The most battery efficient way to climb and decend?

[photo2be]

Hi I usually take still pics from 122m/400ft and stay in the air as long as possible. What is the most battery efficient way to climb resp. descend? Cine, Normal or Sport?

 

[old man mavic]

@photo2be on the MM i own the maximum Ascent /Descent speeds are of course in sport mode
but obviously you would be using more battery to Ascend, and because it would come down quicker in sport mode, logically it should use less battery to descend ,basically regardless of what mode you are in, going up is always going to use more battery ,the same as just hovering in a stationary position will

 

[photo2be]

Hi I usually take still pics from 122m/400ft and stay in the air as long as possible. What is the most battery efficient way to climb resp. descend? Cine, Normal or Sport?

Hi "Old man", I will not question your knowledge. The speed is irrelevant for me just the way I drain the battery.
Are you sure that the most most effective way is sport mode in both ways?

 

[old man mavic]

@photo2be well lets put it this way when the drone is descending strait down it requires the 4 motors to all slow down together to reduce lift and allow the drone to come down
if on the other hand you descended at a 45 degree slope moving forwards while descending then the back pair of motors would have to spin faster than the front to allow the drone to move forwards as it descended ,that for me is the most efficient way to loose altitude and probably the quickest way to get down ,sport mode for the climb will get you to altitude the quickest ,but like i said its always going to use more battery to ascend whatever speed mode you choose

 

[Bodkin's Best Photography]

Hi "Old man", I will not question your knowledge. The speed is irrelevant for me just the way I drain the battery.
Are you sure that the most most effective way is sport mode in both ways?

Doing a test the other day I compared Sport to Normal and Normal used around 40% less battery than Sport. Sport is good for getting from point A to point B in minimal time, but if you're going for maximum airtime Normal is much better. Not sure if Cine would be any better than Normal, as it's too slow for me unless I'm recording video.

 

[brett8883]

The faster you go the more efficient it is to get from A to B because time is the biggest factor for battery life. If you can get there quicker you’ll have more battery remaining. Going full speed will reduce your total flight time but improves your distance per battery.

It takes so much power to just to keep the thing airborne that taking less time to get there is more efficient even if you burn through battery at a higher rate. L

Having said this you also don’t want to hurt your battery so don’t go too crazy.

 

[Bodkin's Best Photography]

The faster you go the more efficient it is to get from A to B because time is the biggest factor for battery life. If you can get there quicker you’ll have more battery remaining. Going full speed will reduce your total flight time but improves your distance per battery.

It takes so much power to just to keep the thing airborne that taking less time to get there is more efficient even if you burn through battery at a higher rate. L

Having said this you also don’t want to hurt your battery so don’t go too crazy.

Gotta say you're wrong on that. My test consisted of two nearly identical flights, one in sport and one in normal. Same distance traveled, same wind, same place, but normal mode had 40% more battery at the end of the test.

 

[Meta4]

Hi I usually take still pics from 122m/400ft and stay in the air as long as possible. What is the most battery efficient way to climb resp. descend? Cine, Normal or Sport?

Whether you use Sport or Normal mode to climb, the difference in time taken will only be 16 seconds.
Whichever is more economical won't save you enough battery that you'll notice.

Descending, the difference would only be 6 seconds.

 

[GadgetGuy]

Hi I usually take still pics from 122m/400ft and stay in the air as long as possible. What is the most battery efficient way to climb resp. descend? Cine, Normal or Sport?

The mode is irrelevant, unless you always fly at the mode's maximum speed. It's the actual speed itself that matters. If you were to fly at exactly the same speed in all three, the battery consumption would be identical. Slower speeds tend to use less power. Unless you fly straight up and straight down, a glide path will be more efficient from your launch point to your destination, and then returning along the same glide path. It's also the shortest distance.

 

[netfolks2000]

And this brings to mind a great feature in the future. Imagine flying up to 400 feet and then invoking a feature that would very slowly, about 20 minutes, bring the drone gradually down to a setable height, say 60 feet, above tree and power line level. You could do all your video or photos while in that gradual descend and, perhaps, get a longer flight time since the drone would be slowly saving power in a gradual descend. Make sense? Or would it be negligible?

 

[wardtom084]

Rule of physics. The faster you go, the more energy you burn. With my spread sheet the faster you go the hotter the battery gets. Wasted power that could have been used doing something else.

 

[brett8883]

Rule of physics. The faster you go, the more energy you burn. With my spread sheet the faster you go the hotter the battery gets. Wasted power that could have been used doing something else.

Not necessarily true. In the mini specs it says:

Max Flight Time​

31 mins (measured while flying at 4.7 m/s in windless conditions)

This is because running the motors at a constant speed is better than making small constant changes to motor speed to go slower than that. This is why you get better gas mileage on the highway than in the city.

