dbeck@promobox. Posted at 2015-4-30 22:13
[W]hat diff does it make if you are using a batt that has 10,, or 12 or 17 uses?

If you're the DP on a series of field shoots over several weeks, with a specific stock of batteries, do you want to beat on one battery over and over or do you want to distribute the usage more or less evenly?  Every crew I have ever worked on/with would have said the latter.  Your mileage may, of course, vary.

If you've been doing this for 40 years you have me beat by nearly a decade - I've only been at it for a bit more than 30.  And of course batteries have evolved over the years.  But whether they are nicads, nimh, lipo or some other chemistry, they remain a finite resource.  You get so many charge/discharge cycles and that's it.  So what's the best way of operating within that environment?

If I have, say, six batteries, and I want to ensure I continue to have six batteries that will all be ready to go and give me the performance I need, I probably don't want to beat on one or two of them and not use the others.  I probably want to distribute the workload.  You can do that by powering up using each battery in turn and looking at your mobile device, or you can mark the battery so you can see it immediately.  Marking the battery will also alert you to failures in the firmware that you may not otherwise notice.  If your marks say you have cycled the battery ten times, but the firmware says you've only done it six times, you're on notice that there may be an issue.  That can be useful to know, and if you rely exclusively on the firmware, you may miss it.  Is it a big deal?  Probably not unless you're doing it for a living.  But it IS a best practice.

Am I saying you have to do it?  Hell no.  ESPECIALLY not you, with four decades of experience.  You'll do what you have found works for you over that career.  But someone just starting out, who is looking for some good habits to get into, can evaluate this suggestion and see if it makes sense to them.  If it does, great!  If not, they should see what other ideas are out there that appear to make more sense.  Or they can reinvent the wheel on their own.  It's a free country.

I tend to agree with BOB that bringing lips down to zero is not a good idea.

So do I.  But remember - the firmware of the DJI battery adds a pad on the remaining charge that gets reported back.  It will shut the battery off long before reaching an actual zero.  That's the whole point of the firmware and the point that Bob is leaving out of the discussion.

Bob Marley Posted at 2015-4-30 12:19
I admit, I have stickers on my I1 packs and count every cycle. I have done it from the very beginning of e-flight, (25yrs)

Careful, Bob - you might be accused of actually agreeing with me regarding best practices.  

I do agree with you COMPLETELY, by the way, that discharging a lipo battery by forcing your Inspire not to land at critical low is NOT a good practice.  That DOES stress the battery and is a really bad idea.  I am advocating a more gentle discharge to the point where the firmware in the battery module considers it zero (which is considerably more than an actual zero charge on the lipo, as I've previously explained).  And this is only once in each ten charge/discharge cycles.  For all other cycles other than that one-in-ten, I'm squarely with you in terms of when to bring the bird home, when to land, never wait for critical low and low-batt RTH (which is an extraordinary risk to your bird, IMO), let the pack cool, recharge fully, etc.  Totally spot-on.  Sounds like the ONE place where we disagree has to do with what to do in that one-in-ten cycle, where you say just recharge as usual and I say follow the manufacturer's recommendation.

Now let's you and I and the reader of this message consider a hypothetical.  Our reader is out flying, he or she has 65% battery, suddenly they DON'T - it drops precipitously to zero - and their bird drops like a stone and shatters into a million pieces.  They use a broom and dustpan to get it into a box and ship it to DJI because it is under warranty.  And the nice folks at DJI are still able to access the flight data recorder and reconstruct what happened, which was a catastrophic failure of the lipo battery OR the firmware used to monitor it.

In scenario number one, our reader has done a deep-discharge at every tenth cycle the way DJI described in its instructions.

In scenario number two, they have never done a deep discharge (and were on their fifty-fifth charge cycle when this happened).  And when DJI contacts them and says "the recorded data we recovered says you never deep-discharged the battery pack.  Why not?" their reply is: "Bob Marley told me not to on the chat board."

QUESTION: In which instance is DJI more likely to replace their shattered bird under warranty?

It's the mis-information that gets spread around that really pisses me off, (totally screws over the noobs who are trying to learn).

