Am I getting good flight time with my MA2 ?

[mattitech07]

I usually fly my batteries from 100 to 20% and I usually get 20-23 minutes of flight time, sometimes even 18-19 when it is windy.
One day I drained one battery, I used the one that appears to perform the best, but I know that they all perform more or less the same, and I drained it to 10%, getting 25 minutes (there was no wind), and I estimated 27-28 minutes if I drained it to 0. So my batteries drain 10% in 2-3 minutes. If I use sport mode for the whole flight I get 15 minutes.

I also tend to fly in a not very constant way, changing direction/height ecc... regularly which should apparently drain more battery. And in my area there is almost always a light wind.

Yesterday there was quite a lot of wind(35+ km/h gusts), I made the drone fly around my area at a moderately high altitude so this probably affected my flight time, giving me 18 minutes.

I've had my MA2 for over one year and half and I remember getting 2-3 more minutes than I do right now. Now I can get 25 minutes by draining the battery to 10% but before I only had to get to 15%,but I never managed to get the 29 minutes I saw some people were getting without having to drain the battery to the last percentages. Right now my three batteries have around 50-60 cycles each.

Am I getting good flight times? Can I improve them

 

[EsaT]

Sounds about correct for conditions and definitely not anymore new batteries.

LiPos (lithium polymer) don't have as long life time in cycles as more normal Li-ion (lithium ion) like used in phones.
And already charging to 100% is stressfull for lithium chemistry and if you keep batteries sitting at high charge/cell voltage for any significatn time that starts eating capacity further.

Lithium battery is no lead acid battery and if treated similarly, it only kills lithium battery prematurely.

 

[mattitech07]

Sounds about correct for conditions and definitely not anymore new batteries.

LiPos (lithium polymer) don't have as long life time in cycles as more normal Li-ion (lithium ion) like used in phones.
And already charging to 100% is stressfull for lithium chemistry and if you keep batteries sitting at high charge/cell voltage for any significatn time that starts eating capacity further.

Lithium battery is no lead acid battery and if treated similarly, it only kills lithium battery prematurely.

I usually charge them to 100% and if not used I let them discharge automatically, but sometimes when I discharge the battery I don't know if I should recharge it or leave it on low power till I need it again, usually I prefer not to recharge it.I usually don't drain the batteries under 20% because I know it isn't very good for the battery. Is this true ? Should I treat my batteries differently or am I already doing good ?

 

[EsaT]

While lead acid batteries should be always kept as close to 100% charge as possible, for lithium based batteries that's torture.
Electric cars actually have their 100% charge level calibrated to lower than max cell voltage to get more reasonable life span from batteries.
Sony even added feature into phones, which learns the routine if you keep leaving phone into charge for night and starts doing final topping at morning before phone is removed from charge.


Charging process itself puts heavy stress on battery when done all the way to 100% and some 80% about doubles the usable life span in cycles (actually total mAh you can put in and get out) per wear.
Also once cell voltage exceeds "golden middle" value, it starts certain chemical reaction degrading cell.
And obviously the closer the voltage is to max, the faster the reaction.
Plus bonus damage from high ambient temperature.

So charging lithium batteries full for just keeping them sitting on shelf is very far from optimal treatment.
And like any use, even that self discharge feature consumes/wastes limited charge cycles.

Would be far better to charge only to 50-60% when not having drone flight coming soon to avoid unnecessary wear from charging itself, sitting at high voltage and waste of limited charge cycles to self discharge.
Topping of charge from that is reasonably fast to do in same day or at most previous day.
Also for short flights there's no sense to always charge to 100%:
That wear can get further increased if you can't fly at intended time and have battery sitting longer at high cell voltage.

Depth of discharge also affects how much use wears cells down.
So if maximal continuous flight time isn't required, it would be better to use two batteries from 80% to 40% than one battery from 100% to 20%.
40% level charge would be also perfectly good for storage.
Charge they leave in at factory after testing the battery is around that.


I've myself followed that charging only to around 80% and not letting charge usually below 40% in my 2018 bought Galaxy S8 phone and AccuBattery calculates there's still 96% of nominal capacity left and certainly haven't noticed battery life decrease.

 

[Capt KO]

Yes, your times are about right. Keep the batteries away from heat during storage to extend the life.

 

[Yaros]

Yes, my flight times are more or less the same. However, in windy conditions or when flying high I sometimes get 15 minutes or even less!