A "Solar Mavic"?

[Kestrel]

Doubtful, I've had a hard time finding a solar charger for my phone, the ones i've bought suck and barely charge it at all, so I dont think that one would be a viable option for a mavic.

 

[dewster]

Solar cells can't produce enough energy to sustain flight. It would be nice if you could park the Mavic someplace and have the sun recharge the battery. It would have to be weather proof because it would take forever.

 

[TTFullTimer]

Not aware of any means of extracting a "self-destruct emergency reserve" of energy from a rechargeable Lithium battery. Would probably need to consider some completely different energy storage system to find something that has that feature.

The only thing that comes to my mind for such an idea is an old Star Trek: TNG episode of "Tin Man" in which a Romulan Warbird was able to out-race the Enterprise to an alien spaceship at the cost of destroying its own warp core.

There is lots of reserve power in a LiPo if you don't care about destroying it in one cycle. The turn off voltage of a smart battery like that in the Mavic is well above the level to which one can discharge the battery without regard to its health. I am going to do a WAG and say that a minimum of 1/3 of the original amount of energy used in a flight until DJI turns it off is in "reserve" if you take it to non destruct voltage of 3 volts. I regularly take my truggy batteries down to 2.8 volts without harm. I even had one battery go to 2.5 volts. It is still working just fine to full capacity. I do use an extremely good charger and always balance charge. Balancing cells will extend cycle life by manyfold. My work on electric vehicles for over 45 years has given me lots of insight into batteries of all sorts, primary and secondary. Primary batteries are spent in one cycle. Secondary batteries are rechargeable. I am not sure how well a 35 cent wall wart charger is going to do with true cell balancing.

So if the endurance of the battery is 21 minutes, reserve power could easily give you another 7 minutes, without harming the cells, and perhaps 10 minutes if you just go til it won't go any longer. All depends on the tolerance of the Mavic electronics to lower voltages.

 

[Mako79]

We know that hovering and hitting top speed chews that battery fastest.
There should be whats called eco/cruise/mileage mode that conserves battery but yet gives us optimum speed.

 

[Capra Vecinului]

Oh I so wish that my 20 watt portable solar panel would at least recharge a Mavic battery even if not flying
Sadly the Mavic cell needs more than what the panel can provide.

 

[Sevic pro]

Wind turbine instead?

 

[DOC_XDA]

So, thoretically, after an emergency landing and batteries recharged after a 4 hours of sun exposure there is a still a big problem......who turns on the mavic? (LOL). (I like the way you think aswell

 

[JoostGT3]

Wind turbine instead?

Haha I was going to say the same. Somehow I have a feeling you'll be building a perpetuum mobile though...