Are there proper instructions on how to discharge phantom 3 batteries?

Have not seen any .Today was my day to discharge to 8% or below.
Decided to just fly it until I had only two green leds showing power. After that killed the props, brought it inside, turned the controller off and let yellow leds in back drain battery until dead.  I mean Dead.
Took almost two hours to recharge. Speaking of...gotta go before dark and fly .

I thought I read somewhere that you're not supposed to drain them all the way down to zero.

YIKE'S  and Don't ever drain a LiPo DEAD. it will ruin them and at a $150 a pop, you don't want to risk creating a dead brick.

3) Li-Po cells should NEVER be discharged to below 3.0V under load for best results.
Any cell that is discharged to a voltage lower than 3.0V under load may be damaged,
resulting in loss of performance and potential fire when the cell is charged.
You should always use an ESC with the proper low voltage cutoff setting (3.0V per cell)
for the battery you are using. It is also recommended that any battery that has been
overdischarged be removed from service completely.

Do not discharge a 4S (14.8V nominal) battery to below 12.0V under load

9) It is not recommended to “top-off” a fully charged or near fully charged Li-Po battery.
Attempting to do so may cause the charger to overcharge the battery, resulting in damage
to the battery and possible fire. If the voltage of each cell within the battery is
approximately 4.1V or higher, it is best to discharge the battery for at least a short time
before attempting to charge it.

Do not charge a 4S (14.8V nominal) battery if it is at or above 16.4V

Michael Starley Posted at 2015-6-23 07:59
Have not seen any .Today was my day to discharge to 8% or below.
Decided to just fly it until I had  ...

don't be posting that you crashed your phantom because it fell from the sky like a brick!

The smart battery shuts off before cells can be damaged I thought...

I make sure my p3 is landed before I go under 20% and even then the battery is 140 degrees, and that is draining it to the recommended percent for a lip of...  Does anyone know the c rating of the p3's battery? It's gotta be real low for these batteries to get this hot when discharged only 80%, I've taken my 40c batteries down to 10% a few times and they don't get that hot, warm at best

Willy Wonka -Good news.Grace flies high today!
Full 15 minute flight only one occurrence. Backed her into a low bush showing off for the neighbor.
Little bit of green leaf smear on one prop , one embarrassed op , and one laughing neighbor.

I will say over 150 flights . I have followed DJI closely on my first battery.90 flights on that one . No issue .For some reason I let fear change my routine . I began putting the freshly depleted battery on the AC, to cool it off . I do not recommend that . It caused a small issue (No Damage) . I have learned that it is very important to let it heat cycle . VERY . In my attempt to "help the battery" I caused the outside to cool before the core . Not good . Began noticing the dreaded red leds (While In Flight) during heavy battery load . Checked out the battery in the assistant software . 2nd cell showing lower voltage than cell 1 or ceel 3 .

Summation-After first charge and discharge I will go back to basics . Let battery cool to room temp . Turn battery on before charging and plug up . Discharge below 8% every 20 cycles . Due to my time with these power sources I am confident that this routine plus periodic checks in the software assistant , and constant monitoring of rear leds during flight will lead to good long battery life .

P3PO Posted at 2015-6-23 08:47
YIKE'S  and Don't ever drain a LiPo DEAD. it will ruin them and at a $150 a pop, you don't want to r ...

I have yet to come across such a situation, but I've read over and over again about the care and handling of LiPo batteries. The situation I'm referring to is over-discharging a LiPo battery. I've *heard* that discharging LiPo batteries too low can sometimes result in a charger no longer being able to charge them. Honestly, I respect the concept about not damaging LiPo batteries, but I've not actually seen this happen and not known anyone to whom it did.

Someone wrote here one day about "respecting" the care and handling of your LiPo batteries but to not necessarily "fear" them. I can't speak for the owners of previous versions of the Phantom. My Phantom 3 Pro is my first Phantom. We're probably lucky that we have a lot of information available about our batteries that are not available with lots of other LiPo batteries.

