Cruzroy Battery Mod

[rokz]

Hi with regard to your comment "In this case the pack is heavier and of lower capacity than original"
If i use 12 x4200 mah molicell cells capacity will be 8400 mah ie 6 p2s configuration with a weight of 768 grams or even 6p3s 12600 mah with a weight of 1152 grams.Unfortunately i am still waiting for the higher capacity cells and will update you.I honestly hope a solution can be found as i think we all deserve the right to repair our own items

 

[rokz]

Hi

Pictures are OK, but the battery performance is the one and only proof of successful application. In this case the pack is heavier and of lower capacity than original, therefore you can't expect more than 5-6 minutes of flight ... assuming that the pack will deliver enough juice ... I strongly recommend low hovering test without camera, observing cell's voltage drop on dedicated app page ... Keep us posted, please!

Hi if i use the molicell 4200 mah cells in a configuration of 2s6p total 12 cells with a weight of 768 grams and 8400 mah capacity.A huge improvement....But like you said the proof is in the pudding,Just waiting for the cells to arrive and will update you.

 

[cruzroy]

Hi

Hi if i use the molicell 4200 mah cells in a configuration of 2s6p total 12 cells with a weight of 768 grams and 8400 mah capacity.A huge improvement....But like you said the proof is in the pudding,Just waiting for the cells to arrive and will update you.

im just sitting here waiting on a build or flight video, i tried these years ago, and i talk to titan on giving me there best cell packs but i also use them as a backup pack, but all they did was get very hot.........

 

[cruzroy]

 

[rokz]

Must admit you have inspired me over the last couple years.I do a lot with batteries myself especially laptop and Drone batteries since i bought a large amount of them.Anyways regarding the temperature.I was just doing a few discharge tests on the battery i built and comparing with a standard TB47.However i was using a high amp dicharger and was surprised that the standard tb47 was reasonably warm and the 18650 was cool !.After cycling a couple of times all settings in the app seamed spot on inc capacity.The battery was charged normally using dji charger and will admit that i did overcharge the cells to 4.29v without any heat dissipation. .Also purchased texas programmer some time ago but really have not had any reason to use as yet.I will be getting the new cells next week but brexit is causing delays.Any flight tests will be done then once i have everything finalized.As need to stress test a few molicell cells to see if they need external charging.I only purchased a inspire a few weeks ago just to experiment as like i said i have a lot of tb47/48 and would be nice to bring them back.Well no risk no fun....

 

[rokz]

Also another issue with adding all the extra weight is massive draw on the batteries and more heat.....fine balance is needed

 

[FlyingGinger]

Where can I order a modded battery today? Love your dedication to the product and your post. New to this and want to keep my bird up as long as possible.

 

[Dobmatt]

Where can I order a modded battery today? Love your dedication to the product and your post. New to this and want to keep my bird up as long as possible.

Nowhere. Personally I will never trust any of these home cooked, unauthorized solutions to fly a 5kg brick.

 

[cruzroy]

Nowhere. Personally I will never trust any of these home cooked, unauthorized solutions to fly a 5kg brick.

home cooked, unauthorized solution........wow you the DJI police, do you have any videos that they have failed............i have plenty of videos that DJI batteries catch fire in mid flight, so DJI batteries are not so safe, Christ, half there new model lines all there batteries puff at a low charge count with stock charges......there are about 3 guys right now that are working on "Authorized" as you say new and new rebuilds of the tb47 and tb 48,s but i keep info to myself, so keep your brick for a while, you never know, lipo techs have been scarce because of covid, but are coming soon, plus the inspire 1 if im correct can carry a proven weight of 6400 grams or 14 pounds , if you look at the first m series, they carry a large gimble and large dlsr camera, of course you will lose flight time, ive tested almost every battery config, "except a tether system, those can fly your inspire for hours, but i was not willing to spend 7000 dollars on that system, and not the tether fully extended adds 3 pounds to the inspire 1,

and nobody asked if you want a homemade battery, sorry homemade is a bad word, there is a lot of work that goes into these batteries, there is no money to make on these, but its fun, and someday my brick will hit the Ground, like many other DJI drones have, and i will build a bigger and better one, maybe a gas /electric hybrid..HMMMMMM....

 

[FlyingGinger]

I trust the at home innovators. The guys that figure out what the Manufacture could have done to not build guaranteed obsolesce. I seen a TB49 rather nicely done. I reached out to VincentNG. They no longer make the mods. I got my Inspire 1 and really want to enjoy it.

 

[Brian Fist]

The problem with the TB49 12000mAh solution is that the cells were not calibrated to the BMS. Basically they just reset some parameters and changed others, thus there was no tie-in to the actual cell health in any reasonable way because it thought they were the same cells as used in the TB47/TB48.

