80% more run time than lipo

[dirtybum]

Greetings all! Trent here from Titan Power. Someone shared a link to this page with me, thought I'd jump on and say hello and answer any questions you might have. Looks like an awesome discussion is happening, I'm reading through it now trying to catch up.

thanks for jumping in Trent.
As a long distance flyer obsessed with ridiculous flight times I would like to shamelessly ask that titan put me on their test pilot program and send me a few packs to test and post results hopefully of ultra impessive flight times and insane distances. pm me and I'll give you my shipping address[emoji41]

 

[Howdeedoodee]

From Titan website for reference.

What battery should I use?
If you're using Titan for planes or drones, use our flight battery calculator.

What is the minimum voltage of these packs?
Lithium Ion batteries can be safely used down to 2.5v per cell (example: 7.5v for a 3S/11.1v or 10v for a 4S/14.8v). This would leave the pack at 0% capacity. When we use our packs, we usually stop at 2.8v to 3.0v per cell, leaving about 5-10% of the capacity left. This keeps the packs a little cooler, prevents rapid voltage drop, and increasing the longevity of the pack.

What charger do I use for a Lithium Ion pack?
Luckily, Lithium Ion packs can be charged with the exact same charger and with the same settings as you use on LiPo batteries. Typically we charge them a little slower than a LiPo (0.5 to 1C) to get their maximum performance.

How many cycles can I expect from these batteries?
Lifetime depends on use style, the below are guidelines and should result in about 70% to 80% of it's original capacity:
500+ cycles - light use: low discharge rates (<1C), keeping the pack between 10% and 90% charged, proper pack storage when not in use (about 30% SOC).
300 cycles - standard use: above maximum discharge rates, ending the pack's use at 10% (about 2.9v), proper pack storage when not in use (about 30% SOC).
100 cycles - hard use: consistent use at maximum discharge rates, going to minimum voltage during use, stored at full or empty capacity, etc.
>100 cycles - excessive use: consistent use beyond maximum discharge rates, going to minimum voltage during use, stored at full or empty capacity, etc.

 

[GetTitanPower]

Just finished reading through most of this thread. Exciting stuff! A few thoughts:

1 - A lot of testing goes into cell selection, including cell availability, UN38.3 testing (IATA shipping compliance) and performance results as tested in our lab. There are some awesome cells out there, and we've worked hard to have the best for these applications.
2 - We've really, really wanted to build packs for DJI gear, but as you may know, they are pretty hardcore about their proprietary BMS and any non-dji gear would technically void a warranty, so we've been hesitant to go down that path too far. We're not giving up and have plans to further pursue options. For time being, the kinds of mods you're seeing with the little "battery clip trick" seems to be the best / fastest / most reliable method of integrating an additional battery / Lithium Ion.
3 - The voltage range is also an issue as DJI have a very high low voltage setting, which cuts off a good portion of Lithium Ion's available power.
4 - I'm almost 100% sure DJI will eventually go to Lithium Ion, I can't think of a good reason why they haven't already. We do a lot of business with large UAV companies and this technology totally rocks vs LiPo.

Good stuff! Thank you for all the interest. We're pretty excited it about too.

-Trent

 

[Howdeedoodee]

Just finished reading through most of this thread. Exciting stuff! A few thoughts:

1 - A lot of testing goes into cell selection, including cell availability, UN38.3 testing (IATA shipping compliance) and performance results as tested in our lab. There are some awesome cells out there, and we've worked hard to have the best for these applications.
2 - We've really, really wanted to build packs for DJI gear, but as you may know, they are pretty hardcore about their proprietary BMS and any non-dji gear would technically void a warranty, so we've been hesitant to go down that path too far. We're not giving up and have plans to further pursue options. For time being, the kinds of mods you're seeing with the little "battery clip trick" seems to be the best / fastest / most reliable method of integrating an additional battery / Lithium Ion.
3 - The voltage range is also an issue as DJI have a very high low voltage setting, which cuts off a good portion of Lithium Ion's available power.
4 - I'm almost 100% sure DJI will eventually go to Lithium Ion, I can't think of a good reason why they haven't already. We do a lot of business with large UAV companies and this technology totally rocks vs LiPo.

Good stuff! Thank you for all the interest. We're pretty excited it about too.

