Is it possible to store my P3P batteries for a couple of months without hurting them too much? Winter has finally arrived here in Canada with -20C temps forecast so I don’t think I’ll be flying for a few months. I’ve drained them down to about 40% as per the manual. From what I’ve read the smart battery will go into hibernation.  Can someone tell me if this is the best way to store them?

Should I take then out and cycle them once in a while?

My personal practice is to check them every three or four days.  When the bars get to one solid and one blinking, I put it on charge until I have two solid and one blinking.  After a winter of this I will deep cycle the batteries before a new flying season.  Also, during this 'winter' period, I will periodically install a battery, fire up the system, rev the motors a few times, check that all is still as I would expect.  Just my personal practice.  Others may, and I am sure do, vary.

nrgwise Posted at 2016-1-4 19:09
My personal practice is to check them every three or four days.  When the bars get to one solid and  ...

What do you mean by Deep Cycle the Batteries?

To properly care for the LiPo batteries, every 15 to 20 charges they should be deep cycle discharged.  This means they are brought down to about 8% charge and then fully recharged.  This helps to keep the cells balanced and the battery in 'good health' and properly reporting the levels of charge, etc.  However, after many short partial charges and slow discharges over the winter, before putting the batteries into full service in the spring I like to deep cycle them.  My methods may not be perfect, but my batteries have excellent full capacity life spans.  Also, as a matter of reference, I have a charger designed specifically for the P3 batteries that handles the Deep Cycle as well as provides an excellent fully saturated charge to the batteries.  (I tend to take things on the serious side, batteries aren't cheap)

nrgwise Posted at 2016-1-5 09:09
My personal practice is to check them every three or four days.  When the bars get to one solid and  ...

ngwise,
This makes perfect sense to me.  Thanks for the advise.  Like you said, batteries aren't cheap and I've had some LiPo batteries (not phantom) that I haven't done anything with for long periods and they didn't like it.

While I have your attention.  I got a new P3P smart battery for xmas.  Do you know how/if I have to do anything special to update it's firmware.  My P3P, RC, and App are all currently up to date but I doubt the new battery is.

nrgwise Posted at 2016-1-4 20:04
To properly care for the LiPo batteries, every 15 to 20 charges they should be deep cycle discharged ...

Thanks for the explanation. Can you let me know the charger you are using?

Tomsbird Posted at 2016-1-4 21:45
ngwise,
This makes perfect sense to me.  Thanks for the advise.  Like you said, batteries aren't c ...

The new firmware 1.6 is a battery update.  Run the update with ever battery installed if you want the latest for your batteries.

theronmalone Posted at 2016-1-4 21:49
Thanks for the explanation. Can you let me know the charger you are using?

Smart Powercharge

Please check the battery guidelines about the battery storage . I would recommend you to take the battery out and cycle it every several weeks if you are not going to use it for a long time .

DJI-Patrick Posted at 2016-1-5 21:30
Please check the battery guidelines about the battery storage . I would recommed you to take the bat ...

When you say "cycle" do you mean after a couple of weeks, drain the battery to ~50% and recharge it to 100% as ngwise suggests?  I wasn't able to find anything in the battery guidelines in this regard, which is why I asked the question on this forum.
The guidelines do mention something about "hibernation" but I haven't been able to get anymore information on that.

Tomsbird Posted at 2016-1-5 22:31
When you say "cycle" do you mean after a couple of weeks, drain the battery to ~50% and recharge i ...

I'm not meaning a full discharge every few weeks . It would be better to keep battery activity if you take it out for a run once in a while .

Thanks guys for the responses.  I thinks I have a good idea on how best to keep my batteries in top conditions!