How long can you fly mini 3?

[alexjo55]

I have 2x plus batteries and each one provides 30mins flight when landing at 20% battery level. I use one battery and my son uses the other, so 1hour back2back, happy times

If things get too hot, then climb to 3000meters where the air is cooler - lol

to bad you only can go up to 500m then

 

[alexjo55]

"...fly until empty..." I guess you could, but there are a number of reasons not to. Anyone who has already ignored the "low battery - return to home" warning has found out that they will inevitably get a forced landing because of critically low battery and this: if you are really lucky - means a fair hike to try and physically locate the drone - which can be a difficult job because with zero power left in the battery: the "find my drone" feature doesn't work.

If you're really unlucky with your "critically low battery - forced landing", you'll end up with a drone that is hanging like a roosting bat in the top branches of a tree... or if you're bombing around over water: a drone that has now become a submarine.

Something you could see far more clearly with the older Mavics that use the GO4 app (because the battery remaining gauge is a dynamically altering bar on the top of the flight screen) is that the flight time remaining alters quite drastically in accordance with how the drone is being flown and that a return-to-home at 25% is usually guaranteed to get your bird back by your side safely so that you've still got a drone to fly on batteries #2 and #3. Push that safety margin down below 20% and you're just asking for trouble - especially if you're trying to fight against a strong headwind or crosswind on the return trip.

The other reason why it isn't a good idea to discharge a flight battery below a safe margin is that it stresses the structure of the cells - Li-Ion batteries in particular really hate being heavily worked (run around like a bat on cocaine) and both Li-Ion and LiPo batteries hate being heavily discharged below a certain percentage. In these circumstances it is surprisingly easy to damage the electrolyte and cause gassing as a result of decomposition.

If you wanted some honest advice: I'd say expect to get a maximum of 60 flight minutes out of three consecutive batteries and with that figure: be certain that all three of them will recharge well and carry on recharging for far more cycles than they would if they had been run into the ground over and over again.

critical low battery occours at like 10% and the drone wants to land by itself, but you can still push up an fly it to 0%.

So yes, you can fly until empty.

 

[3rdof5]

In my battery test experiments the mini 3 wants to land on critical battery at about 8%. However, it doesn't complete the autolanding, it stops a couple of feet above the ground and asks for confirmation if the landing area is safe and waits for confirmation from me. I've always confirmed and let it land. Didn't want it to hover until the battery shuts down and it drops.

 

[Robert Prior]

I now have 3 batteries and wonder if i can flly the drone untill all of them is empty?
That would be like 1.5 hour of flight and the only rest is when changing battery.

Personally I don't fly a battery until it's empty, I usually land with 1/4 to 1/3 the charge remaining as a safety margin. I often fly three batteries in a row and have never had a problem with the drone overheating.

 

[alexjo55]

Personally I don't fly a battery until it's empty, I usually land with 1/4 to 1/3 the charge remaining as a safety margin. I often fly three batteries in a row and have never had a problem with the drone overheating.

i go to 10% and lower all the time.
Will i destroy the battery?
I have had over 40 flights the past weeks and have not seen any changes in battery life.

 

[Droning on and on...]

Then perhaps this will make the question clearer to you and others.

Your question was crystal clear.

Then you assumed he was an idiot before giving him a chance to answer. That wasn't fair.

 

[Droning on and on...]

i go to 10% and lower all the time.
Will i destroy the battery?
I have had over 40 flights the past weeks and have not seen any changes in battery life.

"Destroy"? No. Not even close.

You will shorten the life and get fewer cycles out of it. Enough so that you'll notice the difference. However, when they're done it's comparatively quick... they don't decline in performance in a steady, linear fashion.

Invest in another battery and land at 20% instead on all of them. You'll be able to fly just about as much, and if you push them close to the edge, you're gonna be spending on batteries sooner any way.

 

[Robert Prior]

i go to 10% and lower all the time.
Will i destroy the battery?

Destroy, no, but likely shorten the lifespan. I'd be more concerned about being unable to get back safely and losing the drone. Especially as the battery gauge isn't perfectly accurate — it can go from "10% remaining" to "landing now" faster than you think.

I flew one battery to where it forced-landed on me. I was shooting a hyperlapse in a city park, and wasn't aware that once it finished taking the shots the drone would just hover and not respond to controls until it finished processing the hyperlapse. I was at the other end of an open field so wasn't really panicking, especially as it said I had a few minutes to get back, when suddenly the time remaining started dropping really fast and the drone went into autolanding. I kept overrriding as long as I could while flying back and made a safe landing a few metres away. If I'd been flying at my favourite hiking spot I'd likely have lost my drone in the trees before reaching a clear landing area.

 

[FlushVision]

I usually change locations between flights to avoid repetition so I rarely run two batteries back-to-back so the issue about overheating the drone is minimal.

