Hi!

I set the "time to discharge" battery setting to 1 day on December 27th. Today, February 2nd I check the battery status to find it at 46%

I was expecting to find an empty battery, but I didnt. What is happening?

thanks!

Hi - it's a good idea to tell us what you're flying when you have a problem or question.  

What likely happened is your battery began discharging on Dec 28th.  It only discharges to about 65% and then stops.  From that point, it likely discharged naturally due to just sitting around and not being used.  You do not want an empty battery, so the fact that you have 46% is a good thing and within the recommended storage limits.  

Personally, I like to keep my battery so it shows two solid green lamps and a blinking third green lamp.  If you wanted to do that, you'd stick it on the charger for about five minutes, right now.  Then just keep an eye on it until you're ready to fly again.

Hope this helps.

The "intelligent" part of the Intelligent Flight Battery takes care of all that for you.  It will put the battery into the optimum storage level for the best life of the battery.   Storing fully charged batteries for a long time is not a good thing, they are prone to swell and become damaged.   Completely flattening a battery is also not good for it, and it will not store well at that charge either.  Approximately half-charged is optimum for storage.  Different chemistries have different requirements, and older batteries like NiCd may have required full disharge or a different charging regime.  The more modern Lithium batteries have a different handling requirement.   You are safe letting the intelligent circuitry of DJI batteries take care of it for you.  In your case, it would start discharging a fully charged battery you have put into storage after a day or so (as long as you don't press the button on the battery, or the timer will restart).  It will take a couple of days to slowly self-discharge to the optimum level of 50-60%.  It will get warm as it discharges the extra capacity, but not hot enough to be concerned that it will melt anything or cause a fire.

Yes, It is 65% but it still discharges when you let it sit.

KevDrones Posted at 2017-2-9 18:28
Yes, It is 65% but it still discharges when you let it sit.

Correct.  Even when they are "off" they are actually in standby, periodically checking the charge level and battery status, and checking the power button for a press.  This uses a small amount of battery power and will contribute to reducing charge capacity over time.  If you don't use the battery for 6 months or so, you could expect it to noticeably discharge from the optimum storage capacity.

thanks very much for the answers!

about "it's a good idea to tell us what you're flying when you have a problem or question. ", I thought I was posting in Phantom 3 pro/adv section.-

Okay - I read this in the general Phantom forum... which includes all Phantom posts I guess

camilo zk Posted at 2017-2-10 06:31
thanks very much for the answers!

about "it's a good idea to tell us what you're flying when you have a problem or question. ", I thought I was posting in Phantom 3 pro/adv section.-

Unfortunately we are still inundated with problems by Standard, P4, Mavic, Inspire and even Osmo owners.

As far as my expirience allow me to answer, auto discharging battery almost everytime was in around 40-50%. Seems that DJI thinks that's enough.

@DJI-Ken, Although I haven't tried this yet, but have often wondered about this thought.

If I was to fly my flight packs down to say 40% charge, would the auto discharge ever kick in. at all?
Would it matter ever again, what time frame, my auto discharge was set at? ;-)

Just curious of your thinking on this?


RedHotPoker

what would you recommend at the time of start using the batteries again? to use them where the auto discharge left them (40%), exhaust them and charge them, or charge them fully from where the auto discharge left?

From what I've gathered over the years:

You must always launch with a fully charged battery.  Otherwise your Phantom may drop from the sky.  We've seen many examples of this.

Don't confuse discharge with auto discharge or deep discharge.  There seems to be three schools of thought on deep discharge.  One is to do it regularly every 20 cycles.  Another is to never do it.  And yet another is to do it only when you think it needs it such as you have unbalanced cells.  If you want to do it, the procedure is to fully charge, then immediately deep discharge, then immediately fully charge.  This will often bring the cells closer to balance.  

My understanding is the auto-discharge will only work when battery is above optimum storage level which is to say above 65% charge.  The auto discharge stops at about 65%.  Optimum storage level is 40%-65%.  These numbers vary slightly depending on your AC and your manual, but these numbers are a good guideline for all Phantoms.

