Flying with not fully charged batteries

[MGVision]

So my betteries got auto discharged to about 60% capacity after some time of idle. Can i fly with them when they are not fully charged? Will it degenered their lifetime? Or it is ok and it is only about to have confidenced of fully charged battery?

 

[bumper]

You can fly with them as is, albeit a shorter flight time, or you can fully charge them before flight, no problem. For best battery longevity, though, it is best to charge the batteries as close to flight time as possible, and not to charge them and then let them go through the auto-discharge function.

 

[Steve LaBranche]

So my betteries got auto discharged to about 60% capacity after some time of idle. Can i fly with them when they are not fully charged? Will it degenered their lifetime? Or it is ok and it is only about to have confidenced of fully charged battery?

In my opinion it depends on your mission. For just simple short flight or a pop up to look around, 60% is fine. But something longer, at 400ft, always take a fully charged battery. I always plan my longer ranged missions knowing the area and wind patterns. I mostly plan flights upwind so I have a tail wind to return home.

Have fun, Fly safe

 

[Repaid1]

So my betteries got auto discharged to about 60% capacity after some time of idle. Can i fly with them when they are not fully charged? Will it degenered their lifetime? Or it is ok and it is only about to have confidenced of fully charged battery?

DJI has always recommended flying with only a full charge pack out of the gate. That is to say you can use that pack multiple flights if it was full charged at first flight that day. I assume it has to do with the firmware algorithm of battery management and RTH system.

Strange things have happened to people that fly "old" packs in the past. I myself put in a battery that was in auto discharge by mistake, and while turning it on canceled the discharge, It freaked out my system and I landed immediately. I would not fly it IMHO from what I have seen posted about the web...why risk it for just waiting a bit and topping it off.

 

[Fred Garvin]

...I myself put in a battery that was in auto discharge by mistake, and while turning it on canceled the discharge, It freaked out my system...

That's interesting....so, the battery was actively in Auto Discharge mode, discharging down to storage level, and you put it in your bird, powered it up and flew?

What did it do? How did it "freak out" your system?

 

[lannes]

Even with short flights, a fully topped up battery is recommended.
You never know when you might need the extra battery capacity to get back if a headwind springs up or you get blown away

 

[Repaid1]

That's interesting....so, the battery was actively in Auto Discharge mode, discharging down to storage level, and you put it in your bird, powered it up and flew?

What did it do? How did it "freak out" your system?

Been several years ago, but as I recall I got a compass error first..then I powered off the pack and moved the aircraft, when rebooted, no compass error. I then armed and lifted off and the battery reading was all screwy jumping around. I landed and figured out that the battery, 1 of 4, I had set for 2 day discharge. I keep my packs staggered for discharge days to always have one charged for local SAR and was out of sequence.

 

[boblui]

The DJI user manual does not mention anything about the battery % to start a flight with but it does recommend how far the battery should be discharged to :

 

[Repaid1]

The DJI user manual does not mention anything about the battery % to start a flight with but it does recommend how far the battery should be discharged to :

View attachment 111336

Yeah well, then there is this along with years of flying DJI by multiple people in the know from many..many threads over the years

"When you fly with a partially charged battery, you risk an emergency landing induced by a sudden low-battery warning. So, always fly with a fully charged battery to avoid surprise emergency landings."

So, let's do a quick recap:
1) Always fly on a fully charged battery to avoid sudden landings, and land when your battery level is around 30% to prolong battery life.

Straight from the Comprehensive DJI Battery Guide: Comprehensive DJI Battery Guide

 

[old man mavic]

as others have stated always start off with a fully charged battery
it gives the best chance of a successful flight
if you know you are not going to be flying for some time ,and you have several batteries ,then just fly them down to 60% then you know they are safe to store

 

[bumper]

If you fly the batteries down to 30%, and the recommended storage range is 40 to 60%, that leaves one with a bit of a problem. My Hanatora charger, for the M2, has a "storage mode" where it will automatically charge or discharge a battery to 50% as needed. Kinda handy. I almost never use the DJI charger.

 

[MGVision]

If you fly the batteries down to 30%, and the recommended storage range is 40 to 60%, that leaves one with a bit of a problem. My Hanatora charger, for the M2, has a "storage mode" where it will automatically charge or discharge a battery to 50% as needed. Kinda handy. I almost never use the DJI charger.

 

[PhantomFandom]

So my betteries got auto discharged to about 60% capacity after some time of idle. Can i fly with them when they are not fully charged? Will it degenered their lifetime? Or it is ok and it is only about to have confidenced of fully charged battery?

