DJI Mavic, Air and Mini Drones
Friendly, Helpful & Knowledgeable Community
Join Us Now

Optimal speed for battery life

Hayabusa

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 22, 2017
Messages
360
Reactions
113
Age
56
what would the optimal speed be to save battery life? If I’m sending on a litchi mission and want the most energy efficient run.
Just curious

Mike
 
If you did a search, you'd realize there's no actual answer to that. Not one person has done any objective testing on it, so everything people say is anecdotal.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Thwyllo
What he said. If you need to ask questions like that I'd suggest you're pushing the envelope a bit too much.
Why is wanting to know most energy efficient way to fly pushing the envelope.
As I said, just curious. If fir some reason I’m in a RTH and battery is low- what speed would be
The most efficient to get you home? Going slow but takes longer or go faster and make up more ground but at what cost of battery life.
I don’t see it as pushing the limits.
It’s learning what the limits are.
Mike
 
  • Like
Reactions: Huge Bama Fan
But you already have a decent idea what the limits are from umpteen accounts on here and elsewhere? Why not ask DJI if they can provide a graph of speed against battery consumption in still air conditions? The safest (and cheapest!) flying is always going to be to land with some contingency left but as someone has said, there isn't an answer per se, it's dependant on too many variables, wind speed, temperature, altitude, pressure and so on.

The obvious pragmatic answer is to go out in very still air at a medium temperature and fly in a large circle until the battery is almost dead, doing it at different speeds each time. Four flights ought to give you a rough indication of where you need to pitch I'd have thought - the same experiment in a different geography might well produce different results.
 
I don't get why some people are so rude, if you are not going to help the guy just move on, no need to bring your saltiness.

Anyway, as you probabbly know, optimal speed will be dependent on the air direction and speed, so do like the real pilots do and go with the motors RPM, if you switch to radar mode it shows an arc to the left, it shows your motors RPM from low (blue) to high (red), I think it also shows a numerical figure but could be wrong about that last one, anyway stay in the green and it will give you the optimal speed on whatever wind the aircraft is.

On low wind conditions, if I remember correctly, the optimal speed was around 40-46 kph
 
  • Like
Reactions: DOW
Surely there are variables here.

There'll be an optimum for battery life time (flight time) and a different one for maximum distance per battery.
Given wind effects and so on surely this should really be a most efficient RPM as opposed to a speed (like in real a/c).
Sport mode gives a % power readout which i guess is directly linked to RPM.
 
What he said. If you need to ask questions like that I'd suggest you're pushing the envelope a bit too much.
I don't see an issue with the OP's question. Every pilot should know the limits of and optimal parameters of any AC that they fly. In fact, DJI, and all manufacturers should publish a flight manual that is similar to what Cessna and Piper provide for their pilots.
 
If you look at the specs published by DJI, they list:

Max Flight Time 27 minutes (no wind at a consistent 15.5 mph (25 kph))
Max Hovering Time 24 minutes (no wind)
Overall Flight Time 21 minutes ( In normal flight, 15% remaining battery level )

As you can see, forward flight is needed for more efficient energy use (perhaps some lift is provided by the body/arms).

As with anything, there are all kinds of variables that can effect total flight time, not the least of which is wind and battery age/condition. I would think that DJI has done extensive testing to find the most efficient speed to fly so as to be able to claim the absolute maximum flight time for marketing purposes. So I'd say keep it around 25 km/h for your best best. Obviously YMMV.
 
I agree with the chart posted above.

I fly often at work over the exact same area (a really large circle) and all of mavics longest distance flights are done in full throttle sports mode. They are also the shortest flights, time wise.

I would estimate that I average about 32,000 feet in p mode (with obstacle avoidance) and about 36k feet in sport mode.
 
Lycus Tech Mavic Air 3 Case

DJI Drone Deals

New Threads

Forum statistics

Threads
130,593
Messages
1,554,190
Members
159,598
Latest member
fast54