I have been flying the Neo's batteries down to somewhere in the +30% capacity.  In S mode it delivers  ~10 minutes of flight time.  In M mode flying very conservatively the flight times drop.  Guessing once the "training wheels"(ATTI engaged) are off the flight times will drop significantly.

The Request:  Battery Combo kit at a reduced price vs. 3 batteries and the charging hub. Guessing those of us that are more into immersive FPV flying would appreciate such a package.

Hi there,

We are truly sorry for the inconvenience you are experiencing.

Thank you for your recommendations. Please rest assured that we will forward your feedback to the related department for evaluation. In the future, we will optimize and improve the product or service based on user comments.

Thank you for your support and understanding.

Better request:  Batteries with longer flight time please.  The Neo seems as if it can handle another 10 or 20 grams with zero issues.  A more powerful battery would really launch the NEO as the top dog in this space.

Narg Posted at 10-24 15:06
Better request:  Batteries with longer flight time please.  The Neo seems as if it can handle another 10 or 20 grams with zero issues.  A more powerful battery would really launch the NEO as the top dog in this space.

There's already a noticeable difference in M mode performance between using the upper prop cage and not. Another 10-20g is 2-4x the weight of that thing and it would probably not be worth a minute or 2 extra.

fichek Posted at 10-24 23:48
There's already a noticeable difference in M mode performance between using the upper prop cage and not. Another 10-20g is 2-4x the weight of that thing and it would probably not be worth a minute or 2 extra.

Based on flying previous non-dji quads of similar mass, but with probably more powerful motors. Every gram counts. Why I'm a bit skeptical if a larger capacity battery would significantly increase flight times due to increase weight of the battery.  

Even flying gently down to +30% capacity I only get a few seconds over 10 minutes.  Personally adding a minute or two with a larger capacity battery is not important.  People that have never flown a "trad" lipo powered quad don't realize how short our flights can be.  Guessing most the DJI quads are using low KV, relative high torque motors to allow using lithium ion cells in their batteries.  Exception might be the DJI FPV which I think use lithium polymer cells.

Have removed the top prop guards.  Definitely would not add any more mass such as those aftermarket bumpers.

Narg Posted at 10-24 15:06
Better request:  Batteries with longer flight time please.  The Neo seems as if it can handle another 10 or 20 grams with zero issues.  A more powerful battery would really launch the NEO as the top dog in this space.

Per DJI specs. 18 minutes without top prop guards. 17 minutes with the prop guards. These guards are light. Put a 10 gm weight if possible at the CG and see how your Neo handles  in S and M modes. Check out the difference in flight times. You will probably be disappointed. But then maybe... But considering how much the light weight prop guards effect flight times. Thinking no significant flight time improvement at the cost of performance  (agility and speed).

Has anybody ever been able to get this 18min or 17min flighttime with the NEO? Even with flying the batt down to zero, i think iti is closer to 10-12min then it is 17...

ralf-djiforum Posted at 10-25 08:45
Has anybody ever been able to get this 18min or 17min flighttime with the NEO? Even with flying the batt down to zero, i think iti is closer to 10-12min then it is 17...

"Lab" specs. Not real world flight times.  Just a benchmark when comparing against other DJI drones.
Calm days flying S mode or gentle M mode with ATTI engaged I fly down to no lower than 30% capacity and get around 10 minutes.

Only flying the Avata2 in S mode. Similar flight times of ~10minutes down to ~30% battery capacity.
Colder temperatures kicking in.  Flight times will probably drop once sub 10C.  

fichek Posted at 10-24 23:48
There's already a noticeable difference in M mode performance between using the upper prop cage and not. Another 10-20g is 2-4x the weight of that thing and it would probably not be worth a minute or 2 extra.

There has been someone that cut the battery pack open and stuffed a bigger Li-Po in, and it resulted in 2 mins more flight time, I agree with you it is not worth it.

For kicks the YTube presenter who posted couple durability crash test of the Neo (Drone Wilder?) posted a carrying capacity video.  Didn't comment on how much the additional load reduced flight times.  Used the Tx that is packaged with the Neo kit.  Guessing flying S mode. 25gm and 50gm no apparent issue. 75gm the Neo was unable to maintain a steady hover. Guessing significant reduction in flight times and probably really stressing the motors over time.  The Neo of all the brushless motor quad flown has the smallest motors.  Impressive lift thrust and relative speed for such tiny motors.

umpa Posted at 10-26 02:43
There has been someone that cut the battery pack open and stuffed a bigger Li-Po in, and it resulted in 2 mins more flight time, I agree with you it is not worth it.

Most cases there is the diminishing return on additional capacity with the additional weight on overall flight times.

The largest quad I've own is 450mm motor axle to axle.  Normal I flew it with a 3000mAh battery.  Made the mistake of bumping up to a 4000mAh battery.  The increase in flight time was minimal due to the additional mass of the larger capacity battery. Lesson learned.

A larger battery would help.  Example is the Potensic Atom LT.  They reduced the weight of the Atom and added a larger battery.  Added 10 mins flight time.  That's significant.

