Mavic Pro Battery Mod

[beanbubba]

Whoooraa!! Found it. The hunt finding these downed birds is a lot of fun and the thrill of finding it makes up for the dread you had when crashing.

Trackimo is absolutely fantastic. I had to hop a barb wire fence and into a small grove of trees with my iPhone app and it led me directly to the bird within about 10 feet. It looks like the tree canopy broke her fall and I got her back home it fired right up! Here are the battery levels:

Factory battery @ 3.71v
Externals batteries all @ 3.73v

Can someone guide me on how to debug this to figure out why it crashed?

View attachment 21039

Nevermind, I went to google earth and ran an elevation report and realized I ran into a tree top. I let the altitude get away from me and forgot I had a 120 foot elevation change. You live and you learn

 

[MacIak]

Nevermind, I went to google earth and ran an elevation report and realized I ran into a tree top. I let the altitude get away from me and forgot I had a 120 foot elevation change. You live and you learn

View attachment 21042

Great to hear you got it back and the cause is no mystery. Looking at the data yoy would have returned just under 10% battery.
You said you hooked double or triple 3000?

 

[beanbubba]

Hey that sucks man! i hope you find your bird. I usually wont even bother trying a distance run if the wind is over 3mph. The Mav doesn't seem to handle wind well...Question: do you really need that amp on there? Mine seems to have pretty good signal out at 40000 as long as its in LOS with the controller. I'm assuming it will be good for another 10. I personally would prefer to take weight off this thing...

My home point is surrounded by big trees and this let's me fly much more distance.

 

[beanbubba]

Great to hear you got it back and the cause is no mystery. Looking at the data yoy would have returned just under 10% battery.
You said you hooked double or triple 3000?

Double. How do you figure that 10% number??

 

[dirtybum]

Nevermind, I went to google earth and ran an elevation report and realized I ran into a tree top. I let the altitude get away from me and forgot I had a 120 foot elevation change. You live and you learn

View attachment 21042

ha ha ha ha Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!! thats funny stuff!
Live and learn. What's the dealio you was flying in the dark?
daytime pics of the crime scene, did you wait till morning to recover it

 

[beanbubba]

ha ha ha ha Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!! thats funny stuff!
Live and learn. What's the dealio you was flying in the dark?
daytime pics of the crime scene, did you wait till morning to recover it

yea.... flying at night over farm land and waited until next morning to retrieve. So glad this is entertaining for you

 

[dirtybum]

yea.... flying at night over farm land and waited until next morning to retrieve. So glad this is entertaining for you

hey Bean, please don't take it the wrong way,when I wrote ha ha that many times it's because I actually laughed out loud that much, it's not that it's entertaining to me to see someone else go through trouble or crash their aircraft, it's only that I've been there so many times with the P2, the p3, the p4 & the mav! you wouldn't believe how many Aircrafts I've crashed, I got pictures a lot of them and it's a lot of pics[emoji41]
I used to do 80% of my distance runs at night time and catching treetops while trying to fight autoland was so common that all I could do was laugh.
To the point where lately I never come home from flying without my wife asking "did you lose your bird" or "are you going to get your bird".
so I'm right here with your brother, laughing with you not at you!

 

[MacIak]

Double. How do you figure that 10% number??

Just educated guess bub. Had to retreive mine numerous times not making it back except once.
Edit: Will be doing LR again hopefully end of next week, need direct mod on Loki and wires didn't arrive yet. Cannot get myself to use battery clip, do not trust them tiny contact area's.

 

[beanbubba]

hey Bean, please don't take it the wrong way,when I wrote ha ha that many times it's because I actually laughed out loud that much, it's not that it's entertaining to me to see someone else go through trouble or crash their aircraft, it's only that I've been there so many times with the P2, the p3, the p4 & the mav! you wouldn't believe how many Aircrafts I've crashed, I got pictures a lot of them and it's a lot of pics[emoji41]
I used to do 80% of my distance runs at night time and catching treetops while trying to fight autoland was so common that all I could do was laugh.
To the point where lately I never come home from flying without my wife asking "did you lose your bird" or "are you going to get your bird".
so I'm right here with your brother, laughing with you not at you!

dirtybum,

I was being literal, I was glad you enjoyed yourself at my expense because I would sure as heck return the favor the next time you ditch a bird!!! I guess my sarcasm didn't come through in my words I have a trooper of a spousal unit, and she has started a similar cadence with me as well. I guess it's the cost of doing business... where do I sign?

