I know after the batteries sit for a few days or so they will begin to discharge.
Is it recommended to fully charge the batteries before flying? Or should they be flown as is to fully discharge the batteries (before charging again)?

I'm curious if the batteries will develop a "memory" if they're not full discharged before charging them again.

NOTE: If I was flying and needed full battery power, I would definitely charge them fully before flying. But if I'm going out to just fly around with no particular mission, then having fully charged batteries may not be a necessity.

Thanks for your input...

I myself always fly full battery. Even though there’s no mission you never know what you may see when you’re airborne. Just my opinion.

Woe Posted at 2017-12-22 16:32
I myself always fly full battery. Even though there’s no mission you never know what you may see when you’re airborne. Just my opinion.

Me too, no point taking off knowing your flight time is less than with a full battery.

And if you go back and read the archives, you'll find there have been too many crashes caused by suddenly failing batteries caused by not charging them before flying.  Having faith in the "50%" number that the program gives you is not the way to do things.  That is based on voltage, not capacity for work.  Taking off and hitting the throttle and watching your baby go down is not a fun experience.  That's why DJI warns you to ALWAYS fully charge before flying.  If they've been sitting a week or two, don't trust them, no matter how high the numbers are.

With LiPo batteries the 2 most important things are a) not to "top them off" when they're already near full charge and b) don't run them down to less then 3.7v per cell (no load). So if they're at 80-90%, for example, just fly them as-is and accept a slightly shorter flight - trying to top off a LiPo will damage the cells if it's done repeatedly. You'll notice they take longer and longer to charge and eventually won't reach full charge.

The other thing is not to fly them until they're below 3.7v resting, not even occasionally. It doesn't help the battery at all and in fact it shortens the life of it dramatically. For longest life, they should be 3.75v to 3.8v per cell at the end of the flight. I always land when mine are at 30% and just when the alarm goes off and that has them at about 3.75v per cell which is about right.  

It's better to go ahead and fly a battery if it's 80% or more, somewhere in there, than try to charge it back up to 100%. Also a partial charge for a short flight if you don't have time to charge it fully is ok also. Just don't go below 30% as usual....

As you put it in you note it fine to fly them around with than 100%. Rule of thumb, if you have 3 lights then you can fly them around. If you need longer flight then charge to 100%. I have mine in the app to discharge in 3 days because I usually fly every 2 to three days. Again the 3 lights rules for going around on short flight, 100% for full mission.

If you have enough I would fly them around first then fully charge them.

We recommend charging the battery to full before flying. I don't know if the "memory" you mean is related to the Times Charged or the date of the battery self-discharge, etc.. Please kindly let me know the doubt you have, thank you.

LiPo batteries do not have a "memory" effect.  For long life they should be stored at about 30% of full charge (for storage periods longer than ~ 3-4 days).  Charge to 100 % before flying and you should be "good-to-go".

DJI Thor Posted at 2017-12-23 03:05
We recommend charging the battery to full before flying. I don't know if the "memory" you mean is related to the Times Charged or the date of the battery self-discharge, etc.. Please kindly let me know the doubt you have, thank you.

Don't know why DJI didn't incorporate a digital meter in the charger, I charge my other LiPo's precisely using a digital charger, read each cell, total voltage, cell voltage ect... knowing what each cell is voltage wise, lets you know if a battery is on it's last leg by identifying the cell that is bad and would prevent flying with a bad battery.

I think it wouldn't be a bad idea to have a smart charger, though, that displays cell voltages, internal resistance, charge/discharge rates and so on available for the smart batts. I know simple chargers keep the cost down, but it'd be nice to have as an accessory.... But yes the status display in the app is nice too because you can see what the cell voltages are under load as well....

Dirty Bird Posted at 2017-12-23 11:13
You can see all this information from within the app.

Agreed, just be more convenient to see the same information without firing up the drone and swapping out batteries to check each one prior to flying. Hey DJI maybe a new market product "Intelligent Flight Battery Checker" runs on 2 AA batteries

DJI Thor Posted at 2017-12-23 03:05
We recommend charging the battery to full before flying. I don't know if the "memory" you mean is related to the Times Charged or the date of the battery self-discharge, etc.. Please kindly let me know the doubt you have, thank you.

The "memory" I am talking about is when a battery is continually charged to 100% before it's fully discharged. The battery develops a "memory" and doesn't last as long as it did originally. If I recall correctly, NiCad batteries have this issue. Wasn't sure if the same applies o LiPo.

I lot of great responses here! Thanks to everyone for responding.

General consensus seems to be to recharge before flying.

Again, thanks for the input.

Yes, I always fly with full battery. Safety first.

QuadKid Posted at 2017-12-23 11:01
Don't know why DJI didn't incorporate a digital meter in the charger, I charge my other LiPo's precisely using a digital charger, read each cell, total voltage, cell voltage ect... knowing what each cell is voltage wise, lets you know if a battery is on it's last leg by identifying the cell that is bad and would prevent flying with a bad battery.