On the one hand, I kind of miss being able to see what's happening with individual cells during the charge cycle - like I can with my other chargers. But there's a world of information available through the Pilot app and also by just pressing the button appropriately.

It would appear that our Intelligent Flight Battery is indeed pretty intelligent. At least the battery system is anyway.

I've got a charger that charges 4 batteries at a time up to 5Amps each, which is about the limit for the P3 batteries which are 1C batteries. This charger is programmable to almost any Li-Po voltage and equalizes the batteries too, assuming there's an equalizer plug on the battery.  Since I don't have a P3 yet but thinking about buying one, my question is.... does the battery have an equalizer connector? When I looked at a P3 battery and I didn't see and obvious connection with 4 or 5 contacts for a battery of that size, needed for equalization.  I did see some obscure connectors but it didn't look right.  Can a person buy the proprietary connector to adapt to aftermarket chargers?  If anyone knows the answer to that, please let me know..

HERE's the charger I'm using, it really works great.  Even has a discharge feature to discharge Li-Po batteries exactly where they need to be for long term storage. Cost's about $250 by the time you get all of the correct connectors for your specific battery X4.

Mark97564 Posted at 2015-6-23 11:49
The smart battery shuts off before cells can be damaged I thought...

This here...

Hi. I'm guessing you guys have never looked at the History button the the pilot app. It will tell you about errors in the battery. You may have to scroll through what shows after pressing history under battery info.
I let my battery go to 6% and now have an entry saying cell protection due to over discharge.

I fly about 15 minutes and end up with 30% left. I am due on my original battery to drop to less than 8% but am terribly afraid to do so with all the old pro's saying not to. Is DJI just insuring that we have to buy batteries sooner or what?

Hi all , please check this
http://forum.dji.com/forum.php?m ... amp;page=1#pid51985

Hi guys,

Though this may be relevant to this thread. I also had issues discharging the Phantom batts (didn't want to just run the phantom and wear my motors etc) so I made a little gadget I call the Phantom Angel to do exactly that - safely discharge Phantom batts (P2 and P3) down to a safe storage level.

If you're interested check it out at http://phantomangel.rocks

SULTAN Posted at 2015-6-22 18:55
The fastest way is to fly your Phantom.  Flying my Phantom for 10 minutes discharge the battery to a ...

It takes more than two days to discharge.  It discharges slowly down to around 50% and then stops for storage.

Michael Starley Posted at 2015-6-22 18:59
Have not seen any .Today was my day to discharge to 8% or below.
Decided to just fly it until I had  ...

Dead?  !!!  Really?  Lithium batteries should NEVER be discharged until dead.  It drastically shortens the life expectancy.  They should be discharged no lower than 8%, and never stored fully charged for any length of time.

Do some reading: Battery University

My bad agOn.
After over 100 flights on just one of my batteries I took for granted that I was doing it right.
How many flights are you getting?

I am always willing to learn how to get more service from my power source.
BTW I have read....on this forum.....that discharging smart batteries to below 8% or until battery will not turn on(Dead) that this process resets the smart chip inside of the unit.
I think that is why they are called Smart Batteries.Yet I digress...I have only been flying for one year,own two P2s,made over 20 commercials,and have over 245 flights...give or take 10 or 15...kind of lost count.
Oh! and out of all of that flight time not one crash due to dead or malfunctioning batteries.

Thanx for the tip though.I will take your advice to heart and pick up one those things with words in them.What are they called?Oh yeah!..Boooookksss.  

So, the answer to the original question is yes, there are proper instructions on how to discharge phantom 3 batteries.   The debate seems to be whether you should follow the shoe or the gourd...

Oh, anybody tried one of these Smart Battery Quick Discharge Module things I saw on eBay?

SULTAN Posted at 2015-6-23 07:55
The fastest way is to fly your Phantom.  Flying my Phantom for 10 minutes discharge the battery to a ...

it takes 2 days from the day u set the discharge time for it to discharge to%65

gil Posted at 2015-10-2 01:28
So, the answer to the original question is yes, there are proper instructions on how to discharge ph ...