-Trent

Hi Trent
I was the person who originally email you to look at this post for your commments.
I have a question,....there is a video in this thread that I posted of someone actually videoing their flight With just a standard mavic battery and it clearly shows on the DJI GO/letchi app of him landing with just 1% battery which indicated on the screen as being 2.8 volts per cell, isn't this the ideal cut off point for your Titans as per your spec.
Regarding the DJI warranty quote.
Either:
1/ Most people's Mavic are out of warranty now
Or
2/ Most are not bothered because we would rather have 40 mins of run time and take the small risk because the small battery clip mod is not exactly hacking the Mavic in a big way.
I was the original mavic pilot member who started this thread so how about making me a 2 packs that you think would be perfect for the Mavic as follows.
1/ Maximum capacity in mah that you think would be balanced to the Mavic, I.E.: what's the most weight the Mavic could carry before it crosses or effects the threshold of weight vs flight time if you know what I mean.
2/ High discharge pack and endurance pack, NOTE: The endurance pack would give more run time (80% longer run time vs high heat and 40% longer run time and low heat) but did you see my suggestion in this post of doing a mod by stripping back the heat shrink,applying thermal paste and fitting a streamlined aluminium heat sink to super cool the battery, (these heat sinks cost cents on eBay etc) the thermal paste could be applied direct on the metal outer casing of the cells for maximum heat transfer?
One thing to note is that these batteries would be for long duration flight with minor hovering so there will be plenty of airflow over the heat sink.
If you made two versions.
1/ An Endurance pack, Max mah based on best weight vs flight time as mention above
2/ A high discharge pack, max mah based on weight vs flight time as mentioned above.
I will do the thermal paste/aluminium heat sink mod and report back on here as follows.
Using infrared heat gun.
1/ Temperatures recorded at 3.2v 3.1v 3.0v 2.9v 2.8v all in general flying.
You have already emailed me so let me know what I have to pay to have these pack made up and I will send a PayPal payment or if it's easier just pay for a standard pack close to the amount that these 2 packs would cost.
That is if you up to the challenge/prepared to make these packs up.
The estimate on another forum is approx 167,000 mavic sold and climbing,....that's a lot of Titan battery sales,...you could offer the Mavic/Titan battery pack with the battery clip mod/thermal paste,heat sink as a completed a kit
Jump on the gravy Train Trent, everyone else has whos making Mavic,phantom aftermarket products (antenn's,antenna amplifiers,chargers,accessories,skins,propellers,landing gear,etc,etc.
Regards
John

 

[CyberNate]

...
I have a question,....there is a video in this thread that I posted of someone actually videoing their flight With just a standard mavic battery and it clearly shows on the DJI GO/letchi app of him landing with just 1% battery which indicated on the screen as being 2.8 volts per cell, isn't this the ideal cut off point for your Titans as per your spec.
Regarding the DJI warranty quote.
Either:
1/ Most people's Mavic are out of warranty now
Or
2/ Most are not bothered because we would rather have 40 mins of run time and take the small risk because the small battery clip mod is not exactly hacking the Mavic in a big way.
I was the original mavic pilot member who started this thread so how about making me a 2 packs that you think would be perfect for the Mavic as follows.
1/ Maximum capacity in mah that you think would be balanced to the Mavic, I.E.: what's the most weight the Mavic could carry before it crosses or effects the threshold of weight vs flight time if you know what I mean.
2/ High discharge pack and endurance pack, NOTE: The endurance pack would give more run time (80% longer run time vs high heat and 40% longer run time and low heat) but did you see my suggestion in this post of doing a mod by stripping back the heat shrink,applying thermal paste and fitting a streamlined aluminium heat sink to super cool the battery, (these heat sinks cost cents on eBay etc) the thermal paste could be applied direct on the metal outer casing of the cells for maximum heat transfer?
One thing to note is that these batteries would be for long duration flight with minor hovering so there will be plenty of airflow over the heat sink.
If you made two versions.
1/ An Endurance pack, Max mah based on best weight vs flight time as mention above
2/ A high discharge pack, max mah based on weight vs flight time as mentioned above.
I will do the thermal paste/aluminium heat sink mod and report back on here as follows.
Using infrared heat gun.
1/ Temperatures recorded at 3.2v 3.1v 3.0v 2.9v 2.8v all in general ...

That voltage you are seeing is under load. The battery voltage sags by a good .3 to .7V depending on the current load.

Regarding heat, these 18650 batteries heat up with high discharge rate. I run them on my ebike and even a 7 amp draw per cell sustained is too high. When I run them that hard, they won't charge for 90 minutes due to bms heat cutoff. The batteries I run are exactly the same ones used in titan packs, 18650GA. They are excellent if you can avoid high current draw. I would stick to the larger packs which have parallel cells to cut current draw per cell in half.