As I stated before, I can change the capacity. But unless you calibrate for the cells, which has to be done in "factory mode", it will not age properly and will not show "real" capacity as the pack ages.

 

[cruzroy]

The problem with the TB49 12000mAh solution is that the cells were not calibrated to the BMS. Basically they just reset some parameters and changed others, thus there was no tie-in to the actual cell health in any reasonable way because it thought they were the same cells as used in the TB47/TB48.

As I stated before, I can change the capacity. But unless you calibrate for the cells, which has to be done in "factory mode", it will not age properly and will not show "real" capacity as the pack ages.

what is wierd is these guys

Blue Vigil RS1000 Ground Power Tether System for DJI Inspire 1​

Blue Vigil RS1000 Ground Power Tether System for DJI Inspire 1

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you can run your inspire for hours, or until you generator runs out of gas.....................how do they trick the BMS. if they can trick it, we can too

 

[Brian Fist]

what is wierd is these guys

Blue Vigil RS1000 Ground Power Tether System for DJI Inspire 1​

Blue Vigil RS1000 Ground Power Tether System for DJI Inspire 1

Purchase the Blue Vigil RS1000 Ground Power Tether System for DJI Inspire 1 today at DroneNerds. Free Shipping on orders over $599. ★★★★★ Financing available.

www.dronenerds.com

you can run your inspire for hours, or until you generator runs out of gas.....................how do they trick the BMS. if they can trick it, we can too

They don't trick it. They use a fully charged battery in parallel, just as I stated I could do.

They just have the circuit I mentioned in place. The stock battery never drains thus the BMS is happy.

 

[Dobmatt]

home cooked, unauthorized solution........wow you the DJI police, do you have any videos that they have failed............i have plenty of videos that DJI batteries catch fire in mid flight, so DJI batteries are not so safe, Christ, half there new model lines all there batteries puff at a low charge count with stock charges......there are about 3 guys right now that are working on "Authorized" as you say new and new rebuilds of the tb47 and tb 48,s but i keep info to myself, so keep your brick for a while, you never know, lipo techs have been scarce because of covid, but are coming soon, plus the inspire 1 if im correct can carry a proven weight of 6400 grams or 14 pounds , if you look at the first m series, they carry a large gimble and large dlsr camera, of course you will lose flight time, ive tested almost every battery config, "except a tether system, those can fly your inspire for hours, but i was not willing to spend 7000 dollars on that system, and not the tether fully extended adds 3 pounds to the inspire 1,

and nobody asked if you want a homemade battery, sorry homemade is a bad word, there is a lot of work that goes into these batteries, there is no money to make on these, but its fun, and someday my brick will hit the Ground, like many other DJI drones have, and i will build a bigger and better one, maybe a gas /electric hybrid..HMMMMMM....

Dear Cruz ... I'm a firm supporter of your experiments, watching successful attempts and failures to power the mighty Inspire 1. The problem I see is that we're representing two different schools. While you're in tractor pulling competitions, I prefer plowing with stock machinery. That's why I've used the word "personally" in my post ...

Why do you think Vincent disappeared suddenly? Because he was using DJI's intellectual property right under their nose, and wasn't even smart enough to abandon the idea of labelling his "home cooked" creations as TB90, or something like this ...

Do I really need a 3rd party aftermarket battery to be blessed by DJI? This will never happen, we know that ... All I need is a DJI branded TB48 or reliable, 3rd party equivalent of TB48. And this will not happen either, I'm afraid. There's no money in it, right?

What I'm NOT looking for is a behemoth 12000mAh home cooked system, transforming swift and powerful fighter into a mule carrying nothing more than a huge fuel tank for 25-30 minutes.

But that's me, hence my word "personally" ...

 

[Greg Huntoon]

My Inspire 1 was DJI Factory re-certified. I bought it 1.5 years ago on good faith that I might get 5 years out of it. Little did I know that DJI had already discontinued batteries before I bought my drone. I should have known, DJI is the Apple of drones. Fortunately I bought 3 batteries with it that I guess were old so I'm good for a while. Knowing what I know now, and this being my first DJI product, it will also be my last. So yeah, I will do anything I can to keep this bird in the air including re-celling when needed despite the risks. The BMS might not be configured correctly and may not work for long or at all but my bird won't be grounded. A Drone that can't fly, really isn't a drone, is it.

I have other RC and drones going back over decades that are still in the air. Custom 2 and 3 axis gimbals, you name it, no crashes, fly aways, or Lipo fires. It's pretty sad that the bird that's really a pleasure to fly and probably the most expensive will be my 'shelf queen' or 'paper weight'.