The drone uses a significant amount of power just to keep itself in the air. The OP is asking about vertical speed and any extra energy burned by going faster is made up by getting to the destination in less time and not having to use that base amount of energy If you do a test where you fly around at full speed in sport mode the entire flight you will probably be surprised that your flight time didn’t change all that drastically vs going slow. It will be reduced time but the total flight distance you covered will be much greater.

This especially true when descending because you are no longer using that base amount of idle energy. You are just falling and gravity is your friend.

Having said all this it’s true that the distance the OP is asking about is so small it won’t make a difference either way.

 

[GadgetGuy]

There are two optimal flight speeds for every aircraft: one for covering the most distance, and one for the longest flight time. They are rarely, if ever, the same speed. Before VLOS became a requirement, the long distance fliers were focusing on the optimal speed to cover the most distance to set new records. In most cases, the optimal speed for distance was found to be between 31 and 34 mph in windless conditions on the P3P, P4 and the Mavics. That speed was also easily facilitated by the top speed in P mode. With the newer, lighter aircraft with OA, max N speed on the MA2 is only 27 mph, implying 27 mph is its optimal distance speed. Ironically, autonomous RTH speeds are not optimal for maximum distance, so best to take over as soon as you can, to fly a bit faster, if Icarus has flown too far!

 

[Lets Fly]

Having said all this it’s true that the distance the OP is asking about is so small it won’t make a difference either way.

This is true. I guess if you want to know just for the knowledge of it, fine. From a practical point view it makes no sense. I wouldn't run my batteries below 20%, and at that I could still climb to 400 feet and back down several times.
So what's the point?

 

[thatswedishguy]

Hovering or climbing and descending in a hover is very energy inefficient. The reason for this is that that hovering keeps the props in "dirty" turbulent air. Flying forward improved the efficiency of the props. Because of that the most efficient way is to climb and descend in directional flight.

I'd say moderate speed while climbing and descending is the most efficient, because going too fast will use a lot of energy to keep the drone in lateral motion. You want to go fast enough to keep the props in "clean" air but not much faster for maximum efficiency.

Look up translational lift if interested in learning more.

 

[Manpreet Singh Bhatia]

Gotta say you're wrong on that. My test consisted of two nearly identical flights, one in sport and one in normal. Same distance traveled, same wind, same place, but normal mode had 40% more battery at the end of the test.

i cannot agree more , was looking for this kind of reply. SPorts mode burns battery and will be less efficient.

 

[GadgetGuy]

i cannot agree more , was looking for this kind of reply. SPorts mode burns battery and will be less efficient.

Sports Mode doesn't burn any more battery than any other mode at the same speed. If you fly faster in Sports mode than the maximum speeds in the other modes, then it is less efficient. Just go easy on the sticks in Sports Mode, and only use top speed when necessary.

 

[scro]

i cannot agree more , was looking for this kind of reply. SPorts mode burns battery and will be less efficient.

It depends on how you define efficient. If your objective is to have a long flight time without getting very far then you don't need S mode. However, if you want to cover a lot of distance in 1 flight then full speed in S mode is probably at the optimal point between using power to hover and using power to overcome drag.

My car can run for many many hours on 1 tank of fuel, if I leave it parked up and just idling. It doesn't go very far like that though ?

 

[photo2be]

It depends on how you define efficient. If your objective is to have a long flight time without getting very far then you don't need S mode. However, if you want to cover a lot of distance in 1 flight then full speed in S mode is probably at the optimal point between using power to hover and using power to overcome drag.

My car can run for many many hours on 1 tank of fuel, if I leave it parked up and just idling. It doesn't go very far like that though ?

I want to stay at 400ft/122m right above me as long as possible.

 

[TS_Thomas02]

Hi I usually take still pics from 122m/400ft and stay in the air as long as possible. What is the most battery efficient way to climb resp. descend? Cine, Normal or Sport?

I won't address the climb side of the efficiency question, it sounds like people have weighed in on that already. But in terms of getting down with battery efficiency, and getting down is a matter of decreasing lift in a controlled manner, I'd say getting down quickly is the answer. And THAT, from what I've found, seems to occur better with no lateral speed, just dropping straight down. And that would be the case for each mode, although SPORT would be fastest, NORM a close second...CINE, well you know about that.

As Old-Man Mavic said, "if on the other hand you descended at a 45 degree slope moving forwards while descending then the back pair of motors would have to spin faster than the front to allow the drone to move forwards as it descended ..."

That, sounds like the faster rear motors are having to give a little lift, which means you get down a bit slower, and that's something to keep in mind when you're fighting to get down out of the wind. I know there's the instinct to keep pressing for home, but it can be painfully slow to get down when keeping lateral motion to home. I know your question had more to do with efficiency though.

That's not to say don't do it. Sport mode, with no forward or side stick, just max down on the elevation, it's almost too scary of a drop...unless you want that. Probably pretty energy efficient though.