I should add, my experience with usage in ebike differs from mavic use case in that I have 56 cells in a 14s4p configuring which makes heat dissipation difficult.

 

[Ed209]

I tested 2x Titan 3500s last year on the P3 and did not have good results. The reason why you guys are seeing such great claims is because they were used in aircraft tuned specifically for efficiency. Building a long run aircraft from scratch and being able to choose airframe materials, ESCs, motors and props and tune for low power consumption is the key. We don't have much options with the Mavic or P3 because the circuitry is proprietary.

Here's my test

Airdata UAV - Flight Data Analysis for Drones

 

[Jake Galloway]

I just installed the NanoSync antenna yesterday, so of course I find myself here in a battery mod thread. I'm very interested in the Titan battery setup. Anybody think the XT60 connector with the 7ah 11.1v Titan battery would be a decent setup that I should try?

 

[Howdeedoodee]

I tested 2x Titan 3500s last year on the P3 and did not have good results. The reason why you guys are seeing such great claims is because they were used in aircraft tuned specifically for efficiency. Building a long run aircraft from scratch and being able to choose airframe materials, ESCs, motors and props and tune for low power consumption is the key. We don't have much options with the Mavic or P3 because the circuitry is proprietary.

Here's my test

Airdata UAV - Flight Data Analysis for Drones

Whats the amp draw of the P3 compaired to the mavic?
Someone on the forums tested the mavic motors as 4.5 amps.
The P3 is a bit of a dinosaur in terms efficiency.

 

[Howdeedoodee]

I just installed the NanoSync antenna yesterday, so of course I find myself here in a battery mod thread. I'm very interested in the Titan battery setup. Anybody think the XT60 connector with the 7ah 11.1v Titan battery would be a decent setup that I should try?

 

[CyberNate]

Whats the amp draw of the P3 compaired to the mavic?
Someone on the forums tested the mavic motors as 4.5 amps.
The P3 is a bit of a dinosaur in terms efficiency.

Mavic current draw is DEFINITELY not 4.5 amps. Even without externals, if the draw was an average of 4.5A, the stock battery would yield 51.24 minutes flight time. It is quite simple to calculate the average current draw. You take the used capacity of the battery and divided by how long the flight was in hours. So if you used 3600mah from the main battery (3.6AH) and the flight was 30 minutes you would get 3.6AH / .5 hours = 7.6A average current draw. In reality the Mavic doesn't run 30 minutes, but just an easy example.

 

[Howdeedoodee]

Mavic current draw is DEFINITELY not 4.5 amps. Even without externals, if the draw was an average of 4.5A, the stock battery would yield 51.24 minutes flight time. It is quite simple to calculate the average current draw. You take the used capacity of the battery and divided by how long the flight was in hours. So if you used 3600mah from the main battery (3.6AH) and the flight was 30 minutes you would get 3.6AH / .5 hours = 7.6A average current draw. In reality the Mavic doesn't run 30 minutes, but just an easy example.

.
.
Ok...say that DJI follow the 20% rule for the lipo, the lipo is 3830mah minus the 20% rule for lipo's,.that leaves 3.0ah... divide this by 27 miniutes flight time as quoted by DJI then this gives you just over 6 amps, when i wrote 4.5 amps in the above post i did just state motors as in each motor not the entire current draw,some guy on another post pulled off the motors and tested them.
This list is from Titans website
Pack Constant Full Throttle Burst

Titan 2S 3500mAh Endurance 40W 130W 200W
Titan 3S 3500mAh Endurance 60W 195W 300W
Titan 4S 3500mAh Endurance 80W 260W 400W
Titan 3S 2600mAh Fast Discharge 113W 300W 600W
Titan 3S 7000mAh Endurance
Titan 6S 3500mAh Endurance 120W 520W 800W
Titan 4S 2600mAh Fast Discharge 150W 400W 800W
Titan 4S 7000mAh Endurance 160W 520W 800W
Titan 3S 5200mAh Fast Discharge
Titan 6S 2600mAh Fast Discharge 225W 600W 1,200W
Titan 4S 5200mAh Fast Discharge 300W 800W 1,600W


So we are looking at the Titan 3s 7000mah endurance 80% more run time which weighs slightly less than a 3300 mah nanotech 65c but is quite a bit thinner (see my photo's in this post of them on weighing scales)
The Titan we are looking at to use is the 3s 7000mah which is rated as per list above at 520w full throttle (520w divided by 11.1 = 54amps) bursts 800w (800 watt divided by 11.1= 72 amps)
so surely we are well in on the amps side of things?
i just looked on the phantom site and someone did a phantom amp test which was 15 amps,...the mavic must be lower than that because it is a lot lighter.
Electrical current measurements

