Looking for Mini 3 rapid charger that can charge 3+ batteries at once

[EvanWasHere]

Amazon links welcome

And yes, I realize this may reduce the life of the batteries. But when traveling to a client, I may have limited time between flights and would rather charge all my batteries asap. For example, I flew down to another state last week to shoot a simple shopping center so took 3 batteries with me. After I was done, went back to the hotel and uploaded the shots and I was asked to go back and re-shoot as there were more cars in the parking lot now. But using the DJI charger, It would have taken hours to recharge all 3 batteries one at a time. Luckily, I had started charging the batteries as soon as I got to the room, so I was able to repeat the shots on 1 battery. But I don't want to go through that stress again, nor do I want to travel with 10 batteries (just in case) on all my trips.

 

[microlinux]

I don't think anything is on the market yet.

Using a parallel charger won't reduce the life of the batteries, but it's best to drain any batteries you don't use down to storage voltage as soon as you can. I think the default "auto" discharge is set to 9 days - which is less than ideal.

 

[Robert Prior]

In the meantime, if you put two in the DJI charger and one in the drone that will let you charge two batteries at once.

 

[CanadaDrone]

I don't think anything is on the market yet.

Using a parallel charger won't reduce the life of the batteries, but it's best to drain any batteries you don't use down to storage voltage as soon as you can. I think the default "auto" discharge is set to 9 days - which is less than ideal.

It's the rapid part that reduces battery life - the faster you charge them the worse it is for longevity. That being said, with how cheap Mini 3 batteries are (relatively speaking), the argument for convenience is stronger than for that of much more expensive batteries. If it's a paid job it matters even less as presumably you are charging an appropriate amount for the work that takes into account equipment degradation.

 

[pinzmann]

So what would be the ideal charging rate? I usually use a portable power station to charge my batteries and the rate is 10-12 watts. Using a rapid charger would up it to 25 watts or so. Too much or ok?

 

[Flashheart]

You can get individual chargers on AliExpress, but you will need separate 30w PD chargers.

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[CanadaDrone]

So what would be the ideal charging rate? I usually use a portable power station to charge my batteries and the rate is 10-12 watts. Using a rapid charger would up it to 25 watts or so. Too much or ok?

That's fine.

If you charge through the drone itself it usually hits around 33W. Apparently the charging hub does a little less, but I don't have one yet to test.

The ideal charging rate is as slow as possible if your goal is to keep the batteries in the best possible condition, but that's often not practical. 10-12 watts is great if you aren't in a hurry, but you aren't hurting anything at 25W either. As mentioned, the batteries are so cheap that it's probably not worth getting overly picky, but there is nothing wrong with using best practices when time allows.

 

[Flashheart]

So what would be the ideal charging rate? I usually use a portable power station to charge my batteries and the rate is 10-12 watts. Using a rapid charger would up it to 25 watts or so. Too much or ok?

Standard battery: 2.453(A) x 7.38(V) = 18.10 watts.
Plus battery: 3.850(A) × 7.38(V) = 28.34 watts.

 

[microlinux]

It's the rapid part that reduces battery life - the faster you charge them the worse it is for longevity. That being said, with how cheap Mini 3 batteries are (relatively speaking), the argument for convenience is stronger than for that of much more expensive batteries. If it's a paid job it matters even less as presumably you are charging an appropriate amount for the work that takes into account equipment degradation.

Parallel charging doesn't increase the rate per battery, it's only "faster" because it's not serial. The batteries have a built in BMS.

 

[CanadaDrone]

Parallel charging doesn't increase the rate per battery, it's only "faster" because it's not serial. The batteries have a built in BMS.

Understood, that's why I said it's the rapid charging part and also why the OP said he knows it will reduce the life of the batteries. To me, rapid means he is looking for something as fast as possible, possibly faster than "stock" speeds. I did not mention parallel vs serial charging as it has nothing to do with battery longevity.

My phone can charge at 45W. If I always charge at 45W, the battery will have a shorter lifespan than if I charge it at 10-20W each time. What a typical LiPo can technically tolerate and what they prefer are two different things

Again, given the low price of the batteries, one probably doesn't need to worry about it as much but if you aren't time-constrained, you might as well use best practices if there is no downside. Just my opinion anyway.

 

[CanadaDrone]

Standard battery: 2.453(A) x 7.38(V) = 18.10 watts.
Plus battery: 3.850(A) × 7.38(V) = 28.34 watts.

All you're doing there is calculating the watts of the battery itself, which has nothing to do with an ideal charging rate or the question he asked.

 

[microlinux]

To me, rapid means he is looking for something as fast as possible, possibly faster than "stock" speeds.

