How long can you fly mini 3?

[alexjo55]

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.

Maybee the drone can overheat or something if it dont gets to rest enough between changing batteries?

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

What do you mean by empty?
Are you aware that the drone has automated procedures in connection with battery charge levels and that at least one of them can not be cancelled? If not I would suggest you spend sometime reading the manual.

 

[Ridefreak]

Empty in this context means used up, not zero volts since the OP cannot fly and run them down that far. The op wants to know if he can fly for 3 batteries in a row and the answer is yes. See that was pretty simple, answered the OPs question and didn't belittle him at the same time, you should try that.

 

[rwilliam99]

I'm thinking the question is really this - "I have 3 charged batteries - can I put battery 1 in, fly it until it is mostly empty, land, turn right around and but battery 2 in, fly it until it is mostly empty, land, and then put battery 3 in, fly it until it is mostly empty".

It is an interesting question - I typically don't fly more than 1 battery at a time - or at least not one right after the other. When I'm done flying one battery, it is somewhat warm.

 

[alexjo55]

I'm thinking the question is really this - "I have 3 charged batteries - can I put battery 1 in, fly it until it is mostly empty, land, turn right around and but battery 2 in, fly it until it is mostly empty, land, and then put battery 3 in, fly it until it is mostly empty".

It is an interesting question - I typically don't fly more than 1 battery at a time - or at least not one right after the other. When I'm done flying one battery, it is somewhat warm.

i think its quite, obvious what i mean, but if some guy is autistic, he might have problem understanding.

 

[Cafguy]

You want to give your motors and other components time to cool I don't think 3 batterys one after another will overheat to much but its best to give things a rest for a few min after a hard flight. ( Motor kindness) what you want to avoid is rapid charging and flying Let the battery cool a bit before slapping it into the charger do this and you can fly all day on all your batterys

 

[Ridefreak]

i think its quite, obvious what i mean, but if some guy is autistic, he might have problem understanding.

I agree,

I've flow 3 batteries in a row w/o what I would call a cool down period, just the typical time to recover, switch the batteries and take back off.

 

[scro]

Unless you're flying in warm/hot conditions you'll be able to fly 3 full batteries back to back without any issues. I've done this with mine, with only enough time between to land, swap batteries and reacquire GPS fix. Ambient temperature was probably around 10-15deg C.

The drone tends to overhead if switched on but motors not spinning. When in the air the propwash and general flow of air around/thru the drone keeps it cool enough. The hotter the ambient air temperature the more likely you'll need to let the drone cool between batteries.

 

[rwilliam99]

i think its quite, obvious what i mean, but if some guy is autistic, he might have problem understanding.

Written communication can be challenging sometimes - it is easy to read something that was not intended into it. My posting was simply trying to clarify and add more detail.

I still think it is an interesting question - the batteries are warm, the drone is warm and the motors are also warm (sometimes hot). It seems like 3 close flights should be OK - I totally understand the need to cool down the batteries before recharging them, however.

 

[OldGuy]

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.

Maybee the drone can overheat or something if it dont gets to rest enough between changing batteries?

I always fly/use 3 batteries with both my Mini 2 and Mini 3 and I am in a much warmer place than you. Usually I take a 5 minute break between flights and have never had any problems with overheating etc. I always land the drone just before the recommended 20% minimum (battery) RTH alert.

 

[millbah]

I fly mapping projects which need more than 1 or 2 batteries back2back without any overheating problems

 

[msinger]

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.

Yes, that's not a problem. And you could fly even more in a row if needed.

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

i think its quite, obvious what i mean, but if some guy is autistic, he might have problem understanding.

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

At what percentage would you want to be landing?

Some people wish to be on the ground or low and near the home point by the time the battery reaches 20%, others chose a higher percentage, others lower.

The drone can be in the air to 'below' 0%, but at a certain point, "critical battery" the drone will commence descent and there is very little, if anything, that you will be able to do about it. In addition, it will commence an automated descent at a percentage that is entirely height based, this descent can not be cancelled though it can be temporarily over ridden by increased throttle.
Others have found that, either before this or during "critical" battery landing phase, horizontal flight speed becomes increasingly curtailed, meaning you may not have the battery power to get the drone over a safe landing spot.

There is information concerning this in the manuals of the Mini 3 Pro and the Mini 3, if you were unaware of that then you should read the manual.

My apologises for asking such a difficult question that requires such an offensive retort as

but if some guy is autistic, he might have problem understanding.

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

Empty in this context means used up, not zero volts since the OP cannot fly and run them down that far. The op wants to know if he can fly for 3 batteries in a row and the answer is yes. See that was pretty simple, answered the OPs question and didn't belittle him at the same time, you should try that.

Who was belittling the OP? I wasn't. He asked

wonder if i can flly the drone untill all of them is empty?

The question I posed is valid. I consider "empty" to be 0%. Does the OP consider landing to be necessary or advisable at 0% or less or at higher percentages?

People wish to have their drone on the ground at differing percentages, some consider it wise for the drone to be on the ground at 20% and or higher.
So, without further reference to any posts by the OP subsequent to post #1, can you tell me at what percentage the OP wants their drone on the ground?

In my post I subsequently mentioned automated descent/landing behaviours and asked if the OP was aware of them. They are documented, to some extent, in the drone's manual. If the OP is/was unaware of them then the OP needs to read or reread the manual.

In addition is the OP aware that routinely flying the batteries to very low percentages is said to be damaging for the battery. To me the OP's question implies that they might be considering routinely flying the drone until the batteries are being possibly damaged.

 

[Dronecation]

I use 5 batteries in a row along with a power bank that allows another 4 full charges and extra flight time afterwards. With temperatures around 20 C I have never had any heating issues.

 

[Phantomrain.org]

As others have mentioned , you can fly back to back batteries however I would not try to Hot Swap them as you can on other drones. The Mini 3 Cools down fairly quicky but it will Force Land on you if it does get over heated so just take a breather as you switch out batteries and get back up the air Quickly.

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly in the Rain.

 

[3rdof5]

Its not the length of time in flight that matters, flying multiple batteries in a row will not cause any overheating issues.
What you do need to consider is the outside air temp and how aggressive you are flying. The mini 3 can overheat if pushed hard in sport mode even on only one battery of flight.

 

[Felix le Chat]

"...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.

 

[Ridefreak]

Unlike a typical RC battery you can't run down the intelligent flight battery to it's danger point. The intelligent function (BMS) is designed to cut off the output at a level above the batteries damaging low voltage point. The controller will show zero % left at that point but the battery is still in not in danger. The flight timeout is set obviously higher then that cutoff since the drone would drop out of the sky when the BMS cut the battery output.
Intellegent Flight Battery

 

[DmitryGlinka]

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