 

[beanbubba]

Just educated guess bub. Had to retreive mine numerous times not making it back except once.
Edit: Will be doing LR again hopefully end of next week, need direct mod on Loki and wires didn't arrive yet. Cannot get myself to use battery clip, do not trust them tiny contact area's.

Just give her a tender drop of solder in the middle of the +/- pins and she will purr like a kitten and secretly thank you for avoiding drone open heart bypass surgery.

Let it go man, we all love to butcher our birds but it doesn't really matter except it makes us feel good to franken-mavic our birds. Acceptance of your issues is the first stage in recovery

 

[MacIak]

Just give her a tender drop of solder in the middle of the +/- pins and she will purr like a kitten and secretly thank you for avoiding drone open heart bypass surgery.

Let it go man, we all love to butcher our birds but it doesn't really matter except it makes us feel good to franken-mavic our birds. Acceptance of your issues is the first stage in recovery

Haha!! Im over it..kinda...i think... really....am I?
Seriously. It's not the fact that over 20 amps might run thru those tiny pins but merely the soldering of a battery clip makes it harder to "slide" the mav into my bag (nose down). I need to keep mav as flat as i can. Cannot fly from home so i really have to pack the bird and all other stuff into a small bag and cycle to my secret location..

 

[mavicpro1000]

So how much HOVER TIME is the Mavic capable of after adding these mods? Distance runs don't really count for much due to all the variables.

 

[TheLightSpeed!]

So how much HOVER TIME is the Mavic capable of after adding these mods? Distance runs don't really count for much due to all the variables.

In my older batteries one 3.0 3S Multistar adds nearly 9 minutes hover time and oval pattern time.

I have successfully done a dual battery run without it overhearing and throwing a error. But 35 to 40 minutes is possible if straight hover with two 3.0's I think.

 

[mavicpro1000]

So an extra 6000mah gives 15mins of hovertime. Im thinking that with your figure of 9mins for a 3000mah 3s pack sounds quite good, that could mean a flightime of around 32 mins. Two 1500mah packs on each side of the Mavic is also doable without it looking silly or overweight.

 

[dirtybum]

dirtybum,

I was being literal, I was glad you enjoyed yourself at my expense because I would sure as heck return the favor the next time you ditch a bird!!! I guess my sarcasm didn't come through in my words I have a trooper of a spousal unit, and she has started a similar cadence with me as well. I guess it's the cost of doing business... where do I sign?

good, i'm glad I misunderstood [emoji41]
And I'm sure my crash story will be coming!


ps, happy labor day weekend to all you laborers like myself!

 

[dirtybum]

update. I had the 8.0 battery that powered up my mav while it sat in a tree fo 6 hours. It drained to
2.9-2.9-2.62. well after recovering my charger would NOT charge/ doctor it back no matter the settings, nicad .01 or
lipo .01 slow charge. I threw it in the metal battery scrap bin I have. Here 2 months later I got it out and was thinking about removing the lowest cell and replacing with the 8.0 cell I removed when it was a 4S.
Well instead I tried to charge again on lipo 0.1 and it actually doctored up an balanced to storage level[emoji41]
something about letting it rest for a few days after it's trauma seems to allow the cells to calm down and except the charge this time without my charger throwing errors. So a learning lesson for me and hopefully to you guys, just because you can't charge it right off the bat maybe let it rest.

 

[MacIak]

So an extra 6000mah gives 15mins of hovertime. Im thinking that with your figure of 9mins for a 3000mah 3s pack sounds quite good, that could mean a flightime of around 32 mins. Two 1500mah packs on each side of the Mavic is also doable without it looking silly or overweight.

No. Flying it at certain constant speed will get you more airtime. Hover will be less, it is not efficient. Count on 27 mins single 3000 and 30 mins double 3000. That way you will not be disappointed.

 

[chazz]

Nevermind, I went to google earth and ran an elevation report and realized I ran into a tree top. I let the altitude get away from me and forgot I had a 120 foot elevation change. You live and you learn

View attachment 21042

Good to see you found it man! Doesn't look like its in bad shape and its awesome the way you figured out how it happened. I didn't even know looking up elevation was an option thanks for the info...

 

[dirtybum]

back in the Flytrex tracker days, when I would lose my bird in a tree lot I could check out the elevation report to see if it was on the ground or stuck in the tree before I even made the hike to go get it[emoji41]

 

[chazz]

Did any of you notice that if you run the "faster GPS mode" That it drains the dji battery faster then the external leaving juice in it? which isn't the case in normal gps speed where they drain evenly and end at the same voltage.. It maybe the same in sport mode too...Or maybe its just mine that does this because of some resistance..I've since shortened the direct solder lead to test...