Mavic Pro Battery Mod

MacIak · May 27, 2017

For my info:
- during startup the ext batteries are plugged in AFTER mavic is on
- during switchoff the ext batteries are plugged out BEFORE mavic is switched off

Is the above correct?

@cruzroy: hitting that spot would be awesome. It's big, hard to miss you'd say.
Thanks for the vids by the way. Have enjoyed them (especially the drill n chat during FFWD)

cruzroy · May 27, 2017

MacIak said:
For my info:
- during startup the ext batteries are plugged in AFTER mavic is on
- during switchoff the ext batteries are plugged out BEFORE mavic is switched off

Is the above correct?

@cruzroy: hitting that spot would be awesome. It's big, hard to miss you'd say.
Thanks for the vids by the way. Have enjoyed them (especially the drill n chat during FFWD)

you are correct on battery on/off

Natedoggz · May 27, 2017

cruzroy said:
View attachment 13755

so if you took a grind wheel and ground down the plastic a hair above and follow the rail on the sides to grind to the soldier joint on top attach wires and hot glue.

Natedoggz · May 27, 2017

Natedoggz said:
so if you took a grind wheel and ground down the plastic a hair above and follow the rail on the sides to grind to the soldier joint on top attach wires and hot glue.

Confusing, I know but, the only damage done to the battery would be on the top next to button 2 small strips missing and 2 wired leads would only be in maybe 1/2 in not thru and around to inside housing of battery.

digdat0 · May 27, 2017

You guys think there's any room for the power lines to come out the side on the battery??

Natedoggz · May 27, 2017

digdat0 said:
You guys think there's any room for the power lines to come out the side on the battery??

Not for sure

CyberNate · May 28, 2017

CyberNate said:
Lipos are fine. It is only the multistar lipo that doesn't work well. The advantage of Lihv is more power to weight ratio. Lihv cells also match the Mavic better because Mavic uses Lihv as well which has peak cell voltage of 4.35v rather than 4.2v for lipo. The downside for Lihv is that you need to be careful when charging to slightly undercharge it to only 4.32v/cell or less. If you don't there is a chance that the voltage will exceed the Mavic battery which can cause Mavic to switch off the main battery. The symptom is that you're flying and notice the battery gauge is not dropping. This means the Mavic battery is off.

This only happens (in my experience) right at takeoff, so you'll see battery stuck at 99%. Just a fyi as 2 of us lost our Mavic this way, by continuing to fly and later having the external battery run out suddenly with a critical landing which is more like a controlled crash landing.

Interesting observation after several flights with my LiHV packs. With my new Mavic I do not need to undercharge my packs. I don't get the battery errors nor switched off main battery issue at all. With my previous Mavic, it was very sensitive. I would gets pauses on battery meter during flight where meter would suddenly drop 10%, switched off main battery, and just many battery errors in general when attempting to take off. Not one battery error on the new one with fully charged external to 4.35v/cell.

It's is really odd for me how differently the new Mavic behaves as compared to the one I lost due to switched off main battery. Basically you'll need to test how your Mavic does with fully charged LiHV to know if you need to undercharge or not. It could also be that I had previously used the old battery mod version which had a single xt60 and a y plug version the new one which has the dual xt60. I'm not sure the reason for the different behavior. Those that are running LiHV, please let me know if you are having to undercharge yours to avoid battery errors.

BigMotor · May 29, 2017

AMars32 said:
This is how I connected it.
I think you are right that it creates one big battery. I just did another test where I only had the LiPo batteries on and the mavics battery off this turned the drone on but the mavics battery did not show any signs of charging. The reason why I thought it charged the mavics battery was because I thought that the battery was charging when only the LiPo's were on, I saw wrong, my apologies. Another thing to note is that as expected the mavic will not connect to the controller unless the smart battery is turned on so when that is low the drone must land. This is probably the reason why the LiPo's can last three flights, due to the fact that the smart battery dies first.

Was wondering where could I purchase this adapter at...thanks in advance.....

MacIak · May 29, 2017

BigMotor said:
Was wondering where could I purchase this adapter at...thanks in advance.....

Maxxuav and Uavmods as far as i know. Not sure what the difference is between the 2.

Edit: difference between 2 items that is....not seller ;/

dirtybum · May 31, 2017

digdat0 said:
You guys think there's any room for the power lines to come out the side on the battery??

after dremeling out the inside panel to reveal the power leads, I too thought there was a possibility to come out the side, and there is. But you have to be extremely careful because there's enough room for the wire if you drill through the side, but put it on a vice and drill press so you have complete control, I tried to freehand and you'd be surprised how close the thin battery cells are after you break through(maybe even free handing a Dremel sanding wheel would be better) I must've punctured one of my cells, I noticed a strange smell coming from the battery, and was hoping that it was only the foam and cheap plastic. I flew that battery on two different long flights with no issue. The next time I fired it up I had a cell that was .30 lower than the rest and gave me battery errors. So yes it can be done out the side and would be ideal but use caution. From what I can see no more caution then going on the top. The whole thing is tight, and because I had that battery to spare

I tried to figure out how to crack the case and I learned a couple things but never how to get in.

cruzroy · May 31, 2017

yeah use caution........someone popped in and said its easy just to take whole top of battery off.......WELL IT IS NOT, AND DONT TRY..............

