Comrades--
I had to leave my Inspire 1 behind and went on a 2 month out-of-town-job, came home and 4 of my batteries were completely dead.
Nobody in New York will fix them, none of the online tricks worked--had to go out and drop $900 on 4 new ones.
What is the best way to keep these in good working order?
How often to I need to recharge them if they are left in storage and at what capacity should I leave them if they do need to be in storage for more than 3 weeks.
Thanks,
Sam

50% is what is recommended for long term.

Yep - As Adam1 said, store them at 50% and you are golden for months.

When you pull them out of storage, I'd give them a couple of test cycles just to be sure they are behaving themselves before you do any serious (i.e. paid) flying.

Hello Sam,you could refer to this guideline:
http://dl.djicdn.com/downloads/i ... _Guidelines_1.4.pdf

Thanks All.
Why store at 50% instead of 100, what's the science to that?
Sam

It took me a while to appreciate the "50 % rule" - but based on my experience, here i what I've learned:

These are smart batteries, but all rechargeable batteries are just the same.   After a while they start to lose the power that has been charged into them.
For lots of equipment that use batteries - this isn't a big deal (laptops/toys).  For something that can fly & has the technology that a drone has - this can be a big problem.

I've charged to 100 %, and then not flown until a week or two later.     I would usually start somewhere in the 90 % range, and at that point all kinds of bad things happened.
The device wouldn't act right - respond right... The worst was with my oldest battery using that technique --- it went from 80 % down to 4 % in about 3 seconds - after flying for 10 minutes!!!
Fortunately I was 5 feet off the deck & landed quickly.  A few minutes earlier I was wayyy high up, and so close to a  $4,000 disaster!

Now if you leave them between 50 & 65 %, you are putting yourself in a good place to recharge them quickly to get maximum use. And (as has been posted numerous times) you aren't taking them all the way down to near nothing - only to let them fade away to completely dead...  Which is often impossible to "wake them up" from...

I don't fly all the time, but I've always found that 50 % will last for many weeks. And if I know it's going to be longer, I'll just give them a few minutes on a charger to wake them up a little.

It's been working for me (and my original Inspire 1) for almost 2 years now.

Hope this helps
cd

Did you try to pop the top on one of the batteries and unplug the wire harness. Last resort.

Are you certain that the batteres are not in hibernation mode?

New lipos will benefit in the long term by giving them a couple of light run-ins.Do this by discharging to approximately 30% under a light load take it easy on them,if you run them hard and drain them low from new it does them no favours in the long term.Another thing to keep an eye on is that all cells are balanced evenly if you notice your cells out of balance this is when the drain and charge method is important.

riderfilm Posted at 2016-8-30 17:35
Thanks All.
Why store at 50% instead of 100, what's the science to that?
Sam

Cell life and deterioration. Every 10 cycles you should drain to 5%, wait an hour and recharge to 50~65% Batteries should not sit for 3 months without some kind of usage. Airdate app has a free version but i use the gold version to keep an eye on cell balance and overall health ( as well as flight records of course).

DJI Mindy Posted at 2016-8-29 20:29
Hello Sam,you could refer to this guideline:
http://dl.djicdn.com/downloads/inspire_1/en/Inspire_1_Intelligent_Flight_Battery_Safety_Guidelines_1.4.pdf

You do realize that that PDF says to discharge to 0% and then under maintenance states; Never over-discharge.
Confusing to say the least. I stay with the 5% level.

Be careful of discharging to 5%. I attempted to do this recently  but the aircraft shut down before 5% was reached, resulting in the batteries being over discharged and not able to be recharged. Three of my batteries appear to be ruined but I’m waiting for confirmation by DJI.

MedicFL1 Posted at 2018-4-25 14:53
You do realize that that PDF says to discharge to 0% and then under maintenance states; Never over-discharge.
Confusing to say the least. I stay with the 5% level.

For Inspire 1, we recommend discharging to 0% to power cycle the battery.