I know for a fact that 2+2 = 4 and there is not a billion dollar company on the planet that can convince me otherwise.

oops, I gotta run.
My pack just went from 48% to 3%.
Now instead of critical low battery "auto land" at my feet, my bird will enter RTH mode, try to climb to 40m, shut off and drop like a stone.
Nice job DJI -


Bob "firmware lover" Marley

Bob Marley Posted at 2015-5-1 06:26
My pack just went from 48% to 3%. Now instead of "auto land" at my feet, my bird will enter RTH mode, climb to 40m, shut off and drop like a stone.

Yeah, they REALLY have to work on that.  Not thought through terribly well.  My blood ran cold reading that poor guy's story.

PeteGould Posted at 2015-5-1 06:17
Careful, Bob - you might be accused of actually agreeing with me regarding best practices.  

I do ...

DUDE, u just edited your post, (changing it entirely), I'm outta here -

Bob Marley Posted at 2015-5-1 06:33
DUDE, u just edited your post, (changing it entirely), I'm outta here -

Nah, didn't change it entirely (or at least that wasn't the intent and I don't THINK it was the result).  I was going to add a second post but decided it made more sense to add the additional content to the first post.

I've also noticed a characteristic of the forum: if you "reply," save the reply, then edit, you can replace the default back-quote with the specific element you're replying to.  Wish I could do that in the initial reply rather than saving it and re-editing it, but the forum doesn't give that capability.

No sinister motives here.

Look all I'm saying is that with the DJI batts (and my Canon 5DMkIII batts) they both electronically give me a count. I use all of my batts in order e.g. 1.2.3.4.5. etc.  so there is never an issue about over or under use.  Back to the issue.  I have used DroneCamps suggestion, eg. "10 for 10"...I will finish cycle 10 tomorrow...THEN I WILL go out and fly them down (hover over grass) until they reach 'crtiical, 20%) then charge them

dbeck@promobox. Posted at 2015-5-1 07:29
I will finish cycle 10 tomorrow...THEN I WILL go out and fly them down (hover over grass) until they reach 'crtiical, 20%) then charge them

Let us know how you make out.  From what we're hearing, at 10 cycles (with the new battery firmware) you will start getting a warning that you need to deep-cycle the battery, and it will not clear unless you run the battery down to the point where it automatically shuts off.  Some folks have reported running the battery down to where the system reports only 5%, and the warning still does not clear.  So - once you start getting the warning, let us know your experience with it.

Well, I just re read at the batt instructions on the DJI site and it says 20 CYCLES..Now I'm really confused

dbeck@promobox. Posted at 2015-5-1 10:39
Well, I just re read at the batt instructions on the DJI site and it says 20 CYCLES..Now I'm really  ...

Yeah, that came up before.  The separate battery instructions are from December, when they were recommending 20 cycles.  For whatever reason (known to DJI but not to us mere mortals), they changed it to 10 cycles, which is what is in version 1.2 of the owner's manual, dated April of this year (page 22).  And the latest battery firmware, I believe, changes the warning interval programmed into the battery from 20 to 10 cycles.  It would have been nice for DJI to change the standalone battery instructions to match the change to the manual.  But this IS DJI we're talking about.

Quite confusing.  And My quad came with .17.  IM NOT UPDATING. As we know, way too many issues..again with DJI.  I'm going with BOB and his advise

dbeck@promobox. Posted at 2015-5-1 10:48
Quite confusing.  And My quad came with .17.  IM NOT UPDATING. As we know, way too many issues..agai ...

To each their own, of course.  My guess is that if your bird falls from the sky after you follow Bob's advice they will replace it for you as long as you fork over $3K.  So I hope for your sake that Bob is right and that the whole deep-cycle thing is an insane fantasy that DJI cooked up for no reason.  Meanwhile I will continue to follow their protocol, not because I am 100% convinced they are right, but because in the event of disaster I want to know my product is covered under warranty.

