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Mavic Battery Mod

Just deal with the flight time you have buy another battery don't mess with a mod like this, not worth the risk for a thousand dollar drone
 
Unless it's a more power mod, as in 4 or 5S to compensate for the weight, all
your doing is making your drone fly badly for longer
 
Unless it's a more power mod, as in 4 or 5S to compensate for the weight, all
your doing is making your drone fly badly for longer

I guess it depends on how you define "fly badly". Others that have tried it report stability and longer flight time and distance. Having batteries in parallel does provide slightly more power for the motors due to less voltage sag. Certainly it won't be as nimble, but perhaps smoother in transitions with the extra weight. Another factor is the size of the batteries. If you add 500 grams of weight, that would be pushing it to the limit. Below 300 grams should be fine. We shall see. I just got my battery mod. Need to pick it up at the post office.
 
Having batteries in parallel does provide slightly more power for the motors due to less voltage sag.

This is a incorrect statement when using lipo technology. You also have to consider lipo cutoff and lipo balance when you tie batteries in parallel. The technology in the esc doesn't know it is dealing with a pair of lipos in a series. Don't be disappointed when your Mavic goes up in flames like a hover board.
 
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Having batteries in parallel does provide slightly more power for the motors due to less voltage sag.

This is a incorrect statement when using lipo technology. You also have to consider lipo cutoff and lipo balance when you tie batteries in series. The technology in the esc doesn't know it is dealing with a pair of lipos in a series. Don't be disappointed when your Mavic goes up in flames like a hover board.
You have no idea what you're talking about.

Edit: Perhaps I should clarify that statement. I think you don't understand the difference between batteries in series versus batteries in parallel. This is very elemental in the understanding of batteries. You CANNOT add batteries in series to the Mavic battery and no one is even talking about that. You add the batteries in parallel which keeps the same voltage, but distributed over more cells. The current draw is divided proportionally (for the most part, but not quite due to varying capacities between packs) between the parallel packs. Battery voltage sag is directly proportional to the current draw. You can see this in any white paper for a lithium based battery.
 
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Having batteries in parallel does provide slightly more power for the motors due to less voltage sag.

This is a incorrect statement when using lipo technology. You also have to consider lipo cutoff and lipo balance when you tie batteries in series. The technology in the esc doesn't know it is dealing with a pair of lipos in a series. Don't be disappointed when your Mavic goes up in flames like a hover board.

Not even accurate . I'm pretty sure the Mavics ESCs are purpose built to only handle 3SP due to cost but no one is talking re-wiring to series connection for higher voltage . Most all of the ESCs I use in my purpose built drones can detect and handle 2s to 6s with no problem though . Adding more mah capacity in parallel will generally give you more flight time at the expense of being less nimble but with the Mavic being a video platform and not a racer that works out fine . Most people want more flight time when they do this .
 
My first post wrote batteries in series, i meant parallel. My bad.

I beg to differ. Each cell in a lipo is 3.7 volts. Esc' cut off at a safe voltage of 3.0 per cell. The Mavic battery I believe is 3 cells or 11.1 volts. It has built in technology to monitor all three cell voltage as discharged and shut down the quad before cell voltage goes below 3.0 for each cell or 9 v total. Anything below 3 volts will cause the cells to swell and the potential for fire exists. Same is true if you store a fully charged battery. DJI has built in technology to slowly dishcharge batteries when stored. Lipos operate at a range of 3.0-3.7 volts. Less that one volt range. Under normal use nobody will notice .7 drop in power. It isn't nicad or nimh technology. When you run two batteries in parallel you are using 6 total cells (3 per lipo battery) to power the esc to 11.1 volts but with more capacity Basic generic 3cell lipo batteries are just 3 cells wired in series to get to 11.1 volts. When discharged they can discharge at different rates and allow a cell to drop below 3 volts. As long as the quad esc still senses 9v it isn't going to shut down. This could run one of the six cells way below 3v. You also have to balance charge them do you don't over charge one cell. Good chargers monitor each cell as charging and keeps all cells equal.
I have plenty experience with nimh, nicad, lipo, life batteries in RC for the past 15 years. I have seen numerous lipo fires every year. Just google lipo fire.
 