Yes, I've got one of those. Discharges to about 3.8v, it's perfect. Much better than discharging using the Phantom sat on your kitchen table when you can't fly for a few days. Only costs a tenner too.

jimcloud74@yaho Posted at 2015-6-29 08:19
I fly about 15 minutes and end up with 30% left. I am due on my original battery to drop to less tha ...

i would go by what the manufacturer, DJI, says.old timers are old timers!!

gil Posted at 2015-10-1 20:28
So, the answer to the original question is yes, there are proper instructions on how to discharge ph ...

Another one of those times when reading the included instructions manual is the best resource for the answer. Everyone has their own way of doing things but the way the manual says to do it is the right way.

ronn69
I fully agree.I have followed these guidelines for over a year now.DJI's customer service seems to be in it's beta phase but the engineering has always been worth the money.

Hi guys,

Since launching the Phantom Angel  (a dedicated P2/P3 battery storage discharger) a couple of months ago I've had loads of discussions with Phantom pilots about their batteries.
What I saw was that the majority of new pilots were not aware of standard LiPo practices and were surprised and grateful when I shared some of what I've learnt over the years.

So, with that in mind, I've created a concise, newbie-friendly guide to all things LiPo. If you don't know how to store your battiers, how to keep them from exploding or how to tell your watts from your amps, this guide's for you

http://phantomangel.rocks/lipogu ... ntom-batteries.html

Hope you find it useful and please do send over any and all thoughts and comments.

Proto

ronnw69 Posted at 2015-10-2 17:53
Another one of those times when reading the included instructions manual is the best resource for  ...

Nowhere in my P3S manual can I find any reference to "Charge and discharge the battery completely once every 20 charge/discharge cycles".

Is this from a manual for a previous generation Phantom or battery ?

So what to do with a battery that wont be charged for a LONG time. I left my spare in another city last month. Its just sitting there. It was at about 25% when i left it.. Will it not drain itself dead automatically?

IMI193 Posted at 2015-10-30 22:34
Nowhere in my P3S manual can I find any reference to "Charge and discharge the battery completely  ...

Interesting, you are correct. The paragraph is in the Intelligent Battery guide for the Adv & Pro linked here.

The Std guide has this paragraph removed. The Std guide is here.

terrylewis Posted at 2015-10-30 14:49
Interesting, you are correct. The paragraph is in the Intelligent Battery guide for the Adv & Pro  ...

Thanks, so I'm not blind, this has been bothering me since I got my P3S, I never read the Adv/Pro manual.


I just looked at v1.6 of the Pro and Adv manuals, I do not see "Charge and discharge the battery completely once every 20 charge/discharge cycles"  in either of those.

protocrash Posted at 2015-9-26 15:52
Hi guys,

Though this may be relevant to this thread. I also had issues discharging the Phantom batt ...

No disrespect intended but why would DJI be wrong about this and some company selling a product be correct about it?  Wouldn't it be best to follow the manufacturers recommendations and not some third party seller trying to sell a product?

myhondas Posted at 2015-6-22 18:02
I thought I read somewhere that you're not supposed to drain them all the way down to zero.

When you discharge the IFB (Intelligent Flight Battery), when it gets down to zero, it's not really at zero - it's apparently somewhere around 10%. This discharge technique is recommended by DJI - I think it's something like after every 20 charges.

One of the responders to your post is correct - you should never totally discharge a LIPO battery. It often turns out you can't recharge them again after that. The IFBs from DJI are a slightly different story.

Keep in mind - the IFB contains electronics that you won't find in other LIPOS!

Art - N4PJ

Seaduner Posted at 2015-6-26 00:38
I've got a charger that charges 4 batteries at a time up to 5Amps each, which is about the limit for ...

You wrote asking if anyone had a battery "....with an equalizer connector."

I assume you're referring to the "balance lead" you see on many "brick-style" LIPO batteries. Because the battery for the Phantom series is an Intelligent Flight Battery (it has internal electronics virtually no other LIPO battery has), the built-in electronics will do the cell balancing for you. When you look at the battery levels via you GO app, you can see the status of each cell and identify whether they're seriously unbalanced.

Art - N4PJ