Good point,  I will see shortly

hi there.

i'd be grateful if anyone could guide me about what the lowest / minimum charge level should be for a brand new battery (before charging for the very first time) ?

my brand new extra batteries arrived with a 3% and 5% charge level on them (when unboxed) [ i checked thru the dji app ] .

am thinking of returning them before before they go completely dead. or would they ?

thanks in advance.

Dody Posted at 2015-9-15 13:33
hi there.

i'd be grateful if anyone could guide me about what the lowest / minimum charge level sho ...

You have to charge them till 50%

enkhome Posted at 2015-9-15 17:25
You have to charge them till 50%

oh you mean there is possibly nothing wrong with the batteries (and will function fine) ?

Dody Posted at 2015-9-15 08:23
oh you mean there is possibly nothing wrong with the batteries (and will function fine) ?

I built a discharge system like Genettico's system in one of his post. The only things I added in addition to the Led light was 4 tail/stop lights from Walmart. I could have just used the 1157 bulbs but the cost was reasonable for the whole assembly. Wired the tail light and stop light so both drew current. With all the lights and fan the system pulls about 6 ½ amps from the battery.
I was concerned about the current draw so I fully charged a TB46 and then discharged it till shut off and it took a 1 hour and 10 mins.  till the battery shut down. I don't know how much the Inspire pulls during flight but since it pulls the battery down in 16-20 mins it must be pulling a LOT. So I don't think I hurting the batteries and it's a lot easier than letting the inspire sit on the ground running for ½ hour while you stand and watch.
Keith

keithh Posted at 2015-9-15 19:33
I built a discharge system like Genettico's system in one of his post. The only things I added in  ...

thank you for your reply.

the battery that came with my inspire had some 25% charge on it. i had purchased 2 more batteries ; one of them was also around 25% while the other was completely dead.

just yesterday i bought 2 more batteries and they were at 3% and 5% . while i understand that discharging untill the batteries turn off / shut down completely seems to be working for so many people i dare not even go to that level; lowest i have gone while discharging was 5% (and as per latest set of instructions i am supposed to do that after every 10 cycles <--- extremely worrysome) ... my question still remains the same ....   what should be the lowest acceptable charge level for a brand new unboxed battery before charging it for the very first time? (because in my mind a brand new battery with a 3%-5% remaining charge on it [before even it's first full charge] has a huge invisible sticker on it that says clearly ' will die very very soon' , and that's what worrying me because over here in my part of the world a tb47 battery costs at least 200$ each)

Can I suggest using programmable chargers, more as a low current power supply, to charge, or discharge, your Inspire one Batteries ( whose charging circuitry is on board and not in the simple power supply that comes with the I1.   Can I also suggest that we should avoid fast charging when ever we can; go prepared with lots of batteries, lots of slowly charged batteries.

I like the Ni-Cd or Nimh battery charging rule of thumb; 1/10th of the A/h capacity for ten hours  ie: a nice slow charge cycle.  Or just limit the I1 batteries to only an amp or two to charge itself with.  I've been doing this for a while with no problems.    When I use my programmable charger I under rate the batteries capacity by ten percent, when I attach them to the I1 and start the Go App. the battery capacity always reads 90 percent as well and I like that they're in synch.  I also feel that avoiding 100% charges, which are stressful to the battery, should be avoided.   
Is anyone else out there managing their batteries as I do ?   Or is everyone  simply roasting their batteries, to their loss & Dji's gain, with the dumb power supplies supplied to us.

lol, you guys crack me up.  Id bet dollars to donuts the reason youre having batteries suddenly drop from 55% to 0%  or whatever and crash is cause you arent performing the 10 cycle drain till they shut themselves off recommended maintenance because you think these are your standard lipo batteries, which they arent.  they are smart batteries and have built in software that makes overcharging and draining them low enough to cause damage impossible.   This 10 cycle maintenance procedure resets the accuracy of the displayed percent power available.  Failure to do so results in it getting out of wack and thinking it has more than it does and when the voltage drops and it realizes the error it drastically drops suddenly or shuts down completely to prevent damage and you crash.  There was a bug in previous firmware versions that made them pretty much guaranteed to have this sudden drop issue if you let them enter self discharge mode before using them to fly without fully charging them again.

