Battery Care - OK to keep on charger?

[John S]

I have been storing the batteries (Mavic Pro) at between 30% and 40%. That was the advice I read somewhere. Is that OK or is 65% better?

I’ve been flying RC for many years before finally buying a drone. All of my high end lithium polymer battery chargers all set the storage charge to 60%.

 

[Randall8686]

I have been storing the batteries (Mavic Pro) at between 30% and 40%. That was the advice I read somewhere. Is that OK or is 65% better?

40% is perfect, storing them in the coolest place possible but now below freezing will ensure the most amount of cycles/longest battery life. 65% is OK but is still above LiPo storage voltage. Also depends how long you intend on storing them. 65% for a week or two will be fine. But long term 40% will give you the best performance.

Leaving them at 100% for 10 days is really not ideal for a LiPo battery long term. DJI should offer you the ability to drop this to 24/48 hours if you know you will not be flying for a week or so. However of course I’m sure there is an element of they want to sell those nice expensive. Battery packs to you as a continued revenue stream.

Best thing to do is once discharged just charge them to 50% (two lights on the battery) and stick them away until you need them. Charge them the evening before the day you fly and your going to get much better life out of them than someone who charges them and keeps leaving them full for 10 days. Of course everyone will have their own opinion on the matter but as some one who has worked with LiPo for many years and heavily involved in EV batteries and Energy storage Cycling and not keeping packs at 100% is critical to life expectancy. For example a fully charged Tesla/Nissan leaf is not fully actually charged. They leave some headroom in the cells so they never go to 100% to ensure the cells last as storing any lithium technology at 100% unfortunately damages the cell. Until the scientists bring us a new technology we are stuck with the tech we have. They still offer the best KWH per KG going currently and have the benefit of huge discharge currents.

If you really want to get **** there is even more you can do to ensure long life with storing the cells at certain temperatures but 40% will see you hundreds of useful cycles in after some dead battery packs to re cell some of these batteries if anyone has dead/poor performing packs. Happy to re cell a few FOC just to play with these packs and see what the actual “intelligent” part is doing.

 

[msinger]

I have been storing the batteries (Mavic Pro) at between 30% and 40%. That was the advice I read somewhere. Is that OK or is 65% better?

I store my DJI batteries anywhere within the range below. Never had a problem with them yet.

 

[globetrotterdrone]

I have been storing the batteries (Mavic Pro) at between 30% and 40%. That was the advice I read somewhere. Is that OK or is 65% better?

From the guidelines, page 2 and 3:


So 65 % is just a bit over the recommended range of 40 - 60 % but should be fine with the controller watching the levels.

 

[Lawman]

It would be nice if some afer market vendor would come up with a harness to charge Mavic2Pro batteries with using a Hobbymate D6. With that charger you can charge, discharge and charge to storage. You can even set the charge to storage to storage to you liking. It also charges liIon, the live type, nicads and others.

 

[DJI DelBoy]

The RCGEEK parallel battery charger has a switch that can be toggled to charge the batteries up to 100% or 65%.

View attachment 75769

View attachment 75770

Dam it, not available in the UK. First time I’ve seen a charger like that.

 

[Bill Ludwig]

This is a great auto-discharger for M2 batteries that brings the battery down to the 65% storage level.

1.5A Discharger for DJI Mavic 2 Pro/Mavic 2 Zoom Battery Amazon.com: 1.5A Discharger for DJI Mavic 2 Pro/Mavic 2 Zoom Battery: Toys & Games

 

[globetrotterdrone]

Dam it, not available in the UK. First time I’ve seen a charger like that.

You should have no problems ordering it via the German Amazon site.

Costume Für DJI Mavic 2 Pro/Zoom, 6 in 1 Schnell Intelligente Smart Multi Batterie Ladestation (Laden Sie 4 Akkus & 2 USB Ports gleichzeitig) (eu): Amazon.de: Garten

Costume Für DJI Mavic 2 Pro/Zoom, 6 in 1 Schnell Intelligente Smart Multi Batterie Ladestation (Laden Sie 4 Akkus & 2 USB Ports gleichzeitig) (eu): Amazon.de: Garten

www.amazon.de

Took about 1,5 weeks to deliver to Austria, works as intended, charged nicely 4 batteries at once to 65 % without getting hot.
Only the supplied power cable was wrong but I got a refund on this part.

So, highly recommended.