Unfortunately, I knew buying this turnkey kit was going to come with baggage and regrets like forced grounding until firmware updates, etc. I was thinking they probably wouldn't be updating the firmware anymore so no groundings. Against my better judgement, I did it anyway once the price was right. Well, as they say, beauty is skin deep, you have to consider the whole package. I always thought the Inspire 1 was really cool and tough, soon it will be tough and cool looking on the shelf to serve as a lesson to myself and others. To get this bad taste out of my mouth, I'm thinking a Tarot X6 or X8 will be my next option. Any batteries, flight controllers, radio equipment, gimbals, cameras, redundant GPS I want. Nothing better than DIY to learn on and upgrade as hardware improves.

Maybe if DJI still made batteries, I'd continue flying for years to come, letting their product sell itself. But alas... It will serve a purpose, just not a positive one for DJI.

 

[mrpackethead]

For what its worth. I've been through and read many many of @Brian Fist Posts. I spent quite a few hours last night validating a lot of what he said both practically on the bench, and against good engineering knowledge.

His posts provide a LOT of information for someone who has a grasp on a moderate level of electronics. Plenty of useful clues that will save me hours. Its not a 'how to step by step guide' though. I was able to look at the communications and how things communicate with the BMS.. The Datasheets for the Chips are freely avaialble, and its not too hard for someone with the right skills and background to work out whats going on. The comments about a 'circuit' that provides some level of safety when putting a a parrallel battery in place are not based on myth, but just like Brian said, its far from a perfect fix for the problem..

INtially i was thinking Brian was being a bit obnoxius in not sharing the infomation he has worked out.. But in retrospect hes provided a LOT of information already.. And i kind of agree with him. If you can't make sense of what hes shared already, then its probaby not for you. THis is definatly a case of a little bit of knowledge could be dangerous. While i'm probably a bit more 'well its on your head if you crash your drone', hes probably a bit more cautious that someone will come chasing him when they do crash their drone, because they did'tn do things correct.

I'm actually quite excited about the prospoect of being able to run my I1 for quite a long time.. To the point that i'm on the hunt to buy a few more, so, we can expand our drone fishing fun. For $1000 or so, ( 2nnd hand, ) i can get a drone that is nearly perfect for the job.

 

[Dobmatt]

For what its worth. I've been through and read many many of @Brian Fist Posts. I spent quite a few hours last night validating a lot of what he said both practically on the bench, and against good engineering knowledge.

His posts provide a LOT of information for someone who has a grasp on a moderate level of electronics. Plenty of useful clues that will save me hours. Its not a 'how to step by step guide' though. I was able to look at the communications and how things communicate with the BMS.. The Datasheets for the Chips are freely avaialble, and its not too hard for someone with the right skills and background to work out whats going on. The comments about a 'circuit' that provides some level of safety when putting a a parrallel battery in place are not based on myth, but just like Brian said, its far from a perfect fix for the problem..

INtially i was thinking Brian was being a bit obnoxius in not sharing the infomation he has worked out.. But in retrospect hes provided a LOT of information already.. And i kind of agree with him. If you can't make sense of what hes shared already, then its probaby not for you. THis is definatly a case of a little bit of knowledge could be dangerous. While i'm probably a bit more 'well its on your head if you crash your drone', hes probably a bit more cautious that someone will come chasing him when they do crash their drone, because they did'tn do things correct.

I'm actually quite excited about the prospoect of being able to run my I1 for quite a long time.. To the point that i'm on the hunt to buy a few more, so, we can expand our drone fishing fun. For $1000 or so, ( 2nnd hand, ) i can get a drone that is nearly perfect for the job.

I don't know why, but scenes from Spielberg's movie titled War Horse are crossing my mind when you talking about fishing with Inspire ... LOL, naturally.

Yes, Brian certainly know a thing or two about this stuff. Let's hope he will develop and share some solution we are all after ...

 

[cruzroy]

I don't know why, but scenes from Spielberg's movie titled War Horse are crossing my mind when you talking about fishing with Inspire ... LOL, naturally.

Yes, Brian certainly know a thing or two about this stuff. Let's hope he will develop and share some solution we are all after ...

i agree about brian...........there is hope for the inspire one, alot is silenced to keep people out of trouble, but there are some of us that DJI cant even come close to knowing whats going on, vincent ng has not stopped, just good cells are not available, and i hate to tell you this GREEN DEAL has its drawbacks, here is one for you
lithium is a very unstable Oar from the ground, and can have some very toxic gasses, so we need battery technology, BUT we cant have it NOW, the lipo are slowing down due to global deals, they dont realize its the only tech we have right now, even Tesla is having problems getting proper materials for those small 18650 batteries that made them the kings of battery car, the USA will slowly close every power supplies we have, to outsource to other countries, it dont make sense.. also alot of us, including the OG's we do this for fun, not to portentously crash our drones, but just to push the limits, just like my 1998 ZX900r i keep modding it, and i run VP fuels, just to push it hard..... plus tinkering is fun.

