Hi, on the Spark Intelligent Flight Battery Safety Guidelines (see link at bottom), page 5, regarding battery maintenance, we read the following:

1. Never over-discharge, as this may lead to battery cell damage.

And:

3. Fullly charge and discharge the battery at least once every 3 months to maintain battery health.

Ok, so "fully discharging" is beyond good, is recomended, while "over-discharging" is bad.

But what means each of these? It is really not clear to me.

Thanks!



Spark Intelligent Flight Battery Safety Guidelines:

https://dl.djicdn.com/downloads/Spark/20170719/Intelligent_Flight_Battery_Safety_Guidelines/Spark_Intelligent_Flight_Battery_Safety_Guidelines_V1.2_EN.pdf

Hi, good day CoopSTAY. To explain further, the full charge and discharge every 3 months is to maintain the full capacity of the battery in its good possible condition. A battery that is used to being charge immediately far from being close to fully drain per se may become a pattern. On the other hand, the "Over-Discharge" terminology is leaving the battery discharged and unused for a long time. The explanation above is not limited to those specific scenarios so it is also advised to observe other battery maintenance precautions. Please let us know if you should have any other concerns. Thank you and have a good one!

DJI Gamora Posted at 4-16 11:40
Hi, good day CoopSTAY. To explain further, the full charge and discharge every 3 months is to maintain the full capacity of the battery in its good possible condition. A battery that is used to being charge immediately far from being close to fully drain per se may become a pattern. On the other hand, the "Over-Discharge" terminology is leaving the battery discharged and unused for a long time. The explanation above is not limited to those specific scenarios so it is also advised to observe other battery maintenance precautions. Please let us know if you should have any other concerns. Thank you and have a good one!

Thanks for the info. So you are saying that every 3 months you should discharge the spark battery down to 3% or so ? Most of the time I only discharge to about 28%. Can you explain this using % ? Thank you.

DJI Gamora Posted at 4-16 11:40
Hi, good day CoopSTAY. To explain further, the full charge and discharge every 3 months is to maintain the full capacity of the battery in its good possible condition. A battery that is used to being charge immediately far from being close to fully drain per se may become a pattern. On the other hand, the "Over-Discharge" terminology is leaving the battery discharged and unused for a long time. The explanation above is not limited to those specific scenarios so it is also advised to observe other battery maintenance precautions. Please let us know if you should have any other concerns. Thank you and have a good one!

Thanks for the info. So you are saying that every 3 months you should discharge the spark battery down to 3% or so ? Most of the time I only discharge to about 28%. Can you explain this using % ? Thank you.

Sayhelloforme Posted at 4-16 18:40
Thanks for the info. So you are saying that every 3 months you should discharge the spark battery down to 3% or so ? Most of the time I only discharge to about 28%. Can you explain this using % ? Thank you.

Put in a square box.
Every 3 month charge with charge hub, or the usb cable back in spark, untill battery is fully charged..when lights stop blinking.  Hope you got this sorted.
And then fly around, till low battery landing, and let it sit there on ground till it turns it self off

Sayhelloforme Posted at 4-16 18:40
Thanks for the info. So you are saying that every 3 months you should discharge the spark battery down to 3% or so ? Most of the time I only discharge to about 28%. Can you explain this using % ? Thank you.

Hi, good day Sayhelloforme. Thank you for the additional information. We highly recommend if you want to discharge the battery it must have 0% or you may start the motor of your spark until it will shut off after that you can now start charging the battery until it gets full. Performing this process every 3 months will help you to prevent the battery cell from any possible damages. Should you have any other concerns please don't hesitate to reach us back and we are more than happy to assist you.

DJI has smart batteries . charge your batteries if you don't use your spark after two or three months .
after ten days your batteries will auto discharge . the auto discharge can not be changed for the spark battery . your batteries will last longer .
fly safe

DJI has smart batteries . charge your batteries if you don't use your spark after two or three months .
after ten days your batteries will auto discharge . the auto discharge can not be changed for the spark battery . your batteries will last longer .
fly safe

DJI has smart batteries . charge your batteries if you don't use your spark after two or three months .
after ten days your batteries will auto discharge . the auto discharge can not be changed for the spark battery . your batteries will last longer .
fly safe

DJI has smart batteries . charge your batteries if you don't use your spark after two or three months .
after ten days your batteries will auto discharge . the auto discharge can not be changed for the spark battery . your batteries will last longer .
fly safe

DJI has smart batteries . charge your batteries if you don't use your spark after two or three months . after ten days your batteries will auto discharge . the auto discharge can not be changed for the spark battery . your batteries will last longer . fly safe

DJI Gamora Posted at 4-17 10:17
Hi, good day Sayhelloforme. Thank you for the additional information. We highly recommend if you want to discharge the battery it must have 0% or you may start the motor of your spark until it will shut off after that you can now start charging the battery until it gets full. Performing this process every 3 months will help you to prevent the battery cell from any possible damages. Should you have any other concerns please don't hesitate to reach us back and we are more than happy to assist you.

Thanks for your reply. This is where the confusion is. I also have the p3p and in the instructions ( old ) it says to do this. Then DJI changed this and said this could damage the lipo battery so NOT to do it. The p3p has 4: cells while the spark has 3. They are both lipos so now DJI is saying to go back to the old way and totally discharge  ? The reason why we were told NOT to discharge to 0% is because it could damage the cells.
Sometimes we would do this anyway to balance the cells voltage if they were not equally close but the process really didn’t help one of my batteries.
I will try it with the spark but I don’t think I’ll be doing this with my P3p batteries.
I welcome any more insight and information you have about this topic.
Thanks for your time.