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I beg to differ. Each cell in a lipo is 3.7 volts. Esc' cut off at a safe voltage of 3.0 per cell. The Mavic battery I believe is 3 cells or 11.1 volts. It has built in technology to monitor all three cell voltage as discharged and shut down the quad before cell voltage goes below 3.0 for each cell or 9 v total. Anything below 3 volts will cause the cells to swell and the potential for fire exists. Same is true if you store a fully charged battery. DJI has built in technology to slowly dishcharge batteries when stored. Lipos operate at a range of 3.0-3.7 volts. Less that one volt range. Under normal use nobody will notice .7 drop in power. It isn't nicad or nimh technology. When you run two batteries in parallel you are using 6 total cells (3 per lipo battery) to power the esc to 11.1 volts but with more capacity Basic generic 3cell lipo batteries are just 3 cells wired in series to get to 11.1 volts. When discharged they can discharge at different rates and allow a cell to drop below 3 volts. As long as the quad esc still senses 9v it isn't going to shut down. This could run one of the six cells way below 3v. You also have to balance charge them do you don't over charge one cell. Good chargers monitor each cell as charging and keeps all cells equal.
I have plenty experience with nimh, nicad, lipo, life batteries in RC for the past 15 years. I have seen numerous lipo fires every year. Just google lipo fire.

All this basic information you're throwing out has nothing to do with the modification. The LVC is the same whether batteries are added in parallel or not. The voltage across the packs will be the same. The part that will vary across the packs is current draw. You might have 15 years experience, but somehow you still do not understand the basics of battery monitoring systems and battery configurations. I happen to have an EE degree and sort of know what I'm talking about.
 
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All this basic information you're throwing out has nothing to do with the modification. The LVC is the same whether batteries are added in parallel or not. The voltage across the packs will be the same. The part that will vary across the packs is current draw. You might have 15 years experience, but somehow you still do not understand the basics of battery monitoring systems and battery configurations. I happen to have an EE degree and sort of know what I'm talking about.

Just because you are an EE doesn't mean you more knowledge than I. You can put a meter on the positive and negative terminal and read 9 volts. What you can't detect is if two cells are at 3.5v and one cell dropped below the cutoff and is at 2v. You have to go through the balance port and check each cell independently. Why does that mav battery have 10 connectors on it? According to you they should only need two. One + and one - to supply voltage across the cells to the esc.
 
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LOL , I think you are over thinking this and letting the fear of one of the cells of the added batteries going below 3.0v get the best of you . heck the stock mavic battery circuit monitors each of its cells and displays the lowest voltage to the controller but it can even be out of calibration . Stuff happens . I've been in the RC game for an awful long time and I have lipos purchased from HobbyKing and Thunder Power back in 2007 that I still fly today . I just use them in non-critical aircraft . I'm curious as to how long I can get useful power out of them and at least 5 have been puffed from the first month I've had them ,lol . The only fires I have seen are on Youtube or from some crazy antics at fly ins where we purpously tried to get them to puff and burn . This mod , while not for me on a off the shelf $1000 aircraft is well within the bounds of what I have done many times on aircraft I have built myself .
 
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Just because you are an EE doesn't mean you more knowledge than I. You can put a meter on the positive and negative terminal and read 9 volts. What you can't detect is if two cells are at 3.5v and one cell dropped below the cutoff and is at 2v. You have to go through the balance port and check each cell independently. Why does that mav battery have 10 connectors on it? According to you they should only need two. One + and one - to supply voltage across the cells to the esc.

You are right about the individual cell monitoring on the external battery, but the pack will reach LVC before any cells are that critical. If packs are in that bad of shape to have issues as you've described, there will be signs, like puffing up from released gases. Of course you wouldn't want to fly with damaged packs.
 
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