Thank you for the suggestion. I would like to forward this idea to our engineers.

DJI Thor Posted at 2017-12-25 01:45
Thank you for the suggestion. I would like to forward this idea to our engineers.

Please do would be very handy.

CycleParadise Posted at 2017-12-23 11:31
The "memory" I am talking about is when a battery is continually charged to 100% before it's fully discharged. The battery develops a "memory" and doesn't last as long as it did originally. If I recall correctly, NiCad batteries have this issue. Wasn't sure if the same applies o LiPo.

In most cases, it is okay when to charge the battery. But it doesn't need to charge the battery when it approaches saturation state (above 95%). Hope it helps to provide you with some hints.

QuadKid Posted at 2017-12-25 01:55
Please do would be very handy.

Yep, had forwarded. Hopefully, our engineers will take it into consideration.

DJI Thor Posted at 2017-12-25 02:00
In most cases, it is okay when to charge the battery. But it doesn't need to charge the battery when it approaches saturation state (above 95%). Hope it helps to provide you with some hints.

Thank you, it does!!

CycleParadise Posted at 2017-12-23 11:31
The "memory" I am talking about is when a battery is continually charged to 100% before it's fully discharged. The battery develops a "memory" and doesn't last as long as it did originally. If I recall correctly, NiCad batteries have this issue. Wasn't sure if the same applies o LiPo.

Believe it or not, NiCad's didn't have this "memory" effect either. This "memory" effect was actually never real. It got started from some distant rumors that NiCad's did this under some very extreme, but very controlled, circumstances, but it was never actually a real problem for NiCads in actual practice. I topped off partially discharged NiCad's for many years with my older RC equipment and never observed any need to deep-cycle them. They maintained their capacity with no problems. So for your current NiCads and NiMH batts, feel free to top them off as much as you need to, no cause for worry.

LiPo's, though, are a completely different chemistry and have their own needs as far as maintenance. They definitely can be ruined by repeated topping off when near full charge (80% or worse 90% or more). Ok to do from time to time but not frequently.

For that reason, I usually just use my LiPo's if partially discharged until they're down a bit, at least 50 to 60%. Then I recharge at that point....

luciens Posted at 2017-12-25 07:52
Believe it or not, NiCad's didn't have this "memory" effect either. This "memory" effect was actually never real. It got started from some distant rumors that NiCad's did this under some very extreme, but very controlled, circumstances, but it was never actually a real problem for NiCads in actual practice. I topped off partially discharged NiCad's for many years with my older RC equipment and never observed any need to deep-cycle them. They maintained their capacity with no problems. So for your current NiCads and NiMH batts, feel free to top them off as much as you need to, no cause for worry.

LiPo's, though, are a completely different chemistry and have their own needs as far as maintenance. They definitely can be ruined by repeated topping off when near full charge (80% or worse 90% or more). Ok to do from time to time but not frequently.

Thanks for the information! Good stuff to know!

QuadKid Posted at 2017-12-25 01:55
Please do would be very handy.

Hi Quadkid, for your suggestion, I hear something from our engineers, this is what they argued: thank you so much for your advice. Such gadget is very common in RC field, but is not quite needed for Mavic. Different from common RC LiPo batteries, we have developed a full set of smart protection mechanism to ensure the safe usage of Mavic battery, as you can refer to in our manual. So the additional info in the APP would be enough for you to check, occasionally.
Appreciate again for your attention.

Fasitron Posted at 2017-12-23 10:50
LiPo batteries do not have a "memory" effect.  For long life they should be stored at about 30% of full charge (for storage periods longer than ~ 3-4 days).  Charge to 100 % before flying and you should be "good-to-go".

Does this mean that it's *not* a good idea to re-charge batteries immediately after a flight, if you can't be sure of getting out again within a few days? With all my other (DSLR) camera equipment, I recharge depleted batteries as soon as I can, so that they're always "good to go" and have been doing the same with the Mavic.

However, due to persistently bad weather (winds of 30-90kmh today and when it hasn't been windy, it's been raining ) the Mavic has been grounded for up to two weeks between flights. Should I be running the batteries down to the "low battery" warning, then leaving them like that until I know I'll be able to go out again?

CelticRambler Posted at 2018-1-1 05:12
Does this mean that it's *not* a good idea to re-charge batteries immediately after a flight, if you can't be sure of getting out again within a few days? With all my other (DSLR) camera equipment, I recharge depleted batteries as soon as I can, so that they're always "good to go" and have been doing the same with the Mavic.

However, due to persistently bad weather (winds of 30-90kmh today  and when it hasn't been windy, it's been raining ) the Mavic has been grounded for up to two weeks between flights. Should I be running the batteries down to the "low battery" warning, then leaving them like that until I know I'll be able to go out again?

