Nigel_
Second Officer
Flight distance : 388642 ft
United Kingdom
Offline
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They really don't need much maintenance and are quite likely to last longer than the aircraft whatever you do, but you can extend their useful life, ensure good performance and reduce loss of capacity over time if you follow some rules:
- Always fully charge the battery no more than 24 hours before you fly with it, preferably on the day you fly with it. If you don't do this then you can't trust the %Full figure so you should then land early.
- After use always recharge the battery within 24 hours, the sooner the better. If you are not going to use it within another 24 hours then only recharge to 50%.
- Set the auto discharge to a low value, if you only fly at weekends then set it to 2 days.
- Periodically discharge the battery to 8% by leaving the aircraft powered on. This allows it to recalibrate it's capacity and thus give an accurate %Full value and ensures that low power auto land works before it crash lands. E.g. Every 30 flights or 6 months depending on which comes first, or if the %Full value seems inaccurate.
- Avoid discharging below 8%, especially while flying.
If you follow these rules, the wind is reasonably low and you have an easy landing site, then there is no reason not to keep flying until the aircraft does a low power return to home, landing early at 50% or 30% will not significantly help the battery or improve safety. |
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