I also tend to look to be at least in the process of landing by 30% and never go below 20%

 

[davedrone 178]

DJI's flight-time claim of 51 minutes for the Mini 3 is the most exaggerated flight time number i've come across. Under ideal conditions, extrapolated to 0% battery, I can't even get 30 minutes of flight time never mind 40 minutes which is not unreasonable to expect for a 51 minute rating.

 

[3rdof5]

DJI's flight-time claim of 51 minutes for the Mini 3 is the most exaggerated flight time number i've come across. Under ideal conditions, extrapolated to 0% battery, I can't even get 30 minutes of flight time never mind 40 minutes which is not unreasonable to expect for a 51 minute rating.

Agreed, 51 minutes is grossly exaggerated.
The best I have got with my plus battery (and the mini 3, not the pro, which is supposed to fly slightly longer than the pro) is 38 minutes until it autolanded at 7%. I regularly get 30 minutes of flight with battery to spare when landing.

 

[Robert Prior]

DJI's flight-time claim of 51 minutes for the Mini 3 is the most exaggerated flight time number i've come across.

I've flown 40+ minutes and landed with 20% remaining.

I am a fairly sedate flyer using it for landscape photography, so no high-speed maneuvers which I think makes a difference.

 

[davedrone 178]

I must be doing something wrong..LOL. And yes, I only fly with the "Plus" batteries.
My Mini 3 Pro can do slightly better. When the weather is good, I'll try flying in Cine mode and see how long I can keep her in the air.

 

[Joe Horn]

Agreed, 51 minutes is grossly exaggerated.
The best I have got with my plus battery (and the mini 3, not the pro, which is supposed to fly slightly longer than the pro) is 38 minutes until it autolanded at 7%. I regularly get 30 minutes of flight with battery to spare when landing.

Were you recording video during that flight? Was there any wind? Both of these things cause extra power drain. Rated flight times are measured under "ideal conditions", but real life rarely offers ideal conditions.

 

[3rdof5]

Were you recording video during that flight? Was there any wind? Both of these things cause extra power drain. Rated flight times are measured under "ideal conditions", but real life rarely offers ideal conditions.

Yes I was recording 4K and there was a mild wind. Nothing that it couldn't easily handle but it did have to fight abit. This was also only the 3rd flight of the battery, I'd guess it would have slightly better performance now.

 

[3rdof5]

Just a did a test with my plus battery. Take off, hover only, and then land at exactly 10%. No recording. Got just over 39 minutes. No wind.

 

[Joe Horn]

Just a did a test with my plus battery. Take off, hover only, and then land at exactly 10%. No recording. Got just over 39 minutes. No wind.

Thanks for checking that! I stand corrected: writing to the SD card and fighting the wind were not eating your battery like I had suspected.

 

[Robert Prior]

Just a did a test with my plus battery. Take off, hover only, and then land at exactly 10%. No recording. Got just over 39 minutes. No wind.

So not actually ideal conditions. Hovering on a windless day uses more power than moving slowly or hovering in a slight wind, because the air under the drone has more turbulence. (Or so I was told.)

I forget what the optimal speed is — it isn't very fast, just enough that the drone is always over 'fresh' air.

As I said, I've flown longer and landed with more battery, so obviously I was closer to 'optimal' conditions for endurance.

 

[3rdof5]

So not actually ideal conditions. Hovering on a windless day uses more power than moving slowly or hovering in a slight wind, because the air under the drone has more turbulence. (Or so I was told.)

I forget what the optimal speed is — it isn't very fast, just enough that the drone is always over 'fresh' air.

As I said, I've flown longer and landed with more battery, so obviously I was closer to 'optimal' conditions for endurance.

Agreed. They do use more power to hover than they do to move. So I figure that was a very good flight time under those conditions. I have never actually flown an entire battery down so I can't say for sure, but flight time should be even longer as you say.

 

[Meta4]

Agreed, 51 minutes is grossly exaggerated.

It's not an exaggeration at all
The problem is people not reading the specs and imagining that DJI indicate you would get that flight time in normal flight.
They don't say that at all.

DJI clearly explain in the specs how they get their test results.
If you want to get similar flight time you would need to
Measured in a controlled test environment. Specific test conditions are as follows: flying forward at a constant speed of 21.6 kph in a windless laboratory environment, in photo mode (without photo taking operation during flight), and from 100% battery level until 0%.
Anything different and you will have shorter flight time.

Just a did a test with my plus battery. Take off, hover only, and then land at exactly 10%. No recording. Got just over 39 minutes. No wind.

That's pretty close to what DJI shows in their specs:
Max Hovering Time
33 minutes (with Intelligent Flight Battery)
44 minutes (with Intelligent Flight Battery Plus*)
Measured in a controlled test environment. Specific test conditions are as follows: hovering in a windless laboratory environment, in photo mode (without photo taking operation during flight), and from 100% battery level until 0%