There's no need to purposely run the batteries down when storing them.  They will begin slowly discharging on their own.

CelticRambler Posted at 2018-1-1 05:12
Does this mean that it's *not* a good idea to re-charge batteries immediately after a flight, if you can't be sure of getting out again within a few days? With all my other (DSLR) camera equipment, I recharge depleted batteries as soon as I can, so that they're always "good to go" and have been doing the same with the Mavic.

However, due to persistently bad weather (winds of 30-90kmh today  and when it hasn't been windy, it's been raining ) the Mavic has been grounded for up to two weeks between flights. Should I be running the batteries down to the "low battery" warning, then leaving them like that until I know I'll be able to go out again?

The important thing is to keep them within a specific range (the battery manual says 40-65%) if they're going to be stored for a long period of time. That's why the batteries were designed to self-discharge to 65% if left alone for the configured number of days, though they obviously can't do anything about it if you store them charged below that range.

The only caveat about charging LiPo batteries immediately after use is that they shouldn't be recharged while they're still warm, but these batteries are "intelligent" and will actually prevent themselves from being charged while they're too hot. One other thing to keep in mind regarding storage, though, is that pressing the button on the battery to check its charge level resets the discharge countdown clock, so if you expect your batteries to discharge themselves but keep pressing the button to check them every day it'll never happen.

Something else to consider: After the battery starts to discharge itself (after a period of time set by the user in the App such as DJI Go4) you will get a battery status error if you fly with it without charging.  This has happened to me a couple of times; I did carry on flying without any problems though, other than a battery status warning. I would definately charge before flying..I think DJI have done a great job of self-protecting the batteries.   

Fingers Posted at 2018-1-1 05:59
Something else to consider: After the battery starts to discharge itself (after a period of time set by the user in the App such as DJI Go4) you will get a battery status error if you fly with it without charging.  This has happened to me a couple of times; I did carry on flying without any problems though, other than a battery status warning. I would definately charge before flying..I think DJI have done a great job of self-protecting the batteries.

you will get a battery status error if you fly with it without charging.  This has happened to me a couple of times

I'm guessing that was because there was a disparity between the three cells' voltages, but yes, you definitely should fully charge your batteries before using them after they've self-discharged or otherwise been sitting a while.

CelticRambler Posted at 2018-1-1 05:12
Does this mean that it's *not* a good idea to re-charge batteries immediately after a flight, if you can't be sure of getting out again within a few days? With all my other (DSLR) camera equipment, I recharge depleted batteries as soon as I can, so that they're always "good to go" and have been doing the same with the Mavic.

However, due to persistently bad weather (winds of 30-90kmh today  and when it hasn't been windy, it's been raining ) the Mavic has been grounded for up to two weeks between flights. Should I be running the batteries down to the "low battery" warning, then leaving them like that until I know I'll be able to go out again?

Tviscomi is right when he says there is no need to purposely run the batteries down.  As a general rule, LiPo batteries DO NOT LIKE to sit fully charged for long periods of time.  A few days at a time should not hurt them but if you're not going to be flying for weeks at a time then run them down to 30% for storage.

Fingers Posted at 2018-1-1 05:59
Something else to consider: After the battery starts to discharge itself (after a period of time set by the user in the App such as DJI Go4) you will get a battery status error if you fly with it without charging.  This has happened to me a couple of times; I did carry on flying without any problems though, other than a battery status warning. I would definately charge before flying..I think DJI have done a great job of self-protecting the batteries.

Good to know...

I got the battery status error one time. After removing and reinserting the battery, the error message went away. The more I think about it, I may have used the battery after it started self-discharging and not charging it.

Fasitron Posted at 2018-1-1 08:51
Tviscomi is right when he says there is no need to purposely run the batteries down.  As a general rule, LiPo batteries DO NOT LIKE to sit fully charged for long periods of time.  A few days at a time should not hurt them but if you're not going to be flying for weeks at a time then run them down to 30% for storage.

I like this advice...

Fasitron Posted at 2018-1-1 08:51
Tviscomi is right when he says there is no need to purposely run the batteries down.  As a general rule, LiPo batteries DO NOT LIKE to sit fully charged for long periods of time.  A few days at a time should not hurt them but if you're not going to be flying for weeks at a time then run them down to 30% for storage.

The question was not so much about purposely running them down, but whether to re-charge them when I get back from a flying exercise. When I first got my Mavic, the problem didn't arise, as I'd cycle through the three batteries during practice runs, then call it a day, come home, charge them, go out again the next day.

Then the weather happened! So it's not a deliberate choice to *not* fly for weeks at a time, but if there are only two days in the week when I have the time (and daylight) to go flying, and it's raining or windy those two days, then it could end up being two or three weeks later before I get into the air again.

I hadn't realised there was a programmed discharge interval (where are the parameters for that?) but that explains why the batteries seemed "flat" after a long period of downtime.