Don't do it. Never fly unless you just charged your batteries to 100%. Not only will you get reduced flight time but you can be in serious risk of an emergency landing. When the battery is at some level of discharge (and especially after an automatic discharge cycle), the battery percentage is unreliable. The battery cells may be unbalanced and you could quickly go from 60% to emergency landing when placed under load. Please be safe and fully charge them before flight.

You can search these forums and find many crash reports where the crash was a direct result of taking off with a discharged battery.

 

[GadgetGuy]

Don't do it. Never fly unless you just charged your batteries to 100%. Not only will you get reduced flight time but you can be in serious risk of an emergency landing. When the battery is at some level of discharge (and especially after an automatic discharge cycle), the battery percentage is unreliable. The battery cells may be unbalanced and you could quickly go from 60% to emergency landing when placed under load. Please be safe and fully charge them before flight.

You can search these forums and find many crash reports where the crash was a direct result of taking off with a discharged battery.

Since the MA2 auto discharges to 96% within 24 hours of charging, and CANNOT be topped off to 100% without first manually bleeding it down to 95% battery before the 5 day 60% battery discharge, topping off to 100% is essentially impossible between 24 hours and 5 days after charging. There is no evidence with the MA2 that the auto discharge causes unbalanced cells. Old advice relative to older aircraft no longer applies. If it were necessary to rebalance the cells by topping off to 100%, DJI wouldn't' make it impossible to top off a 96% charged battery by simply putting it back on the charger.

 

[boblui]

The battery cells may be unbalanced and you could quickly go from 60% to emergency landing when placed under load

I have flown with battery having far less capacity left and never saw rapid drop in the % figure. I suspect what you said will happen if some of the cells are bad but then the voltage difference between cells will cause the battery error warning to be generated prior to take off.

 

[Formosa Straight]

This past weekend I flew with 3 packs that had done the auto discharge routine. I had planned to fly the previous weekend but the weather closed in on me and i couldn't. A friend lost his fixed wing in some rough terrain so I took my MA2 up to help look for it. All 3 packs used, flight time reduced of course but not a single problem. I typically only fly with 100% packs, but it seems reduced levels are also no issue other than flight time.

 

[PhantomFandom]

Since the MA2 auto discharges to 96% within 24 hours of charging, and CANNOT be topped off to 100% without first manually bleeding it down to 95% battery before the 5 day 60% battery discharge, topping off to 100% is essentially impossible between 24 hours and 5 days after charging. There is no evidence with the MA2 that the auto discharge causes unbalanced cells. Old advice relative to older aircraft no longer applies. If it were necessary to rebalance the cells by topping off to 100%, DJI wouldn't' make it impossible to top off a 96% charged battery by simply putting it back on the charger.

That may be true and does indeed apply to the OP since it is a MA2 in question. Thank you.

However in general there are many "older aircraft" in use and I still would not fly with a partially discharged battery. Battery architecture and technology has not changed from the older aircraft and the MA2. It is unfortunate that DJI has decided to not allow changes to these discharge settings.

 

[rodolpholemos]

If we only consider the battery health and life cycle of the battery, will there be any consequences of flying with autodischarged batteries once in a while? Please, don’t consider flight time or flight security...

 

[hiflyer201]

I have a Spark that I just fly in the house with my phone..I fly it all the time with full and partially discharged batteries..I've never seen a performance problem with the Spark or the batteries.

 

[GadgetGuy]

That may be true and does indeed apply to the OP since it is a MA2 in question. Thank you.

However in general there are many "older aircraft" in use and I still would not fly with a partially discharged battery. Battery architecture and technology has not changed from the older aircraft and the MA2. It is unfortunate that DJI has decided to not allow changes to these discharge settings.

I suspect that DJI has simply included a cell balancing algorithm into their auto discharge algorithm on newer aircraft. That was the main thing that was missing in the older aircraft smart batteries. I, myself, prefer to fly with a 100% battery because it maximizes flight time, but am now forced to fly with 96% MA2 batteries, and the occasional 60% MA2 battery. You can easily check cell voltages before flight for any deviations, if that is your concern. Also, DJI no longer allows full power upon take-off, like it used to. Power is initially throttled while the battery health is assessed. Lastly, a single cell dropping below 3.0V no longer shuts off the aircraft in flight. 0% remaining battery also is no longer 0%. It is still about 3.5V per cell, allowing an additional 2 minutes of flight past 0% before battery failure. If you know how to use it, it can save your aircraft in an emergency!

DJI has made major positive changes to their smart batteries over the years!