Ok at the risk of sidetracking everybody, what about the battery in the RC? Does it discharge at the same, or similar, rate of the P3 batteries?

I'm a new P3S owner and am at that 20 flight mark and can't decide if I should deep discharge the battery or even how to do it properly.  Some say run battery down to 8% and recharge, some say run it down until AC shuts off and recharge, and some say don't do it at all. Is there a clear concensus from long time pilots? I just want to get the most out of this expensive but amazing battery.  

Also to note; when the batteries are left alone for a very long time, they go into hibernate.  I beleive that means all electronics in it shut off completely where you have to put the battery on the charger to wake it up since that's the only place the battery electronics can get power to reactivate.

dpnuggs Posted at 2017-2-12 18:04
I'm a new P3S owner and am at that 20 flight mark and can't decide if I should deep discharge the battery or even how to do it properly.  Some say run battery down to 8% and recharge, some say run it down until AC shuts off and recharge, and some say don't do it at all. Is there a clear concensus from long time pilots? I just want to get the most out of this expensive but amazing battery.

I thought there would be a point when the AC would shut off when the battery reached 0% or near 3.0V.
Apparently my P3A did not.  It managed to get at or just under 3.0V where I said enough and immediately put it back on charge.   I may have lost some capacity in making that maneuver.
Note that when you just reach 0%, the battery voltage is about 3.4V per cell if memory serves, which is well above the safety margin of not being near 3.0V.

So don't leave the AC unattended to just sit therte to discharge the batteries or you will undercharge them.  LiPos really don't do well when you do that.

So should you only fly up to 20% battery?

Good info... I'm lovin the advice and info i read here, thanks!

My batteries are at 2 lights everytime I grab my drone.  I set my time to discharge to 1 day. Does it hurt the battery if you only use the drone once a month or every other month?

If you are at two lights every time you grab your drone, smile, because you're livin' the life.  

Give it a full charge.  Be sure it's warm.  Fly.  Be happy.  :-)

Mark The Droner Posted at 2017-2-10 07:09
Okay - I read this in the general Phantom forum... which includes all Phantom posts I guess

I clicked on the small Phantom picture below his name and see P3Adv ...

sky wombat Posted at 2017-2-12 14:58
Ok at the risk of sidetracking everybody, what about the battery in the RC? Does it discharge at the same, or similar, rate of the P3 batteries?

It will have a similar self discharge rate but not due to any firmware or software instructions. LiPo self discharge as do any batterys ... but at an extremely slow rate.

As to RC controller ... because of its very low power demand when working - you can basically ignore discharging it unless you are going to leave it for a long period ... than 1/2 discharge it.

dpnuggs Posted at 2017-2-12 18:04
I'm a new P3S owner and am at that 20 flight mark and can't decide if I should deep discharge the battery or even how to do it properly.  Some say run battery down to 8% and recharge, some say run it down until AC shuts off and recharge, and some say don't do it at all. Is there a clear concensus from long time pilots? I just want to get the most out of this expensive but amazing battery.

Personal view .... don't do it.

Maybe once a year to reset counter ... but otherwise leave it be. The best policy in my opinion is to fly to about 15 - 20% battery once in a while and that will help keep counter in line.

DanMan32 Posted at 2017-2-12 19:58
I thought there would be a point when the AC would shut off when the battery reached 0% or near 3.0V.
Apparently my P3A did not.  It managed to get at or just under 3.0V where I said enough and immediately put it back on charge.   I may have lost some capacity in making that maneuver.
Note that when you just reach 0%, the battery voltage is about 3.4V per cell if memory serves, which is well above the safety margin of not being near 3.0V.

Myself a number of others - we tested discharge of P3 batterys and we found that when at or just below 3.0V - the batterys board shut down. The lowest we got to was 2.9V on odd cells.

Serious damage to a LiPo occurs at 2.85V ... but for practical purposes we take 3.0V as a lowest limit to try prevent damage. It is not advisable to discharge so low.

