How to conserve battery life when not flying

[droneguy123]

Hi,

I am going to be filming some sailing with our sailing club and am trying to use the drone to help coach everyone. However, I will be sailing in the boat when I would like to use the drone so I will have it all ready to fly on the shore with everything on. I will then leave it for about 15-30 minutes whilst we sail out to the middle of the lake and get ready to race. Then I will turn on my controller (in a waterproof case) and send the drone towards me on a waypoint mission, where I will then set it to active track and follow me or another boat.

The issue here is that I have to leave the drone on for 20 minutes and it will be burning through battery here - I think that it is about 10% per 15 minutes from my experience and I was wondering what ways there would be to stop it draining through as much battery on standby.

Your help will be much appreciated, but any ideas must be able to be done remotely as no one will have access to the drone.

Thanks

Olly

 

[Travis]

Maybe have a friend standing by onshore? Is launching from the boat not possible?

 

[droneguy123]

Launching from the boat will over complicate things, I would much prefer it to be as simple as possible, at the expense of flying time.

I would love it if I could have a friend on shore but they will all want to be sailing, so most of the time there won't be anyone on shore.

But I think that whenever possible I'll try to have someone onshore.

 

[msinger]

The issue here is that I have to leave the drone on for 20 minutes and it will be burning through battery here - I think that it is about 10% per 15 minutes from my experience and I was wondering what ways there would be to stop it draining through as much battery on standby.

Letting the drone sit on the shore with the props off is the best you're going to do for conserving battery power.

I think that whenever possible I'll try to have someone onshore

That would be the best plan. You wouldn't have to worry about anyone walking by and picking up your drone then either.

 

[droneguy123]

Thanks Msinger

So are there not any settings that would conserve power better?

Obviously I won't have the bird recording, but could I reduce the power of the antennae etc. to draw as little current as possible?

 

[Lapeer20m]

I’m excited to see the footage....

 

[Lapeer20m]

Also, I think your idea has merit.

I had never considered leaving mavic on shore, powered on, waiting to shoot footage from a boat I was on.

It does uncomplicate launching/landing from the boat as well as protecting mavic while underway.

 

[droneguy123]

I’m excited to see the footage....

Yes, I can't wait!

It will be september though when our training starts again.

It won't be particularly exciting footage though as it will just be active track on some sailing dinghies training (team racing if you know what that means), but it will be really useful to help our tactics etc.

Launching off a sailing dinghy would be very difficult as it is so small and the session is only an hour long anyway so I wouldn't want to delay it at all.

I'll also film bigger boats that I am on next week, but they are big enough so that I can launch and catch land back onto the boat.

 

[msinger]

are there not any settings that would conserve power better?

I don't think you're going to find changing any settings will conserve an amount of power that'll be noticeable.