Hello, guys,
yesterday I found at my new P3 that battery life is about 73%.
I was surprised because I just did 11 charging cycles.
any ideas how I can improve battery life or at least to prevent this situation in the future.
thanks.

The P3 battery life is dynamic.
If the temperature around is low, the discharge capacity of battery will decrease, then the total capacity will be judged to be decreased due to the lower discharge capacity.
My idea is if you find a warm place to finish a charge/discharge circle, the battery life might be improved. I mean.... If you have discharged in a cold place before.
I will do a further test about it.

DJI-Autumn, thank you.
charging and storing in ACcooled room with temperature around 22-24C, but flying in outdoors with high outside temp 30-38C and more then average humidity (Dubai).
will try to implement your advice.

lebed73@mail.ru Posted at 2015-5-21 14:44
DJI-Autumn, thank you.
charging and storing in ACcooled room with temperature around 22-24C, but fly ...

Forget to mention, the high temperature will also affect the discharge capacity.
Can you post a screenshot?
You can do charge/discharge cycles more than once in ACcooled room, to see if the battery life can be recovered.

DJI-Autumn Posted at 2015-5-21 15:21
Forget to mention, the high temperature will also affect the discharge capacity.
Can you post a scr ...

I will post screenshot today in the evening. thanks

lebed73@mail.ru Posted at 2015-5-21 15:29
I will post screenshot today in the evening. thanks

Check the total capacity of the battery at the DJI Pilot App. I believe if the battery life is 70%, then the total capacity of the P3 battery should be 2980mAh, which is much lower than designed 4480mAh. Please try to fully charge/discharge the battery and then check the total capacity, see if it increase to close to 4480mAh. Another thing you need to check: after you fully charge the battery, please check the cell voltage of each cell and see if their voltage difference is serious, say more than 100mV difference. If more than 100mV, then the cell may be damaged.

DJI-Bruce Posted at 2015-5-21 15:50
Check the total capacity of the battery at the DJI Pilot App. I believe if the battery life is 70% ...

DJI-Bruce, thanks.
today in the evening will post screenshot, all these parameters will be shown

DJI-Autumn Posted at 2015-5-21 14:17
The P3 battery life is dynamic.
If the temperature around is low, the discharge capacity of battery ...

Oh no! Does that mean there will be a bunch of Phantom owners moving to Florida? LOL

Ya gotta love those cool mornings down here. I think it's a nippy 78 degrees outside now and it's not quite 7 AM.

DJI-Bruce Posted at 2015-5-21 15:50
Check the total capacity of the battery at the DJI Pilot App. I believe if the battery life is 70% ...

The pilot log .txt files (the ones in your mobile app) display a bunch of information about your flights - data is recorded every few milliseconds. One of the columns in the resultant CSV file shows voltage but not amperage.

I realize when measuring and working with DC voltages and amperages, the amperage is a very important  measure, but one can gather general info from the voltage.

For example, if you discharged a given battery to 50% (based on what gets report via the Pilot app), what corresponding voltage should you see in the pilot log?

I wrote yesterday in another thread (I think it was about the IMU warm-up). I flew for about 11 1/2 minutes and my battery life (as indicated in the pilot app) was just a hair under 50%. This leads me to believe that a reasonable battery cycle - and discharged to about 25% remaining) - should be around 16 - 17 minutes.

By reasonable, I mean no racing, flips, screaming climbs, etc. If you're trying to "settle in" to get that perfect shot, you're probably not "hot-rodding" the craft and the battery will have a reasonable cycle time.

Of course, the great majority of this is conjecture on my part!

Having played with high powered lights and too many lithium ion batteries, the first thing I'd do is to perform a capacity test on the battery. This is performed by fully charging the battery then a complete discharge cycle using something like a hobby analyser charger. If you have crappy batteries that don't measure up against advertised ratings, complain and have them replaced.

Minor temperature changes have minimal effects on lithium ion batteries. Doesn't make a difference whether LiPo or LiFePO4, temperatures within 15F of 70f have less than 2% change in battery capacity.

Guys, miracle happen...
it's 100% of battery life now.
I can't understand and explain that, but yesterday in the evening it was 73%
i'm confused.

Gregg, that's interesting. Anyone know where might I find the P3 battery capacity Vs temperature graph?

dmwierz Posted at 2015-5-21 22:08
Gregg, that's interesting. Anyone know where might I find the P3 battery capacity Vs temperature gra ...

I doubt that DJI will provide that information. Typical testing temperatures per ASTM specifications is 77F. There might be a look up table referencing temp variations for battery testing, but I don't have one.

After I receive my second battery I'll run capacity  testing on both batteries and report back.

I use the Accucell 6 for my charging/analyzing of lithium batteries.

lebed73@mail.ru Posted at 2015-5-21 22:03
Guys, miracle happen...
it's 100% of battery life now.
I can't understand and explain that, but yest ...

Did you fully charge/discharge it last evening?

Good news, that was a bit worrying if it could lose health that quickly.

It is a good idea to follow the general advice about LiPo batteries;

• Don't run LiPo batteries completely down (I would recommend landing at 30% capacity, but personally I can't keep that very often because I want to keep flying so it might get below my warning at 25% - maybe down to 22%)
  

• Don't keep LiPo batteries stored for a prolonged time at full (100%) or discharged state. I read a good analogy; a LiPo battery is a bit like a spring. If you charge it to 100% it is stretched out - which after a while will lower the strenght of the spring (I believe it actually corrodes at those states). If it is fully discharged, it is like a spring that is pushed together - which can also weaken the spring. But if you keep it at about 50% charge, it is like a spring in its relaxed (middle) state where it will almost not loose any strenght.
  

Hope thats useful to someone in the community

-

Buy your DJI Phantom 3, DJI-gear, intelligent DJI Batteries, DJI Hardshell Backpacks from the DJI Store by using this link - it'll help me out

DJI-Autumn Posted at 2015-5-22 11:08
Did you fully charge/discharge it last evening?

yes, i did.
it look really as a miracle.... :-)