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Battery Cold Warning

hiwese1

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I was flying today and was on my 4th battery and when I started flying it said a battery cold warning. It is about 49 degrees here. Anyone get this warning before?

Sent from my Pixel XL using MavicPilots mobile app
 
battery should be kept warm up until it is used. Once in use, it will warm itself as it discharges along with the heat the Mavic makes.
 
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I had mine in my pockets hoping that would keep them warm and i let it hover for a few mins before i did the flight. I was thinking about getting a heat pad that you put in the microwave that should keep them warm
 
I've flown mine in -20F and didn't get that warning. Once they are drawing current I've noticed they will increase in temp even at such a cold ambient air temp. The trick is to ensure they are room temperature before flying. I also like to hover for a minute just to warm things up.
 
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Try using those hot hands pocket pacs in your mavic bag
 
i got it in 20F last weekend on all 4 batteries
 
I've gotten it every time I have flown. Haven't had a chance to fly it in weather above 30F yet. Like others I try my best to keep the batts warm and then I hover for a minute or too after takeoff. Have noticed shorter flight times but I plan for that.
 
have you tried flying with the gimbal cover onto reduce the airflow thru the drone....
 
I also got the battery cold warning this morning but this time with return to home forced so i had no choice but to abort my mission.
Is there a warming blanket or pack from ebay i could keep all 3 batteries to have them connected to my cars 12v while driving to my flight destination so that batteries are ready to fly?
 
Flew yesterday for 18 minutes in 0F. Had the battery warning before taking off, cleared it out and flew fine once again. The weak link is my ungloved hands.
 
Flew today phantom 4 and noticed it took 2-3 minutes to warm up before being able to fly at cold conditions.. more than usual but then did not get any cold battery warnings.
Now with the Mavic pro it is ready to fly almost immediately even at cold temperatures and then you get the warning messages..
So i was wandering if the phantom 4 has a preheat battery function and not the mavic.
Like consuming some battery energy before flying to warm up the battery?
what is your opinion?
 
I've been flying my Mavic in temperatures down to about 0F with pre-warmed batteries and haven't had any issues, or noticed any warnings yet. I also hover for a minute or so after takeoff to help it warm up. I've noticed that with the Mavic turned on but engines off, it generates quite a bit of heat on the lower side, and I suspect it heats up even more with the engines running. I've also been keeping my cold-weather flights relatively slow, and I'd imagine that higher airspeeds would suck heat from the batteries much quicker (convection heat loss increases non-linearly with the airspeed). I wonder if a thin, light insulated cover velcro'd over the top of the battery might help. In fact, it'd be interesting to design a lightweight rigid wrap-around shell to channel the hot air underneath around and up over the battery, for use in cold weather.

Also found my limiting factor to be cold fingers. I just picked up a pair of North Face Canyonwall eTip gloves which seem to have pretty decent dexterity and work better on my touchscreen than anything else I've found so far. We'll see how well they work outside later today....
 
Keep in mind that if the battery is indeed cold and you get a warning, that means that the Li-Ion chemistry is slowed down, which increases the internal resistance of the cells. The dangerous effect is that when there is a sudden amp surge, like when suddenly throttling up, the voltage could quickly drop. If it drops too much, the drone could possibly react with something like shutting down the motors mid-flight.

Once you're flying, I imagine the current draw alone is enough to keep the battery warm at the level it's been at takeoff. I keep my spare batteries in an insulated bag together with a few handwarming gels of which I activate one every time I take one out. A simpler alternative is to keep them in your pants pockets close to your skin and covered by the jacket.
 
I had this warning the other day towards the end of a flight at -8°C.

IIRC I wanted to land but still had 40% or so charge so I decided to flip it into sport mode, climb to 60 metres and buzz the golf course a couple times. Towards the end of the 2nd pass, the warning came. So despite the batteries discharging (warming), the cooling from the high speed flight was chilling them pretty hard.

I see maikm's post about the "slow" chemistry when cold. So I'll be prepping my batteries more carefully in cold weather going forward.
 
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