Do you charge your batteries back to 100% for storage?

Kestrel · Mar 17, 2017

KillaMavic said:
I always return home at 30%.... always!
So once home assuming there all around 30% give or take a very small margin, I'd be ok to leave and fully charge Night before?

Id just leave it till the day you fly. Charge them an hour or two before you leave to fly.

KillaMavic · Mar 17, 2017

Thanks for the Advice
Appreciate it....

D

AdonDrone · Mar 17, 2017

Another way of looking at this is fully charging them and leaving them at room temperature ages them at least 10x faster than storing them at 40% in the fridge.

vector · Mar 20, 2017

Oingo Boingo said:
You didnt read the manual did you ? Oklet me give a brief outline. If you stored your batteries at 100 for a period longer that 7 days, i would start saving to replace them all. LIPO battery cells get irrepairably damaged if stored at full capacity or low voltage for period longer than 7 days. You will get low voltage peaks on the batteries, quick power drop offs as well as well as voltage disparities... Says 80 % left and all of a sudden you loose 20% in 30 sec. NEVER EVER store lipos at 100 or anything below 35 %. The Mavic battery has 3 batteries that make up the lipo and they do not like being abused. Fly your drone to nothing less than 25% battery power remaining ... 35 % idealy.... Because then u are on perfect storing capacity. Abusing LIPO cells is the worst thing you can do to your kit.... Apart from flying it into a try or a big lake of water ... But the concequences are very similar

I haven't turned on my battery since they arrived a month ago should I be concerned? And you're right I haven't read manual.

Rich Sugden M.D. · Mar 21, 2017

http://uterc.org/files/LipoStorageTips.pdf

msinger · Mar 21, 2017

vector said:
I haven't turned on my battery since they arrived a month ago should I be concerned? And you're right I haven't read manual.

It should be fine as long as you're maintaining the battery level like this.

dugg8 · Mar 21, 2017

The DJI manual says 'Discharge the battery to 40%-65% IF IT WILL NOT be used for 10 days or more. This can greatly extend the battery life'.

So if you're charging to 100% and flying every week, you'll be fine.

FPVme · Mar 21, 2017

I charge my batteries to 100% after each flight because I know they'll discharge to the correct level themselves. Is this wrong?

acidsnow · Mar 21, 2017

FPVme said:
I charge my batteries to 100% after each flight because I know they'll discharge to the correct level themselves. Is this wrong?

This is what I understood... I agree....

ElGuapo · Mar 21, 2017

I always return home at 30% all the time. By the time I land the aircraft, the battery level is between 20 - 22%. I do not store the batteries like this. I charge them to 100% however I have set the discharge time in DJI GO App to 5 days.
I have been doing this since the Phantom 3A and never had a problem with any of the batteries. Since then I have owned a Phantom 3 Advanced, Phantom 3 Pro, Phantom 4, and lastly a Mavic and a Phantom 4 Pro.
I have 4 batteries for the Mavic and 4 for the Phantom 4 Pro. I've the Mavic since last December but never had a problem.

halley · Mar 21, 2017

Kilrah said:
I usually keep my batteries charged because when I go fly it's on a whim rather than something planned. Yes it will probably shorten their life a bit but that's life, when they're dead I'll replace them and that's it.

That is exactly my attitude and I know quite a bit about the lithium chemistry involved.

lithium batteries will degrade over a three year span no matter how well you treat the batteries

if you are working with super-high-discharge application* then full storage over a week might impact performance, but for the Mavic it would be negligible

there will be new Mavic batteries on the shelf for the next few years and by then Mavic 3.0 might be out, so as long as I get oh, fifty flights out of each battery in that timespan, I am more than happy

(*) An Align 700mm electric helicopter doing stunts will discharge the equivalent of 3 Mavic batteries in about 6 minutes.

Fausto · Mar 21, 2017

For me it's more about looking after the battery so it is working well most importantly, consistently (no dramatic change in discharge rates), rather than it lasting a few more months.

Kilrah · Mar 22, 2017

It will just stop working constistently a bit later but it eventually will anyway

newnan3 · Mar 27, 2017

aesculus said:
Here's a related question. Just for s&g I took a just-used hot battery and plugged it into the charging hub to see what would happen. I was pleased to see that the hub refused to charge it, but rather pulsed a red LED, which I assumed meant, "No, stupid." So is it safe to stick them on the charger and assume that they will begin charging once the temperature comes down to a safe level?

I personally like to let my lipos and MP cool down after each flight. I take the lipo off and let it stand upright and let the MP sit without a battery while i take a break or check my messages.

While the MP lipos arent "high energy" like the racing quads Im used to I still think theres an inherent risk of fire if not handled properly. You dont want to find out the hard way that a hot lipo is dangerous.

vector · Mar 31, 2017

msinger said:
It should be fine as long as you're maintaining the battery level like this.

OK. So this is were I'm at. Last time I checked my batterys was March 1st. Today I finely decided to check again ad last light was blinking! I than charged batterys until 4th light started blinking.
Am I ok? "I know; I know"

Etopsflight · Mar 31, 2017

Guys

Never store mine at 100%. I always try to fly down to 30% and then recharge to approximately 50% for storage. Charging to 100 from 50 time wise is not too bad. If only the charger hub could have a function to stop charging at 50%, that would be ideal.

Batteries are expensive and need the maximum life out of them. Would not trust the self discharge mode of the smart battery.

Etops