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AMA LiPo guide

Excellent source, but bear in mind that the Mavics battery is intelligent, and charging it is a little different than charging a standard lipo with deans connector. Biggest difference is that you should only charge it with a DJI charger.
 
Excellent source, but bear in mind that the Mavics battery is intelligent, and charging it is a little different than charging a standard lipo with deans connector. Biggest difference is that you should only charge it with a DJI charger.

Why only DJI charger, the "intelligence" for current limitation and cell balance is all in the battery, I have used other chargers for my Mavic battery without ill effect, read my post on how to charge a Mavic battery in an emergency with 2 paper clips, some bits of wire, and a car battery... :)
Waylander
 
Hi Thunderdrones

I work in the field of electronics, as a technician, DJI or anyone else for that matter, do not have a crystal ball, in addition I very much doubt that DJI or any of it's sub-contractors have the time or the will to strip down a battery to find out what has gone wrong with it, they probably handle hundreds of them, the battery at best will be consigned to the recycle bin.
A great deal of hype is spoken about "INTELIGENT" flight batteries, In simple terms the Mavic batteries have a built in charge/discharge control circuit which regulates the charge rate to each cell.
The battery requires a DC voltage of around 13.05v to charge, and draws a current of around 2 amps when at around 20% charge state.
The current consumption of the battery falls proportionally as the state of charge increases, down to milliamp's when it approaches a fully charged state, I believe that this reduction in charging current is what the on board circuit detects, and as a consequence turns off the solid state switching device which allowed it to receive charge.
Have a look at the post I prepared, you can charge a Mavic LiPo with 2 paper-clips, some electric cable, electrical tape and a fully charged car battery.
I did the post for a guy who was stuck in Maui, who thought his charger was faulty, I sent him photos and a description of how to do it, and of course I did the process to mine to prove that it worked. :)

Have fun, keep prop side up..
Waylander
 
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Have a look at the post I prepared, you can charge a Mavic LiPo with 2 paper-clips, some electric cable, electrical tape and a fully charged car battery.
I did the post for a guy who was stuck in Maui, who thought his charger was faulty, I sent him photos and a description of how to do it, and of course I did the process to mine to prove that it worked. :)

Just out of curiosity, did you notice what the pack limited the input current to?

I always advise that people do not use an unregulated source but knowing the failsafe limit would help determine how bad it is to regularly use an unregulated power source.
 
Hi Thunderdrones

I work in the field of electronics, as a technician, DJI or anyone else for that matter, do not have a crystal ball, in addition I very much doubt that DJI or any of it's sub-contractors have the time or the will to strip down a battery to find out what has gone wrong with it, they probably handle hundreds of them, the battery at best will be consigned to the recycle bin.
A great deal of hype is spoken about "INTELIGENT" flight batteries, In simple terms the Mavic batteries have a built in charge/discharge control circuit which regulates the charge rate to each cell.
The battery requires a DC voltage of around 13.05v to charge, and draws a current of around 2 amps when at around 20% charge state.
The current consumption of the battery falls proportionally as the state of charge increases, down to milliamp's when it approaches a fully charged state, I believe that this reduction in charging current is what the on board circuit detects, and as a consequence turns off the solid state switching device which allowed it to receive charge.
Have a look at the post I prepared, you can charge a Mavic LiPo with 2 paper-clips, some electric cable, electrical tape and a fully charged car battery.
I did the post for a guy who was stuck in Maui, who thought his charger was faulty, I sent him photos and a description of how to do it, and of course I did the process to mine to prove that it worked. :)

Have fun, keep prop side up..
Waylander

Is this Amazon.com: FSLabs DJI Mavic Pro 5 In 1 Rapid Battery Charger Smart Multi Battery Intelligent Charging Hub: Toys & Games safe to use with it the mavic batteries to charge them?

 
Just out of curiosity, did you notice what the pack limited the input current to?

I always advise that people do not use an unregulated source but knowing the failsafe limit would help determine how bad it is to regularly use an unregulated power source.

Hi Mark
The battery that I did the trial with was discharged to around 26% according to the DJI GO 4 app, and I had an AVO meter connected in series with the battery +Vdc supply cable, at that state of charge the current drawn from the battery was 2.3 amps, steadily reducing down to milliamp's towards the end of the charge cycle, I was not in the workshop when the battery switched off the charging cycle, but at the point where all 4 LED's where scrolling, possibly 10 minutes from the end of the charge cycle there was around 100 Ma reading.

After the charge had finished I but the battery into the Bird and looked at the battery status in the DJI Go 4 app, all of the cells showed a balanced voltage to with 0.02 volts of each other, what you would normally expect. I have since charged and flow that battery several times, no problems.

This was never intended to be a full evaluation of the charging characteristics of the Mavic battery, but a way to get a guy out of a fix he was in, when I get more time I will do a more in depth trial, and carefully log the results.

If you have reservations, then connect a 12 volt 24 watt auto-mobile stop tail lamp in series with the battery's + Vdc supply cable, and that will limit the current to a maximum of around 2 amps.

I have not experimented with the maximum output current available from the DJI charger, but I imagine it will be fitted with a current limiting "crowbar" type circuit to protect it from short circuits in the output.

Waylander
 
The battery that I did the trial with was discharged to around 26% according to the DJI GO 4 app, and I had an AVO meter connected in series with the battery +Vdc supply cable, at that state of charge the current drawn from the battery was 2.3 amps...

That is actually a surprisingly low and rather comforting number.

I'll stop worrying about some of the more crazy things people want to do to charge these packs :)
 

Hi clare

I don't know the product, but from looking online at the output characteristics of the charger, I don't see why it would not be OK, just charging 1 battery will not burden the chargers output stage which is rated at 13.5 amps, with each of the three charge leads having a 4.5 amp capacity each.
But the more you load up the charger the harder it works and the more heat it generates, so if the build quality is good with ample robustness in the solid state output devices, then drawing 13.5 amps should not create a problem, but as I said to the OP mark-t, I don't think the Mavic battery will draw much more than 2 amps when charging from 20%.
But don't place a law suit on me for my opinion ;) as I said I have not "researched" this, it was a quick fix for a guy in Maui who wanted to fly the next day

Waylander
 
I've got one of the 5-in-1 chargers, early stock did not have the ground pin connected which given it is a metal case was perhaps not ideal :)

Current stock is reported as having fixed that.

Mine was very early so I opened it up and did a little work to make sure the circuit board was properly isolated from the metal case (poorly trimmed component legs, some uninsulated wires close to case side, no protection between underside of circuit board and metal case other than air gap.)

Having opened up a few of them now, I'd say the current versions are looking a lot cleaner inside and pretty much good to go without any re-work.

My original one has worked flawlessly from new.
 
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