I'm assuming the raw battery, without case, wires, connectors, etc, is probably in the 30 to 40 gram ball park.  With the Neo at 150 grams total with battery, upping it to 170 grams would not have any negative effect.  Heck, upping it to 190 grams could even be a tremendous plus for this little drone.  Imagine getting 30 mins real world flight time out of it?  That could be a real game changer.  

The way I see it battery tech is getting better, slowly but surely.  Flight times of drones does not seem to be getting any better (from my extremely non-scientific approach with terrible memory...)  Why not?  Why don't we see small hobbyist drones with 1+ hours of battery time today?  I think we should.  Heck, even a sub 250gram drone could theoretically do this.  If these are out there, and someone knows about it, please point it out.

I'm not quite good enough at electrical engineering, or I'd already be hacking the battery on the Neo just to prove this could be done.  This would be a great YouTube video if one of the drone influencers out there were to want a topic to dive into.

Narg Posted at 10-27 09:31
A larger battery would help.  Example is the Potensic Atom LT.  They reduced the weight of the Atom and added a larger battery.  Added 10 mins flight time.  That's significant.

I'm assuming the raw battery, without case, wires, connectors, etc, is probably in the 30 to 40 gram ball park.  With the Neo at 150 grams total with battery, upping it to 170 grams would not have any negative effect.  Heck, upping it to 190 grams could even be a tremendous plus for this little drone.  Imagine getting 30 mins real world flight time out of it?  That could be a real game changer.  

"they reduced the weight...."  The key to offset any additional mass of the battery.  Curious how heavy the Neo battery cells are?  Maybe a significant percentage of the battery weight are the other components in the "intelligent" battery.   If space allows for larger capacity cells the total weight gain might be minimal relative to the added capacity.  Lots of speculation and if, buts.

Where or how much weight  a v2 Neo could be trimmed off.  Maybe just removing the propeller guards would be significant.  Put that mass into v2 Neo battery and bump up the total capacity by x%.

But considering all the people posting  and personal experience flying in too low light and or low satellite locks issues. I'm guessing more would be happy for a drone that behaves as expected.  If hardware issue. The maybe simple fix would be just allowing us to engage ATTI mode and fly without stabilization.  More or less like trad angle mode in non dji quads.  

1. NEW batteries seem to need to be "activated" (very missleading word but still used by ppl) by flying FULL capacity 100-0% at least 3 times, then the flights start to get longer under the exact same conditions somehow.

2. from NEW/fresh batteries (I have already 4 of them and the hub..) I usually get about 10 minutes of flight (no matter if  AI, Smartphone or RC-N3 controlled). After using them for a couple of times, I got better times (see point 1)

3. ---> as for the "payload" (propguards, etc), I calculated ROUGHTLY:  EACH GRAMM EXTRA COSTS YOU ABOUT 6 SECONDS OF FLYTIME .. so 10g extra means at least a full minute of less flight time in my experiments.

4. The app always starts to want to emergency-land the Neo when reaching 30% when flying with RC-N3. you can keep it flying close to 0% by pushing throttle up (maybe all the way up) the whole time to get back to your place. RTH-readiness oftenly fails (message in app DRONE CAN NOT RTH AUTOMATICALLY) -- I pray I will never really need it, also it is very slow in descending, like 2min from 50m high directly above me until automatic landing on ground (some 7m away from the starting point) - but i guess this is for an other topic in this forums

5. YOU CAN CHARGE THE NEO WHILE FLYING -- you can fly the neo while charging, try plugging in the usb-c and start. you could saddle-pack an other battery and inflight-charge with up to 15W .. maybe the extra-weight vs more capacity will give you a minute to three.... did not try it. also it is illegal per instructions from dji to fit ANY payload which is not officially licensed (which will not happen for extra stuff since it would require a complete new C0 certification which is expensive)

regards,
marcus

Wonder what the cell voltages are when your OSD reads 0% capacity?  Also, at the auto RTH and critical low battery auto landing?  Personally would not want to run even a lithium ion battery lower than 3v when under load.  I killed a 6s lithium polymer battery on the first flight not understanding the voltage sag profile of the specific battery.  Tattu R-line.  Resists voltage sag at very low capacity. But within moments of a critical capacity level the voltage sag is huge. Flew the quad back to the landing pad very gently, but  OSD noted  3.4 volts/cell to sub 3v in less than the minute it took to land. Should have checked the online data sheet and reviews before using.  Put the battery onto the diy battery discharger to drop the DMM reading sub 1v. for disposal.   Too dangerous a battery to try to recharge.

Use a now discontinued NiteCore headlamp that uses a lithium ion 18650 battery.  Using quality battery .  Slider switch that lacks friction and lock. Have sent couple of the 18650 battery to the bin from not realizing the slider is on when the lamp is in storage.  Even with a "smart" charger cannot revive the battery.  Supposedly you can use a NiMH charging profile to bring back dead lithium ions.  IMO, Not worth the risk.

Reasons why I'm conservative with depth of discharge with these relatively expensive DJI batteries.  But.  Maybe the BMS protect the cells from stress and 0% is not actually zero?