 

[Howdeedoodee]

djhoodrich has done a test with the 3.5mah 11.1 high discharge pack but has ordered a 7.0ma endurance pack to test so watch this space

 

[CyberNate]

.
.
Ok...say that DJI follow the 20% rule for the lipo, the lipo is 3830mah minus the 20% rule for lipo's,.that leaves 3.0ah... divide this by 27 miniutes flight time as quoted by DJI then this gives you just over 6 amps, when i wrote 4.5 amps in the above post i did just state motors as in each motor not the entire current draw,some guy on another post pulled off the motors and tested them.
This list is from Titans website
Pack Constant Full Throttle Burst

Titan 2S 3500mAh Endurance 40W 130W 200W
Titan 3S 3500mAh Endurance 60W 195W 300W
Titan 4S 3500mAh Endurance 80W 260W 400W
Titan 3S 2600mAh Fast Discharge 113W 300W 600W
Titan 3S 7000mAh Endurance
Titan 6S 3500mAh Endurance 120W 520W 800W
Titan 4S 2600mAh Fast Discharge 150W 400W 800W
Titan 4S 7000mAh Endurance 160W 520W 800W
Titan 3S 5200mAh Fast Discharge
Titan 6S 2600mAh Fast Discharge 225W 600W 1,200W
Titan 4S 5200mAh Fast Discharge 300W 800W 1,600W


So we are looking at the Titan 3s 7000mah endurance 80% more run time which weighs slightly less than a 3300 mah nanotech 65c but is quite a bit thinner (see my photo's in this post of them on weighing scales)
The Titan we are looking at to use is the 3s 7000mah which is rated as per list above at 520w full throttle (520w divided by 11.1 = 54amps) bursts 800w (800 watt divided by 11.1= 72 amps)
so surely we are well in on the amps side of things?
i just looked on the phantom site and someone did a phantom amp test which was 15 amps,...the mavic must be lower than that because it is a lot lighter.
Electrical current measurements

There is no 80 - 20 usage for dji battery. 3.6Ah is a realistic usage for us long range fliers. The draw is well over 8A stock, and more like 15A with heavy external batteries flying at 32mph. Dividing the current draw over 2 or 3 batteries and parallel cells for the 3s2p pack makes the current draw ok for these titan packs on current per 18650ga cell.

 

[djhoodrich]

djhoodrich has done a test with the 3.5mah 11.1 high discharge pack but has ordered a 7.0ma endurance pack to test so watch this space

No I did the test with a 2.6Ah 11.1v 113w Titan

 

[djhoodrich]

7.0Ah will be here on Monday I will definitely do a test with that battery I will do a hover and flying back-and-forth test

 

[djhoodrich]

2.6Ah TITAN

Best flight times so far with this battery is 29 minutes 45 seconds Plus the Mavic battery has been re-charged 24 times

 

[CyberNate]

2.6Ah TITAN

Best flight times so far with this battery is 29 minutes 45 seconds

I would move the external battery forward a bit. You have it sitting right in top of GPS and compass module. Additional you are moving the center of gravity too far to the rear. Put it right on the mavic battery.

 

[djhoodrich]

I would move the external battery forward a bit. You have it sitting right in top of GPS and compass module. Additional you are moving the center of gravity too far to the rear. Put it right on the mavic battery.

Nate, when I did the actual test the battery was a little bit more forward I just stuck in there just now to take the picture

 

[djhoodrich]

I would move the external battery forward a bit. You have it sitting right in top of GPS and compass module. Additional you are moving the center of gravity too far to the rear. Put it right on the mavic battery.

You know what you're absolutely correct as I went back-and looked at the flight data I only had 8 satellites

 

[Ed209]

Whats the amp draw of the P3 compaired to the mavic?
Someone on the forums tested the mavic motors as 4.5 amps.
The P3 is a bit of a dinosaur in terms efficiency.

I don't have the exact number, I'd have to look at my old DAT logs. I wanna say somewhere around 22A per motor. This is divided across the cells when running external batteries so it falls within the limits of the Titan cells. It's worth a shot but as someone else mentioned here, the Li Ion chemistry is not maximized until lower voltage. This is unusable since the Mavic has a hard cutoff before the cells can get that low.