 

[Brian Fist]

I completely agree that the current battery model being utilized almost verbatim throughout ALL industries is unsustainable.

What is amazing is that for all the development on finding the "holy grail" of battery tech, there is also so much resistance in regards to "legacy power" not wanting that discovery, since they will lose a grip on a well-established, long-running source of income for themselves.

I do feel that the advent of electric cars en-masse is a MAJOR problem for smaller industries, such as our beloved drones, since the scale at which the autos consume this technology is massive in comparison to our needs.

We pay such a steep premium for the tech we rely upon it is a scale that boggles the mind. Imagine if an automobile application utilized the same cells that the Inspire 1 does at the same cost we pay for those cells? For a Tesla Model 3 with a 82kWh battery, given a TB47 at 99.9wH, with a retail price point of $225 for the TB47 equates to $184,500 for just the battery packs (yeah yeah there is the BMS and all, but there would have to be casing and electronics built into the big packs to manage them, so it all works out for this scenario ). And that would be roughly 820 TB47s needed to make a single pack for a single car!

So, yeah, there is a huge difference of scale in regards to what technologies are implemented in what products and what SHOULD be implemented in those products.

I mean honestly, producing Li-Ion battery tech is such an ugly, messy, environment unfriendly process that if people REALLY cared about the planet they would hold off on electric cars until a power source that isn't such a problem is developed. I mean if anyone knew how bad the environment is around the plant that has produced the Prius batteries in the past they would think twice about viewing that car as "environment friendly". For anyone that doesn't know the area around that production plant is so dead and destroyed that is like being on another planet, so much so that various governments around the world have used that area to test rovers and automated vehicles to be used on missions to mars and the moon. It is desolate and dead: The Dark Side of the Hybrid: Lead Acid Batteries

Basically we are utilizing resources at a rate that is unsustainable. That means tech needs to slow down until solutions present themselves. Unfortunately, we all know that won't happen. So, just because someone wants an all electric vehicle, products like drones will end up taking the brunt of the expense to allow such excess of a limited resource. It surely won't be the beloved phones that connect everyone, nor the cars everyone buys to be "trendy" that they are "saving the environment" with no real clue how badly they are harming everything in reality.

 

[Greg Huntoon]

Unfortunately, the DJI approach of having a BMS with every battery adds weight, cost, and makes adapting newer future high energy density battery technologies to existing drones more difficult than it needs to be. An older brushed RC heli I have used to use a 6 cell Nicd pack. Back then, no one could have imagined a comparable Lipo pack with it's amazing energy density and reduced weight, yet, I can easily retrofit one to it today and keep it flying. It would be nice if the same could be said for the DJI drones, in my case, the Inspire 1. I'm pretty sure I will be able to adapt future battery technology to my existing RC fleet, including my Yuneec Typhoon H.

Brian's previous assessment around existing battery technologies and the auto industry is pretty spot on, however, that coming demand by the auto industry that will drive battery improvements in safety, increased energy density, decreased cost, increased recharge/discharge cycles, decreased charge times, reduced impact on the environment, etc. These improvements will trickle down to home power, and small electronics.

I personally think Lithium will be replaced by something else in the near future, that's more abundant, recyclable, and less of an impact on the environment. Aluminum maybe? Maybe some other technology all together, like micro fuel cells? Who knows?

Some think Hydrogen is the solution. Unfortunately most of our Hydrogen is bound up with Oxygen and takes a lot of energy using current technologies to break those bonds. So we might not have vehicles spreading hydrocarbons all over, but unless we up nuclear or there's a fusion breakthrough, gas used by power plants will increase to charge all those vehicles or extract hydrogen so basically a possible increased negative impact on the environment.

Lipos are unfortunately pretty dangerous if handled improperly. Remember all those hover board and vape pen fires? Needing a balancing BMS to to safely charge Lipos is essential, but it's more of an engineering philosophy on how to implement the BMS, i.e. with the battery all the time of only when charging. Transmitted telemetry on the battery state can be provided regardless of which BMS approach is used. Future safer batteries may not even need a BMS.

Tesla, Samsung, Panasonic, and others have already determined micro fractures appear with each charge/discharge cycle and contribute to the limited number of cycles with existing Lithium technologies. A new approach will limit those fractures, (kind of like adding rebar to concrete), hence the boast by Elon of a million mile battery.