some testing on there own battery's first even. lol But being dji dont make and sell this thing I can already tell you what there testing would say any way no matter how good it was. They will say oh no dont use that thing cause it might void your warranty or say its dangerous and say it as if there battery's and not so smart system isnt

 

[max]

Re: This third party Smart Battery charger deserves a plug..

Thanks for posting this. I think the first few replies were overly critical. Its obviously not for everyone and that's fine. I hadn't seen it, so thanks again.

 

[Ezookiel]

Re: This third party Smart Battery charger deserves a plug..

I land all mine at 20% or sometimes a bit more, but so far never less than that.
It's surprising how long you have to run them on a table at idle, to get from 20-30% down to 8% or below.
So I can definitely see advantages to being able to discharge in a controlled manner without running the quad.

I bring the drone back at 20% and then just hover it around me and about 10' off the ground to drain from 20% to 8%. Takes a couple of minutes. This is done only after 20 flights or so, as recommended. If you followed DJI's instructions you'd be using the discharge feature on the charger only after 20 flights as well. So after 20 flights, this is saving a couple of minutes on each battery... in my case, 8 minutes (of extra flying time).

I only do this at 20 flights, or thereabouts, the first time was at 18 flights, but that battery was giving me weird readings, so I tried doing this routine to it to see if it helped. It did. It's gone back to all normal readings ever since, but I still have it marked with black texta to not use for flights (I use that one only for the warming up period while it gets sat lock etc, or for while I'm doing stuff that needs a battery in and running. I'm not sure I'll ever fully trust that battery again. When it's all that is holding a couple of grand up in the air, I'd rather err on the side of caution)

 

[J.James]

Re: This third party Smart Battery charger deserves a plug..

DJI batteries will self discharge to 50% for storage. Lipo's should be stored at 50% charge

AFAIK DJI batteries will not self discharge to 8%. You will have to manually discharge to this level as the aircraft auto lands at 12%.

and they will only self discharge to the 50% if some one has a battery with the new firmware that will do that and still not intill after an entire 14 days of being over charged for a storage charge. So its really not a good idea to rely on DJIs self discharge. unless some one thinks its ok to abuse a battery like that and let it go that long with out being in a proper storage state. 2weeks is sort of pushing the outer limits of time you should leave one for.

and as pointed out they still dont do there own deep discharge cycle either and even the running one down they way dji recommends could be a real pain in the butt for some people that have a lot of battery's and dont want to have to make it a part time job or a new religion they want to take up caring for there battery's or who dont want a big power supply and a bunch more cables or chargers to deal with to charge a few battery's at a time.

Tho I think that at that price that it is a heck of a mack daddy multi charger. That not every one would necessary need that even if they wanted it. But cost is very subjective and some people the cost compared to other things might still be completely worth it to some people.