I noticed that a fully topped up battery shows ~ 4.3V / cell.   That's about .1V over the typical max 4.2V recommended for most Lipo's.   I assume DJI is pushing a bit to get the absolute most out of the battery -or- this is a Lipo that can handle it while most can't?   Now does this change the typical recommended storage voltage of ~3.82V / cell?

Dody Posted at 2015-9-15 15:23
oh you mean there is possibly nothing wrong with the batteries (and will function fine) ?

Yes, that is what I say.
Normally you would expect that they will be charged at 50% from factory. Give it a try..

PeteGould Posted at 2015-4-27 08:25
Until someone comes out with a deep-discharge station for these things, once your battery as as lo ...

Hi Pete.  Santa bought me Smart Power Charger.  It has a deep charge ability and will simultaneously charge 4 batteries at one time, while also charging either two controllers or two more batteries from trickle chargers.  will this work?

philipbi Posted at 2015-12-29 23:23
Hi Pete.  Santa bought me Smart Power Charger.  It has a deep charge ability and will simultaneous ...

I believe it will!  Let us know how it works for you.

PeteGould Posted at 2016-1-5 19:38
I believe it will!  Let us know how it works for you.

Pete, I have an Inspire 1, dual controllers and 8 T48 batteries.  I have now successfully used this charger for about 7 charging cycles on my T48 batteries.  Being able to keep my batteries docked in the SmartPower Charger is ideal.  No supervision needed. I keep it filled with 4 batteries, plug in both my RC Controllers, and plug in both my iPad Airs.  This keeps all my equipment charged without me having to worry about overcharging.  The Charger will automatically shut off the Charging bays for the batteries when they are fully charged.  The only mother hen activities for me is to swap out the 4 batteries for the 2nd set of 4 have use as reserves  ;-).  

this is the absolute best $499 we could have spent.  Being able to simultaneously charge all by devices in 1.5hrs is awesome. I am actually thinking of just bringing it with me on long flying days and plug it into my car using one of those 300W inverters connected to my car battery.  This way you could literally fly indefinitely.

PeteGould Posted at 2016-1-5 19:38
I believe it will!  Let us know how it works for you.

Pete, I have an Inspire 1, dual controllers and 8 T48 batteries.  I have now successfully used this charger for about 7 charging cycles on my T48 batteries.  Being able to keep my batteries docked in the SmartPower Charger is ideal.  No supervision needed. I keep it filled with 4 batteries, plug in both my RC Controllers, and plug in both my iPad Airs.  This keeps all my equipment charged without me having to worry about overcharging.  The Charger will automatically shut off the Charging bays for the batteries when they are fully charged.  The only mother hen activities for me is to swap out the 4 batteries for the 2nd set of 4 have use as reserves  ;-).  

this is the absolute best $499 we could have spent.  Being able to simultaneously charge all by devices in 1.5hrs is awesome. I am actually thinking of just bringing it with me on long flying days and plug it into my car using one of those 300W inverters connected to my car battery.  This way you could literally fly indefinitely.

PeteGould Posted at 2016-1-5 19:38
I believe it will!  Let us know how it works for you.

Pete, I have an Inspire 1, dual controllers and 8 T48 batteries.  I have now successfully used this charger for about 7 charging cycles on my T48 batteries.  Being able to keep my batteries docked in the SmartPower Charger is ideal.  No supervision needed. I keep it filled with 4 batteries, plug in both my RC Controllers, and plug in both my iPad Airs.  This keeps all my equipment charged without me having to worry about overcharging.  The Charger will automatically shut off the Charging bays for the batteries when they are fully charged.  The only mother hen activities for me is to swap out the 4 batteries for the 2nd set of 4 have use as reserves  ;-).  

this is the absolute best $499 we could have spent.  Being able to simultaneously charge all by devices in 1.5hrs is awesome. I am actually thinking of just bringing it with me on long flying days and plug it into my car using one of those 300W inverters connected to my car battery.  This way you could literally fly indefinitely.