I personally would never use the AC to discharge the battery ... there are far better ways to do it ... such as Telsin discharger ... programmable LiPo chargers ... etc.

But best of all ........... don't do deep discharges.

KevDrones Posted at 2017-2-17 10:22
So should you only fly up to 20% battery?

If you want good life out of your batterys - yes.

I like to fly to about 30 - 35% ... then I know I can stand my batterys until next needed and charge up.

solentlife Posted at 1-31 02:45
Personal view .... don't do it.

Maybe once a year to reset counter ... but otherwise leave it be. The best policy in my opinion is to fly to about 15 - 20% battery once in a while and that will help keep counter in line.

"Maybe once a year to reset counter" ...

Solentlife,  What do you mean by reset the counter??

T3rdEye Posted at 1-31 08:49
"Maybe once a year to reset counter" ...

Solentlife,  What do you mean by reset the counter??

The charge control / telemetry board fitted to the front of your DJi battery ... one of its functions is to report charged capacity of your battery. In GO - you can see the quoted capacity in mAh ..

What happens is with all the partial discharges and then charges we do - that boards chip can get out of step with the mA's in / mA's out.
Doing a lower discharge than you would flying ... lets say you discharge to 30 - 40% usually when flying ... an occasional deep discharge to 10% can help to put the counter back to show nearer correct.

Its about the only item that deep discharge does.

adrian8891 Posted at 2017-2-10 13:00
As far as my expirience allow me to answer, auto discharging battery almost everytime was in around 40-50%. Seems that DJI thinks that's enough.

Auto Discharge takes the DJI battery down to about 65% ... then leaves the battery alone - which basically then Self Discharges at a very low rate.

Auto discharge will work from any level above that 65% .... it will not work below it.
Second - I do not understand why DJI and some still stick to this over 50 - 65% is best storage level ....

Any search of battery manufacturers and such as Battery University will tell you that  50 - 65% is at the TOP level limit and in fact its better to be at the LOWER end of the scale ... which is 30 - 35%.
Cell voltage is recc'd to be 3.70 to 3.85V per each cell for storage.

solentlife Posted at 1-31 12:57
Auto Discharge takes the DJI battery down to about 65% ... then leaves the battery alone - which basically then Self Discharges at a very low rate.

Auto discharge will work from any level above that 65% .... it will not work below it.
Second - I do not understand why DJI and some still stick to this over 50 - 65% is best storage level ....

Any search of battery manufacturers and such as Battery University will tell you that  50 - 65% is at the TOP level limit and in fact its better to be at the LOWER end of the scale ... which is 30 - 35%.
Cell voltage is recc'd to be 3.70 to 3.85V per each cell for storage.

You write: Second - I do not understand why DJI and some still stick to this over 50 - 65% is best storage level ....

The answer appears to be obvious from your own post.

If an owner stores at 65%, the battery will naturally discharge and take some time to reach 0% and die.

If an owner stores at 35%, the battery will naturally discharge and reach 0% - and die - in significantly less time.

Mark The Droner Posted at 1-31 13:20
You write:  Second - I do not understand why DJI and some still stick to this over 50 - 65% is best storage level ....

The answer appears to be obvious from your own post.

Hi Mark ...

Please - that is confusing two items / issues.

One issue is what is best storage level. Battery manufacturers and sites such as University advise 35 - 50% with it better in the lower range. This is due to chemical and physical properties in the cells.

The second issue which I know you are aware of is the extremely low self discharge rate of all batterys.

Here's a good site to check out on this : http://www.manoonpong.com/Other/main_page=page_2.pdf

LiPo LSD rate of 5% per month ... vs NiXX that can be 20 -30% over same period.

Note also as a manufacturer they state 40% storage.

My point in questioning DJI stating the 50 - 65% is that it does not agree with manufacturers of LiPo cells. The LSD of cells is not the point and at less than 5% a month ... LSD is not an issue for vast majority of users. But what is important is the best storage level for the packs.