Its been a while since I last flown the drone, and I'm wondering what can I do to protect the battery if I'm not gonna use it for a while.

Currently i think two of the batteries are sitting at 40% and one of them is at around 20%.

I have not been using them for at least two months now.

Should I fully charge them and then let them drop down to 60% automatically?

Hello there. Thank you for reaching out. If a battery is not used for 10 days or longer, discharge it to a 40%-65% state of charge (until LED 3 lights up or blinks) for storage. Charge and discharge the battery about every three months to maintain the battery's active materials' good condition and extend the battery's lifetime. If the battery is stored after completely drained, it may over-discharge and be damaged. Also, please always store the Intelligent Flight Battery in a well-ventilated place. The battery will enter hibernation mode if depleted and stored for an extended period. Recharge the battery to bring it out of hibernation. These links might help you further https://support.dji.com/help/con ... p;re=US&lang=en, https://support.dji.com/help/con ... p;re=US&lang=en. Have a great day ahead.

DJI Tony Posted at 3-1 20:09
Hello there. Thank you for reaching out. If a battery is not used for 10 days or longer, discharge it to a 40%-65% state of charge (until LED 3 lights up or blinks) for storage. Charge and discharge the battery about every three months to maintain the battery's active materials' good condition and extend the battery's lifetime. If the battery is stored after completely drained, it may over-discharge and be damaged. Also, please always store the Intelligent Flight Battery in a well-ventilated place. The battery will enter hibernation mode if depleted and stored for an extended period. Recharge the battery to bring it out of hibernation. These links might help you further https://support.dji.com/help/content?customId=en-us03400006549&spaceId=34&re=US&lang=en, https://support.dji.com/help/content?customId=en-us03400006548&spaceId=34&re=US&lang=en. Have a great day ahead.

thanks for the reply!

Will the battery discharge automatically? or do i need to do it myself

can I turn the drone on and let it sit on the desk or I have to take off?

itsalbertZ Posted at 3-1 21:03
thanks for the reply!

Will the battery discharge automatically? or do i need to do it myself

Hi. The Air 3 supports auto-discharging.
Stage 1: When the battery level is higher than 97%, it will set the self-discharge duration to 3 days and discharge the battery to 96%. Operating the power button does not affect self-discharge.
Stage 2: When the battery level is higher than 70%,  the self-discharge duration will be set to 9 days and discharge the battery to at least 60%. Operating the power button causes the self-discharge duration to be recounted.
Stage 3: When the battery level is lower than 70%, the self-discharge feature is disabled.
Have a great day.

itsalbertZ Posted at 3-1 21:03
thanks for the reply!

Will the battery discharge automatically? or do i need to do it myself

If I know I won't be flying for longer time I recharge my mobile phone with the hub. One depleted phone takes right amount of power from one (full) battery that 3rd led blinks in my case...

DJI Tony Posted at 3-2 02:23
Hi. The Air 3 supports auto-discharging.
Stage 1: When the battery level is higher than 97%, it will set the self-discharge duration to 3 days and discharge the battery to 96%. Operating the power button does not affect self-discharge.
Stage 2: When the battery level is higher than 70%,  the self-discharge duration will be set to 9 days and discharge the battery to at least 60%. Operating the power button causes the self-discharge duration to be recounted.

So basically you are saying I just need to charge it to full and then let it do its own thing every three months right?

Can I just turn on the drone and let it sit on the desk until the battery reaches 60%? I know the drone has active cooling but will it cause any issue like overheating?

itsalbertZ Posted at 3-2 07:13
So basically you are saying I just need to charge it to full and then let it do its own thing every three months right?

Can I just turn on the drone and let it sit on the desk until the battery reaches 60%? I know the drone has active cooling but will it cause any issue like overheating?

Hi. Yes, you can. The Air 3 has a cooling fan that turns on when the temperature of the internal chip goes above 60℃. The fan turns off for a temperature below 55℃. The speed of the fan increases as the temperature increases. Have a nice day.

Yesterday the following happened and puzzled me:
I had fully charged my three batteries a few days ago but had to postpone the flight due to weatherconditions.
So yesterday i wanted to fly and checked the batteries. All three had three LEDs solid and the fourth blinking.
Obviously the auto discharge had already started.
So I wanted to recharge them before flight but the charger didnt do anything.
I found no other solution than to fly with a battery of 85%. After the flight the same charger plugged into the same powersource as before did immediately charge the battery.
That was the same with all three batteries.

Is there a way to recharge the batteries at 85% so I can fly with 100%? How do I do that?

It is not good to recharge almost full battery* in general, so I guess it is safety feature. You can discharge batteries with the hub (recharge phone or other devices) and then recharge Air 3 batteries fresh for the flight...
* It is recommended to deplete batteries to 30% or less (and then recharge) for the best performance.

virtual Posted at 3-9 02:18
It is not good to recharge almost full battery* in general, so I guess it is safety feature. You can discharge batteries with the hub (recharge phone or other devices) and then recharge Air 3 batteries fresh for the flight...
* It is recommended to deplete batteries to 30% or less (and then recharge) for the best performance.

What you describe is related to older types of Batteries like Nickel Cadmium. For modern Lion batteries discharging before charging is not recommended from all that i read about that.

No, You probably mean memory effect of Nixx batteries but correct maintenance* is very important for Lixx batteries as well.

* like proper charging, not overdischaring, storage voltage ect.