You can't, the BMS is built into the battery. Even with the standard battery, the fastest charge rate is < 2C. There's not likely be any discernable degradation of battery life, I wouldn't even give it a thought.

 

[Hauptmann]

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He charges a Mini 3 Pro batt in ~ 45 min (his may be the standard version). Of course it may shorten battery life.

 

[CanadaDrone]

You can't, the BMS is built into the battery. Even with the standard battery, the fastest charge rate is < 2C. There's not likely be any discernable degradation of battery life, I wouldn't even give it a thought.

Does DJI publish the maximum charging rates for their products? I am not able to find anything. A quick look around these forums shows significantly different charging rates so I am not sure what the absolute maximum is. I know how BMS works, but always charging the battery at the fastest possible rate is objectively not a good idea if your goal is maximum longevity. It's very possible that the stock DJI charger charges at, say 32W but the battery hardware will accept a 36W charge (again I don't know what the actual maximums are as DJI doesn't seem to publish them).

This is why most smartphones have battery health features that include disabling the fast charging modes and capping the charge around 85%. The faster your charge a LiPo, the faster it degrades and the more heat is produced.

As I have mentioned already, whether or not you want to worry about this is trivial due to the low cost of the batteries, but you can't get around the fact that charging batteries at their maximum rate is harder on them and this has to do with the chemistry inside the battery.

 

[mavicn00b]

Even the crappiest batteries on the market can handle 1C charging without issue. For the price we pay for these batteries one would hope DJI aren't using the crappiest batteries.

 

[CanadaDrone]

Even the crappiest batteries on the market can handle 1C charging without issue. For the price we pay for these batteries one would hope DJI aren't using the crappiest batteries.

Of course they can handle it, but charging at maximum rates all the time have negative long term effects on the battery. That is a fact. Does that matter to most users? Probably not, especially with how cheap the M3P batteries are.

 

[kingsnake11]

It's all about the C rating. The standard mini 3 battery is I believe 2453mA or 2.543Amps so 1C is roughly 2.5 Amps. For safest charging at 1C you would charge at 2.5 Amps...and take an hour to charge it. Most lipo's can be charged safely up to 2C so charging at 5 Amps is probably ok. If you have a proper parallel charger, you would set the C rating and the number of packs...so for example if I had 4 batteries and wanted to charge them a 2C, then I would be using 4* 5Amps ( remember 2C is 5 Amps) or 20 Amps of power from the charger. That power would be managed so that each battery would get 2C. The key is to have a **** good charger that does this properly. I forgot to mention that the higher the C rate the shorter the time...but at a cost to the batteries longevity.

 

[mavicn00b]

Most DJI batteries charge about 1C give or take, I've thrown 100W at my Mavic 2 batteries (3850mAh @ 17.6v) and they barely even got warm.

Its worth noting the battery BMS dictates how how current it allows not the charger and also the charge is not linear, Expect max input till around 60% and then in will begin slowly tappering off slightly to 80% then gradually grind to a crawl all the way to 100%.

Also worth noting stand-alone batteries like drone batteries are not as thermally constrained as a phone battery which typically charges in a tightly designed phone and with the screen and processor still running so battery heat emitted during charging tends to be more of a problem on those sorts of devices than drone batteries.

 

[Droning on and on...]

It's all about the C rating. The standard mini 3 battery is I believe 2453mA or 2.543Amps so 1C is roughly 2.5 Amps. For safest charging at 1C you would charge at 2.5 Amps...and take an hour to charge it. Most lipo's can be charged safely up to 2C so charging at 5 Amps is probably ok. If you have a proper parallel charger, you would set the C rating and the number of packs...so for example if I had 4 batteries and wanted to charge them a 2C, then I would be using 4* 5Amps ( remember 2C is 5 Amps) or 20 Amps of power from the charger. That power would be managed so that each battery would get 2C. The key is to have a **** good charger that does this properly. I forgot to mention that the higher the C rate the shorter the time...but at a cost to the batteries longevity.

While I understand everything you're saying above, it's completely irrelevant to DJI batteries. You have no control over the current the battery assembly draws. That is controlled by the internal BMS.

While perhaps an interesting academic discussion, it has no bearing on anything you can control.

 

[Lister]

I bought a parallel charger for my Mini 2. Rather than a single unit like the OEM charging station, it's a tangled mess of individual wires and connectors. A total PITA in the field. It does work, though, charging them simultaneously., but setting it up and accommodating the mess of wires is unproductive, especially when travelling.

I think that a better, simpler, cheaper solution is to just buy more batteries.