So discharge the batteries all the way to when the drone shuts off? Not just below 8%? I thought by discharging fully it would damage the battery, but I guess I thought wrong, or maybe the batteries have a little hidden reserve to keep them from fully discharging and damaging themselves .

Jacob Williams Posted at 4-20 19:46
So discharge the batteries all the way to when the drone shuts off? Not just below 8%? I thought by discharging fully it would damage the battery, but I guess I thought wrong, or maybe the batteries have a little hidden reserve to keep them from fully discharging and damaging themselves .

That’s what I though. They changed this on the phantom batteries. First they said discharge to 8%. Then they said not too. Both the spark a phantom are lipo batteries. Now I have discharge a 3nd party battery for the phantom to 6% to balance the cells because one was way off and I heard this works. It didn’t work for me and I no longer use that battery. This is the question I want answer too: where in the manual does it say to discharge the spark battery to 0% every 3 months ? What page ? Maybe I missed something.

Jacob Williams Posted at 4-20 19:46
So discharge the batteries all the way to when the drone shuts off? Not just below 8%? I thought by discharging fully it would damage the battery, but I guess I thought wrong, or maybe the batteries have a little hidden reserve to keep them from fully discharging and damaging themselves .

Jacob, all dji batteries do have a small reserve for safety. That’s what I was told. Also, discharging to 0%  damage them   I was told this also.

Sayhelloforme Posted at 4-20 20:02
That’s what I though. They changed this on the phantom batteries. First they said discharge to 8%. Then they said not too. Both the spark a phantom are lipo batteries. Now I have discharge a 3nd party battery for the phantom to 6% to balance the cells because one was way off and I heard this works. It didn’t work for me and I no longer use that battery. This is the question I want answer too: where in the manual does it say to discharge the spark battery to 0% every 3 months ? What page ? Maybe I missed something.

It  says fully charge and discharge and discharge the battery once every three months. Does fully discharge mean 0%?  6%?  or 8%?

Jacob Williams Posted at 4-21 11:30
It  says fully charge and discharge and discharge the battery once every three months. Does fully discharge mean 0%?  6%?  or 8%?

Yes it does mean 0%. This is the same thing  they said on the phantom but then they said it will damage cells after other owners argue this point   
I’m not EVER going to discharge mine to 0% unless it’s an old battery and one of the cells is way off.
Through much experimentation it’s better not to discharge below 18%, it seems they last longer   

To me the issue seems to be battery life v's depth of charge. If you completely discharge and then charge it fully, you probably maintain the flight time but at the expense of a slight reduction in the number of charge/discharge cycles of the battery.
I use my Spark (and Mavic) fairly regularly and charge it fully as soon as I reasonably can afterwards. Since I occasionally  get it wrong and land on a very low battery, I put that down as the required "fully discharge/ fully charge" cycle. Does it work? Only time will tell.

Now I understand. this should clear up a lot of misconceptions.

Now I understand. This should clear up any misconceptions.

DJI Gamora Posted at 4-17 10:17
Hi, good day Sayhelloforme. Thank you for the additional information. We highly recommend if you want to discharge the battery it must have 0% or you may start the motor of your spark until it will shut off after that you can now start charging the battery until it gets full. Performing this process every 3 months will help you to prevent the battery cell from any possible damages. Should you have any other concerns please don't hesitate to reach us back and we are more than happy to assist you.

I have 1 more question. Is this practice of discharging also to be use for the Phantom 3 profession ?
I have tried what you suggested with the spark batteries and it was very successful.
Thank you SO much for your help and also clearing up a lot of misconceptions with the Sparks batteries.

Sayhelloforme Posted at 4-24 11:01
I have 1 more question. Is this practice of discharging also to be use for the Phantom 3 profession ?
I have tried what you suggested with the spark batteries and it was very successful.
Thank you SO much for your help and also clearing up a lot of misconceptions with the Sparks batteries.

You're very welcome sir! Yes, we do recommend performing that process in Phantom series as well to protect its cells since it has the same Intelligent Flight Battery. Thank you for your continued support.

Just land with say at least 25% battery remaining even though it shows 5 more flight time minutes.  I have 3 batteries anyway but if you RTH at 25% it takes time to spot land it unless you are coming in high-performance mode with Sport and land like a 3D Helicopter.

DJI Gamora Posted at 4-24 15:26
You're very welcome sir! Yes, we do recommend performing that process in Phantom series as well to protect its cells since it has the same Intelligent Flight Battery. Thank you for your continued support.

Thanks so much for your reply. I tested today 2 spark batteries like you suggested. At 0% the voltage did not drop below 3.64 which is fantastic. Now, thanks to you I see 100% after I charge my spark batteries.
Also I tested the P3P battery. I let it go to 5 % This was the first battery than came with the drone and it’s over a year old. It has never received this treatment. After a full charge I would always see 97%. BUT after preforming the discharge down to 5% on the p3p IT WORKED  !!!!
Now when I charge the p3p it says 100%  !!
You information was fantastic.
Again, thank you so much for this information !!!
YOU have cleared up SO much misinformation.
Thank you  !!!

Sayhelloforme Posted at 4-24 17:08
Thanks so much for your reply. I tested today 2 spark batteries like you suggested. At 0% the voltage did not drop below 3.64 which is fantastic. Now, thanks to you I see 100% after I charge my spark batteries.
Also I tested the P3P battery. I let it go to 5 % This was the first battery than came with the drone and it’s over a year old. It has never received this treatment. After a full charge I would always see 97%. BUT after preforming the discharge down to 5% on the p3p IT WORKED  !!!!
Now when I charge the p3p it says 100%  !!

Hi, there Sayhelloforme. Thank you for the additional information. I'm glad to know that your DJI batteries are now doing great. Should you have any other concerns please don't hesitate to reach us and we are more than happy to help you. Have a safe and happy flying always!