Any Way to Reduce Power Consumption When Doing Maintenance While on Ground?

[johnmeyer]

My Mavic 2 Pro seems to use way too much power while just sitting on the ground with the motors off. When I need to do editing, playback, menu changes, and other maintenance activities, the battery drains almost as fast as if I were flying the thing. Clearly there is a huge amount of power being used because the battery gets hot and the internal fan comes on. Within an hour or so, the battery has run down.

Is there a way to reduce this power draw? Given the size of the battery, I would think it should be able to run for 10+ hours, even with the camera powered up, as long as the motors aren't running.

 

[Magilla Gorilla]

Maybe an external high powered fan to keep the bird's fan off?

 

[runeOfRune]

The only way around this is to change your habits. Editing in the field is a new one to me, never heard people do that...

 

[BigAl07]

Maybe an external high powered fan to keep the bird's fan off?

We use an external fan anytime we are going to be "HOT on the ground" for an extended time. Even with the internal fan buzzing away everything gets very hot on the ground. It's designed to utilize cooling air while in flight so the fan is an excellent suggestion.

 

[Thomas B]

We use an external fan anytime we are going to be "HOT on the ground" for an extended time. Even with the internal fan buzzing away everything gets very hot on the ground. It's designed to utilize cooling air while in flight so the fan is an excellent suggestion.

Agree! May have to add this to my summer flight gear in AZ... seeing highs at at 100-110 already. Could help with evening flights.

 

[RadioFlyerMan]

Can you simply reduce the amount of time needed on the ground by moving your editing and playback activities to your computer? The other maintenance activities cannot.

 

[Mossiback]

... the battery drains almost as fast as if I were flying the thing. ... Within an hour or so, the battery has run down...Is there a way to reduce this power draw? ...

You are getting over twice the flying time while on the ground, but the cause of the power drain and heat is that everything except the motors is operating; camera, gimbal stabilization, wireless communication, and all the black-box wizardry that makes it all work. A cooling fan will help dissipate the heat but the heat is caused by power use that will not change. You should be editing a copy instead of the original anyway (in case something gets screwed up) and doing it directly on a computer saves the wireless I/O communications that could corrupt a file (for instance, if communication is interrupted during a file write).

It still amazes me how they get so much technology in such a small package that works so well.

 

[johnmeyer]

You are getting over twice the flying time while on the ground, but the cause of the power drain and heat is that everything except the motors is operating; camera, gimbal stabilization, wireless communication, and all the black-box wizardry that makes it all work. A cooling fan will help dissipate the heat but the heat is caused by power use that will not change. You should be editing a copy instead of the original anyway (in case something gets screwed up) and doing it directly on a computer saves the wireless I/O communications that could corrupt a file (for instance, if communication is interrupted during a file write).

It still amazes me how they get so much technology in such a small package that works so well.

So that still leaves me with my question as to whether there is a setting which will reduce the power draw. All those things you mention should be a fraction of what it takes to power those motors, and the battery should last all day, instead of just an hour or two. My Sony CX-700 camcorder has a LiON battery that is 1/10 the weight and size of my M2Pro. That bettery will power my camcorder for eight hours, while fully running.

I edit video for a living, so I'm certainly not going to use the Mavic editor to do anything. However, there are dozens of operations that you can only do when the drone is connected to the controller and both are powered on.

The "editing" I was referring to was transferring video from internal storage; deleting clips not needed; doing playback to see which files need to be transferred; looking at flight data and logs; and much more.

 

[runeOfRune]

Does your Sony camcorder get to 60 Celcius and then the fan kicks in?

It doesn't. Your camcorder does way less processing and it requires less power.

The drone is designed to be a flying vehicle, not an on-ground-idle one, so it's obviously going to be optimized for flight performance. There is no "low power" setting that disables transmitters or vision processor, unless you count "OFF" as one. I'm not even sure if I'd want anything like that anywhere in a 10 mile radius around my aircraft, as I can imagine what could happen if such thing engaged mid-flight due to a software error.

 

[Mossiback]

So that still leaves me with my question as to whether there is a setting which will reduce the power draw...

...However, there are dozens of operations that you can only do when the drone is connected to the controller and both are powered on.

I am not aware of any settings to change power draw but I do not have a M2 and have not updated Go 4 in a while. Although there are dozens of operations that you can only do while connected, there are normally only a few if any that I change from one flight to the next so that is not a problem for me. I thank your best option would be to do your editing independent of the Mavic and get real familiar with the menu tree so you do not waste time hunting for a setting.

 

[Harro]

Maybe shut down the drone, remove the props, then restart the drone. That way there is minimal load on the motors, and you can then do your editing.

 

[johnmeyer]

Maybe shut down the drone, remove the props, then restart the drone. That way there is minimal load on the motors, and you can then do your editing.

That's actually what I've already been doing. I don't think removing the props does anything to reduce power consumption, but it certainly makes it a little safer.

 

[Kilrah]

So that still leaves me with my question as to whether there is a setting which will reduce the power draw.

No, there is none.

The "editing" I was referring to was transferring video from internal storage; deleting clips not needed; doing playback to see which files need to be transferred; looking at flight data and logs; and much more.

Use a card, take it out and put it in a reader, it'll be 5x faster to transfer and look at and won't use any battery. Internal storage is basically just there as a backup in case of the "oh crap my card is full/I forgot it" moment that shouldn't happen.
Everything else you specifically mentioned does not require the aircraft to be powered on either. The only regular thing you need it for is flight and camera configuration which takes a few minutes at most and that you would be doing just before every take off anyway.

 

[johnmeyer]

OK, I guess there is no way to reduce the power used when not flying.