CyberNate · May 31, 2017

dirtybum said:
after dremeling out the inside panel to reveal the power leads, I too thought there was a possibility to come out the side, and there is. But you have to be extremely careful because there's enough room for the wire if you drill through the side, but put it on a vice and drill press so you have complete control, I tried to freehand and you'd be surprised how close the thin battery cells are after you break through(maybe even free handing a Dremel sanding wheel would be better) I must've punctured one of my cells, I noticed a strange smell coming from the battery, and was hoping that it was only the foam and cheap plastic. I flew that battery on two different long flights with no issue. The next time I fired it up I had a cell that was .30 lower than the rest and gave me battery errors. So yes it can be done out the side and would be ideal but use caution. From what I can see no more caution then going on the top. The whole thing is tight, and because I had that battery to spare

I tried to figure out how to crack the case and I learned a couple things but never how to get in.

Since the battery cell is damaged, why not dismantle it completely and use the BMS handshake and connector to properly connect external batteries. You could remove the cells and just use the shell. Or perhaps even put a new Lihv cell in if there are available in that size. Might be able to do some cool stuff with that battery shell.

cruzroy · May 31, 2017

dirtybum said:
after dremeling out the inside panel to reveal the power leads, I too thought there was a possibility to come out the side, and there is. But you have to be extremely careful because there's enough room for the wire if you drill through the side, but put it on a vice and drill press so you have complete control, I tried to freehand and you'd be surprised how close the thin battery cells are after you break through(maybe even free handing a Dremel sanding wheel would be better) I must've punctured one of my cells, I noticed a strange smell coming from the battery, and was hoping that it was only the foam and cheap plastic. I flew that battery on two different long flights with no issue. The next time I fired it up I had a cell that was .30 lower than the rest and gave me battery errors. So yes it can be done out the side and would be ideal but use caution. From what I can see no more caution then going on the top. The whole thing is tight, and because I had that battery to spare

I tried to figure out how to crack the case and I learned a couple things but never how to get in.

if you want to sell cheap.........i like seeing whats inside

cruzroy · May 31, 2017

LAST NIGHT FLIGHT.................mavic pro, backpack mod, did not push, but easy 31 minutes, i did edit out the 2600 ft return across the lake, i figure nobody wanted to look at water......the minute it was over head, it went into low battery.....but not yellow H yet....so maybe 5 min more......no high speeds, maybe top 20 MPH.....love this bird

mattguy · May 31, 2017

CyberNate said:
Yes, perhaps I can simply turn the battery to an angle to get the front part of the battery up, away from the front legs. It's also possible I just had bad signal for that flight. It happens. The route is not precise.

The antenna's are in the front legs, and aren't even close to your batteries so I'm not sure why they would make any kind of difference.

CyberNate · May 31, 2017

mattguy said:
The antenna's are in the front legs, and aren't even close to your batteries so I'm not sure why they would make any kind of difference.

Yes, was thinking the same, but you don't have to completely block an antenna to reduce it's effectiveness. Just being close to the to communication path can reduce signal. It may have nothing to do with the batteries. I will have another run in the near future and we'll see how it goes.

CyberNate · May 31, 2017

cruzroy said:
LAST NIGHT FLIGHT.................mavic pro, backpack mod, did not push, but easy 31 minutes, i did edit out the 2600 ft return across the lake, i figure nobody wanted to look at water......the minute it was over head, it went into low battery.....but not yellow H yet....so maybe 5 min more......no high speeds, maybe top 20 MPH.....love this bird

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Nice footage! Looks like you've got a nice battery mod going with the direct battery modification. That's pretty sweet for those who don't want to mod their birds. You should start a battery mod service for people. You have a lot of skills that people would pay you for.

I with you on the Mavic. I am very impressed with it. Never getting tired of this toy and that's pretty amazing for my ADD. So many ways to mod and things to test. I love just watching all the stats when I'm doing my runs. It's the perfect toy for me.

MacIak · May 31, 2017

mattguy said:
The antenna's are in the front legs, and aren't even close to your batteries so I'm not sure why they would make any kind of difference.

Uhh..if you re crabbing against the wind at low altitude your line to the drone is almost horizontal. 1 or both of your leg antenna's will be completely blocked. 5cm of polymer surrounded by foil will absolutely ruin your reception completely.

MacIak · May 31, 2017

cruzroy said:
LAST NIGHT FLIGHT.................mavic pro, backpack mod, did not push, but easy 31 minutes, i did edit out the 2600 ft return across the lake, i figure nobody wanted to look at water......the minute it was over head, it went into low battery.....but not yellow H yet....so maybe 5 min more......no high speeds, maybe top 20 MPH.....love this bird

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For more detailed information, see our cookies page.