Mavic 3 Battery Cycle Count

[SkyPod]

Mavic 3 Pro- I have a few batteries with 160+ cycles and I'm seeing about a 7-10% (2-3 min) reduction in flight time. The battery cells are stable and equal which is good. What are you all seeing? Anyone with over 200 cycles and how are our batteries holding up (flight time?). I remember the days when my P2 was only getting 50 cycles, 11min of flight and the batteries were not Smart.
Picture is for fun... University of Arizona Regional softball tournament and my I2.

 

[Cafguy]

Sounds like my Air2s Batteries I get "around" 200 cycles from them. A few got a little more but really short flight times, and I have been through a lot of them too.

 

[SkyPod]

Sounds like my Air2s Batteries I get "around" 200 cycles from them. A few got a little more but really short flight times, and I have been through a lot of them too.

Good to know, it seems as cycles get over approximately 150, battery flight time starts to droop.

 

[wco81]

I didn't think you were allowed to fly over sporting events.

 

[GFields]

Nice photo!

 

[KBF]

I didn't think you were allowed to fly over sporting events.

Only if there is a TFR in place. You can't actually fly over people unless you have a cat1 or cat2 drone though, but around a non TFR event is ok.

 

[SkyPod]

I didn't think you were allowed to fly over sporting events.

Thank you for your comment, however you are incorrect. Please read/understand the FAA laws before commenting on if I'm allowed. This flight was not over the softball field, or people and in clear airspace. I'm the University of Arizona's drone pilot who often is hired to fly for events, to include NCAA football games by way of approval to fly inside the TFR from the FAA/TSA.

 

[riterb97]

Good day

Batteries has evolved quite a lot over the last few years from Nicad, Lead acid to Li-Ion. The big confusion is often the definition of a "cycle". Its not just that a discharge and a charge is seen as a cycle. A cycle means when you have discharged the battery below a certain percentage, and then fully charged it again.

For example, my Solar battery cycle definition is when its discharged below 20% and fully recharged, you have made 1 cycle, I have it now for 7 months, still shows, Zero cycles used because I never discharged it lower then 20%

My question is, what is the definition from e.g DJI regarding a cycle on their Li-ion 4S which for example is used in the Air 3. I have read their battery maintenance paper, but it never state the discharge %.

 

[Filmarik]

Good day

Batteries has evolved quite a lot over the last few years from Nicad, Lead acid to Li-Ion. The big confusion is often the definition of a "cycle". Its not just that a discharge and a charge is seen as a cycle. A cycle means when you have discharged the battery below a certain percentage, and then fully charged it again.

For example, my Solar battery cycle definition is when its discharged below 20% and fully recharged, you have made 1 cycle, I have it now for 7 months, still shows, Zero cycles used because I never discharged it lower then 20%

My question is, what is the definition from e.g DJI regarding a cycle on their Li-ion 4S which for example is used in the Air 3. I have read their battery maintenance paper, but it never state the discharge %.

Good day

Batteries has evolved quite a lot over the last few years from Nicad, Lead acid to Li-Ion. The big confusion is often the definition of a "cycle". Its not just that a discharge and a charge is seen as a cycle. A cycle means when you have discharged the battery below a certain percentage, and then fully charged it again.

For example, my Solar battery cycle definition is when its discharged below 20% and fully recharged, you have made 1 cycle, I have it now for 7 months, still shows, Zero cycles used because I never discharged it lower then 20%

My question is, what is the definition from e.g DJI regarding a cycle on their Li-ion 4S which for example is used in the Air 3. I have read their battery maintenance paper, but it never state the discharge %.

Good question. If your cycle counter shows 160 cycles there is high probability that you charged the betteries more times than that. I often do not discharge my batteries down to 20% and sometimes even 50% before charging them again and I know that the counter does not register some of the charging cycles. But what is the trigger point exactly for the counter to register "a cycle" I do not know, and would like to know.

 

[GadgetGuy]

Good question. If your cycle counter shows 160 cycles there is high probability that you charged the betteries more times than that. I often do not discharge my batteries down to 20% and sometimes even 50% before charging them again and I know that the counter does not register some of the charging cycles. But what is the trigger point exactly for the counter to register "a cycle" I do not know, and would like to know.

My understanding is that each registered cycle is a cumulative 100% discharge, so that two 50% discharges count as one discharge cycle. However, eager to be corrected, if someone knows differently.

 

[DARKSeifer]

Mavic 3 Pro- I have a few batteries with 160+ cycles and I'm seeing about a 7-10% (2-3 min) reduction in flight time. The battery cells are stable and equal which is good. What are you all seeing? Anyone with over 200 cycles and how are our batteries holding up (flight time?). I remember the days when my P2 was only getting 50 cycles, 11min of flight and the batteries were not Smart.

I reached 200+ flights with the M3 recently and the problem is that the Fly App starts to show a permanent warning once you get past 200, I made a post about the other day Mavic 3 battery cycle permanent warning reached at 200 cycles.