PeteGould Posted at 2016-1-5 19:38
I believe it will!  Let us know how it works for you.

Pete, I have an Inspire 1, dual controllers and 8 T48 batteries.  I have now successfully used this charger for about 7 charging cycles on my T48 batteries.  Being able to keep my batteries docked in the SmartPower Charger is ideal.  No supervision needed. I keep it filled with 4 batteries, plug in both my RC Controllers, and plug in both my iPad Airs.  This keeps all my equipment charged without me having to worry about overcharging.  The Charger will automatically shut off the Charging bays for the batteries when they are fully charged.  The only mother hen activities for me is to swap out the 4 batteries for the 2nd set of 4 have use as reserves  ;-).  

this is the absolute best $499 we could have spent.  Being able to simultaneously charge all by devices in 1.5hrs is awesome. I am actually thinking of just bringing it with me on long flying days and plug it into my car using one of those 300W inverters connected to my car battery.  This way you could literally fly indefinitely.

PeteGould Posted at 2016-1-5 19:38
I believe it will!  Let us know how it works for you.

Pete, I have an Inspire 1, dual controllers and 8 T48 batteries.  I have now successfully used this charger for about 7 charging cycles on my T48 batteries.  Being able to keep my batteries docked in the SmartPower Charger is ideal.  No supervision needed. I keep it filled with 4 batteries, plug in both my RC Controllers, and plug in both my iPad Airs.  This keeps all my equipment charged without me having to worry about overcharging.  The Charger will automatically shut off the Charging bays for the batteries when they are fully charged.  The only mother hen activities for me is to swap out the 4 batteries for the 2nd set of 4 have use as reserves  ;-).  

this is the absolute best $499 we could have spent.  Being able to simultaneously charge all by devices in 1.5hrs is awesome. I am actually thinking of just bringing it with me on long flying days and plug it into my car using one of those 300W inverters connected to my car battery.  This way you could literally fly indefinitely.

PeteGould Posted at 2016-1-5 19:38
I believe it will!  Let us know how it works for you.

Pete, I have an Inspire 1, dual controllers and 8@ T48 batteries.  I have now successfully used this charger for about 7 charging cycles on my T48 batteries and 3@ of them i have used it to do deep cylce conditioning.  (Forum suggested to do one every 10th flight or so).  Being able to keep my batteries docked in the SmartPower Charger is ideal.  No supervision needed. I keep it filled with 4 batteries, plug in both my RC Controllers, and plug in both my iPad Airs.  This keeps all my equipment charged without me having to worry about overcharging.  The Charger will automatically shut off the Charging bays for the batteries when they are fully charged.  The only mother hen activities for me is to swap out the 4 batteries for the 2nd set of 4 have use as reserves.  

this is the absolute best $499 we could have spent.  Being able to simultaneously charge all by devices in 1.5hrs is awesome. I am actually thinking of just bringing it with me on long flying days and plug it into my car using one of those 300W inverters connected to my car battery.  This way you could literally fly indefinitely.

I am a dork.  i pressed POST but it didn't do anything, i had no idea it was really posting each time i pressed the post buttons. SORRRY>

Tahoe_Ed Posted at 2015-4-27 19:39
At this point I am doing 10 cycles.  The App will give you guidance as well.  Many times we do not ...

I have had two charge cycles from 55% and the counter did not add these to the total. (P3P battery)
This same battery was then flown down to 26% and the next charge it jumped up 2 on the total. Must be hit and miss

Rich

philipbi Posted at 2016-3-3 00:49
Pete, I have an Inspire 1, dual controllers and 8@ T48 batteries.  I have now successfully used th ...

That's great news!
That's great news!
That's great news!
That's great news!
That's great news!
That's great news!

(Sorry - couldn't resist!)  

I read some of the thread, but most of it is old. Is it still recommended to discharge your battery until the Inspire shuts down every 10 charges? It was my understanding that this would actually damage the battery.

It does not it cycles the smart chip.

The easy way to discharge your Batteries is connecting an 24 Volt 35 Watt PAR 36 Halogen lamp. Available at Amazon.com