I am still a couple of months new and had a question regarding flying this thing on a 'not full' charge. So this is what I do. I have three batteries. So I take the P3A out for a fight...maybe 10 minutes or so. I get the footage I want so now I have to pack it in and go to the next location. I go to the next location and ready to fly. So should I switch battery even though I have 60-70% left? It's a new location. I've read of stories about flying without a full charge.
Please explain if I should put a new battery in or not for the 2nd, 3rd flight of the day.

Thanks-

I use the car charger to top up between locations, no need to worry then ;)

I've not noticed any problem making multiple flights on the same charge within the same day, with or without a top up (often incomplete) from the car charger. However I wouldn't do it over multiple days as it can then be difficult for the charge monitoring to give accurate information and accurate information is critical.  I always recharge fully on the day of the flight before flying so that the battery knows for certain what state it is starting off in.  I then half charge the empty batteries at the end of the day and leave them like that until the day of the next flight since they apparently don't like being stored empty or full.

If it is 65 or above, keep flying

if it's below 65, don't

I would say if it's warm outside (not winter temps) and you do NOT just take off and go full throttle, but instead hover a bit around the home point to make sure the battery gets to a temp it likes before flying off. It should be ok if it's in the 65% or better range for that flight. Anything lower than 65% or if the outside temps are low and the battery has gotten cold, then it's a no. Personally I have never and will never take off on anything under 85%, and try to be as close to 100% as possible.

wmcvey Posted at 2016-10-17 11:12
I would say if it's warm outside (not winter temps) and you do NOT just take off and go full throttl ...

I;m gonna jump in to this thread because my question is about batteries, I had 2 fully charged batteries sitting for about 2 weeks, before I flew yesterday I checked em & they still read full, after 12 days. Just to be sure I hooked em to my charger, no lights so I assumed they are fully charged. Once in the air, Litchi says- Battery at 90% & in about 3 minutes, 80% & then again 5 minutes 65%, seemed to be loosing charge much faster then normal. At 20% I got the red lights on my bird & landed fine.
I;m thinking even at full, batteries left for this amount of time seem to loose charge much quicker than say, batteries charged day of flights. Any thoughts on this?

r.powell@rogers Posted at 2016-10-17 11:48
I;m gonna jump in to this thread because my question is about batteries, I had 2 fully charged bat ...

There have been comments about this before. I think it is very important to watch the actual voltage instead of relying on the percentage. I believe the app tries to it's best as far as that, but it doesn't know it when you first put your battery in if it is truly fully charged or not. therefore is assumes it is pretty well charged but in fact it may not be, and then when the voltage drops it is trying to adjust the percentage accordingly. I am probably not 100% accurate in my opinion here, but someone else can maybe give us the right info on this. I know if you leave your fully charged batteries alone for 2-weeks, I would be topping them off before I flew mine. Remember even if you have all 4-lights when you press the battery button, you can top them off by turning on the battery first, and then plug it in to the charger. It will then be able to fully charge the battery.

r.powell@rogers Posted at 2016-10-17 16:48
I;m gonna jump in to this thread because my question is about batteries, I had 2 fully charged bat ...

The intelligent batteries will start a slow discharge themselves after a 1 to 10 day period (depending on DJI Go setting). They will discharge to 50-65% for storage (slow discharge takes 2-3 days). So if they have been left for 2 weeks then I would suggest they had started to discharge themselves, the battery history logs any self discharge for storage.

r.powell@rogers Posted at 2016-10-17 11:48
I;m gonna jump in to this thread because my question is about batteries, I had 2 fully charged bat ...

Both of the last two post above are spot on. I would just add, and I'll cut and paste these three words from above, "therefore it assumes". The way I understand it is that the battery % displayed is a software algorithm, not a direct reading of the true battery % left. So it's just a good guess in other words. Also it was said to turn on the battery to top it off. I do remember reading something about if the battery is at a high level of charge, it needs to be turned on to accept a charge.

wmcvey Posted at 2016-10-17 21:06
Both of the last two post above are spot on. I would just add, and I'll cut and paste these three  ...

"I do remember reading something about if the battery is at a high level of charge, it needs to be turned on to accept a charge."

I believe if it's at 95% or above, as you say, it will only accept a top up charge if the battery is switched on.

r.powell@rogers Posted at 2016-10-17 11:48
I;m gonna jump in to this thread because my question is about batteries, I had 2 fully charged bat ...

the smart battery has a self discharge feature that drops the levels to about 50%.
it starts from 2 to 10 days---you set in GO

that is why once they sit a few days
the only real way to know the charge level is to top it off.... prior to flying

even more important now that winter is coming for many of us

good luck and have fun flying

The Intelligent battery is called that because it has a processor in it to monitor the state of charge and also to control the charging process. There is nothing you can monitor in a battery to tell what state of charge it has, voltage tells you almost nothing, as LiPo batteries exhibit a fairly constant voltage right up until they are nearly depleted.

The processor in the battery therefore monitors the amount of charge delivered to the battery and also the amount of current used during flight in order to calculate the available capacity. It is important to realise the available charge is a calculated value, not a measured value.

As already mentioned, if you leave a battery for some days, it will begin to automatically discharge to prevent the battery swelling due to gasification of the electrolylte. Therefore it is important to understand that your charging routine should be to charge the batteries just before flying, not after a flight (unless you plan to fly those batteries immediately). In simple terms, in you are flying the next day, charge the batteries that night. Then you can have the confidence that they are fully charged.

If you charge the batteries then leave them for a week or so, as r.powell says in post #6, the batteries will have begun to discharge, and past experience seems to indicate that the battery intelligence does not take this into account, and may tell you the batteries are still fully charged.

As to whether you should put a fresh battery in each time you take off, there are several opinions about this. The first point is that DJI recommend you always take off on a fully charged battery, so if you choose not to and have a crash, remember that DJI may use that knowledge to refuse a warranty claim. My opinion on this, and it is also the opinion of a large number of experienced flyers, is to always take off with a full battery. It costs you nothing to do this, provided you have enough batteries. I have 4 and I always try to land and change them at the 50% point when I am shooting. I also have a car charger to top them up again if I need to in the field.

There have been many cases reported in the past where someone has flown at one location, moved to a new location and flown using the same battery, resulting in a shutdown mid-air. Ask yourself if it is worth the risk.

depends where I want to fly and the conditions.  if I know I have enough juice in the battery, no problem.  I watch the wind and distance to know I can make it back.  the batteries are very consistent and I have never noticed anything to make me think it would die faster near the end.  once I couldn't make it back because of the wind so I flew real low and landed when I have to... oh well, same with my car, im not afraid to see the gas light come on before filling it up.

afiend69 Posted at 2016-10-18 10:15
depends where I want to fly and the conditions.  if I know I have enough juice in the battery, no pr ...

'im not afraid to see the gas light come on before filling it up.'

You car is not going to crash if it runs out of gas.

worse, I usually have female passenger

You should put more attention on the voltage because it could force your bird to land soon. I had have experienced  like this while someday I turn on my p3a just for warming the battery and setting up the camera. It took about 45 minutes and the battery decreased to 80% and at this time I turn off my p3a, tomorrow afternoon I ready to fly my p3a and the app still show 80% of the battery. Soon I took my p3a off and fly about 5 meters high but suddenly after 1 minute of flight the app inform me due to the low voltage limitaion land your aircraft. And ater 5 sec my p3a landed automatically. Anyone ca help me to explain this?