Other than that, the batteries show no major/minor deviations and Airdata says they are at around 80%. I charge them at 60W and usually avoid windy days and sport mode, so don't abuse them on the discharge phase.

Flight time is so high in the M3 that it doesn't really matter if you lose a few minutes, My flights are around 27 minutes or so and the longest flight I made with the batteries new were almost 33 mins. I travel a lot with the drone and land at 15-20% left, so on a static flight times would be a bit higher.

On my previous Air2S flight time was always a crap so you burned through the batteries in no time, and flight time became a joke. But on the M3, if the cells are good, it really doesn't matter if I get down to 20 minutes or less.

 

[Filmarik]

My understanding is that each registered cycle is a cumulative 100% discharge, so that two 50% discharges count as one discharge cycle. However, eager to be corrected, if someone knows differently.

Interesting thought. Is it true though?

 

[waynorth]

Here is what DJI says about battery cycle:
"A battery cycle count is not the times that you charge a battery, but simply refers to the times that the battery consumption accumulates to 75% of the battery capacity. When the battery cycle count is over 200 times, battery performance will decline. In this case, it is recommended to replace the battery with a new one."

 

[Filmarik]

Here is what DJI says about battery cycle:
"A battery cycle count is not the times that you charge a battery, but simply refers to the times that the battery consumption accumulates to 75% of the battery capacity. When the battery cycle count is over 200 times, battery performance will decline. In this case, it is recommended to replace the battery with a new one."

What that suppose to mean?

 

[GadgetGuy]

What that suppose to mean?

If I had to guess, whenever cumulative consumption reaches 75% rather than 100%, as I had understood. Alternatively, it could be whenever remaining battery reached 25%, but I suspect it is the former, as otherwise the cycle count would remain 0 as long as one never reached 25% remaining battery, even after 200 flights.

 

[riterb97]

Good question. If your cycle counter shows 160 cycles there is high probability that you charged the betteries more times than that. I often do not discharge my batteries down to 20% and sometimes even 50% before charging them again and I know that the counter does not register some of the charging cycles. But what is the trigger point exactly for the counter to register "a cycle" I do not know, and would like to know.

Below is what I received from DJI Natalia (Administrator): Therefore it seems the trigger point for a cycle is when its discharged below 25%. This is the best Info I could get on the Air 3 batteries. I hope this helped.


Hi there, thank you for reaching out. The battery cycle is typically considered a full discharge and recharge of a battery. However for the Li-ion 4s in Air 3, it will be counted once when the battery level is 75% consumed of the capacity mentioned in the official manual, including consumption by the battery’s self-discharge. To check the capacity, you may refer to the " specifications" in User Manual.

 

[Filmarik]

Below is what I received from DJI Natalia (Administrator): Therefore it seems the trigger point for a cycle is when its discharged below 25%. This is the best Info I could get on the Air 3 batteries. I hope this helped.


Hi there, thank you for reaching out. The battery cycle is typically considered a full discharge and recharge of a battery. However for the Li-ion 4s in Air 3, it will be counted once when the battery level is 75% consumed of the capacity mentioned in the official manual, including consumption by the battery’s self-discharge. To check the capacity, you may refer to the " specifications" in User Manual.

If I understand this correctly one cycle is counted when cumulative amount of energy used reaches 75% of battery capacity. It could mean 5 short flights and 5 top-ups let's say by 15% or 3 by 25% etc. In all those cases the counter would only show increases by one cycle even though the battery was effectively topped up (or re-charged) 5 times or 3 times etc.
This is interesting, and something I did not know. I guess it more or less makes sense though.
Thank you

 

[riterb97]

Update:

Hi there, thank you for reaching out. The battery cycle is typically considered a full discharge and recharge of a battery. However for the Li-ion 4s in Air 3, it will be counted once when the battery level is 75% consumed of the capacity mentioned in the official manual, including consumption by the battery’s self-discharge. To check the capacity, you may refer to the " specifications" in User Manual.

Above is what I received from DJI Admin (as mentioned above).

I have tested it, and ITS NOT TRUE.

The tests that I have done on the Air 3 batteries prove otherwise. My Cycles go hand in hand with with the AMOUNT OF RECHARGE, irrespective of the % discharge. I received my % discharge from Airdata (Unless they are at fault, which I doubt) and according to the LED stripes on the battery. A 2 will mean 2 LED's on, A 2+ means 2 on + 1 flashing

Batt 2 Discharge values
67% ; LED 2+; Recharged 3x; Cycle count 3
34%; LED 1+; Recharged 4x; Cycle Count 4
43%; LED 2; Recharged 5x; Cycle Count 5

Batt 3 Discharge values
23% ; LED 1; Recharged 3x; Cycle count 3
55%; LED 2+; Recharged 4x; Cycle Count 4
34%; LED 1+; Recharged 5x; Cycle Count 5