Handwarmers for battery in cold weather

damoncooper

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What do folks think of this idea for cold temp operation. These are 2.5" X 3" and work for up to 10 hours.

If we had a holder for the outside sides of the battery cage that accepted a handwarmer slid in and kept secure it would help keep things in battery land cozy, even among battery swaps.

Need to have a solid outside side wall and probably a mesh inner wall to let heat into the battery compartment but keep the cold out.

Especially in light of the 1.6FW update this might be a great way to make sure you aren't performance limited at a critical moment.

Thoughts?

 
Reactions: jon b, Kris and slim.slamma
Looking at the TB48 specs, the Operating Temperature Range is quoted as -10 to 40° C.

Which I presume means ambient air temp, as the battery internal temp itself can get quite a bit hotter than that.

So you'd just need to be careful not to enclose the battery so much that it would get into a dangerously high internal temperature.
 
The battery warmers are actually quite good IF you are already flying and place the next battery in the warmer to get ready for the next flight.
This way you actually only need to worry about the temperature of the first pack you fly with. All others after that are nice and toasty and ready to put straight in the aircraft pretty much irrespective of outside temp.
 
Reactions: eldorado
Around 4-5% or 45 seconds(ish)
 
PAH....you're trying to apply logic where DJI is concerned - can you spot your mistake?
 
Reactions: damoncooper
I was actually thinking the battery warmers might make decent discharge devices but if they draw that little current maybe not
 
Reactions: eldorado

I use the crap out of chemical handwarmers to keep batteries warm before I use them. Buy them in bulk and keep a few packs in your flight Kit.
 
Reactions: eldorado and damoncooper
I actually I ran in to same problem doing project at the snow resort, after that I made a battery insulation shield, it wraps around battery compartment on outside of the drone and all it does is prevents heat from escaping, it's in the test mode now, Once it's tested and good, you should be able to buy it, ill be probably selling on eBay or something. Another week or two. Good thing about it you only need one shield vs stickers you buy from DJI that you need set for ea battery. Shield you can put on and remove fast anytime you want, on the fly when needed.
Anyway, something to look forward too in near future...
 
Last edited:
Reactions: damoncooper
Hand warmers and or toasty toes and a neoprene can cooler for while she is in the air to hold out the cold? Any thoughts? Finally working outside most of my life has paid off.


Sent from where the wild things were using Tapatalk
 

Pete, I also made myself some shielding around battery compartment as this autumn I flown a lot in early mornings with temperatures around -2 degrees C and in the evening with +10 .. so after first test with the original neoprene stickers I understood they're no good to me as in the morning I had to put them on and in the evening get them off .. In the past few days I flown alot using Map Pilot, so far ~100km, all the flights ware at a temperature ranging -8 to -2 degrees C, and the thick balsa wood I used to cover the compartment it's been very effective, on landing the battery temperature ranged from 28 to 40 degrees C. Today I checked the temperature also before flight and it was ~17 degrees.

Now I made a temperature logger but so far is just on a breadboard with the wires hanging out, I really want to see the exact temperature inside the battery compartment and outside while flying, and to test different materials. Will let you guys know how it goes.
 
Kris said:
Hand warmers and or toasty toes and a neoprene can cooler for while she is in the air to hold out the cold? Any thoughts? Finally working outside most of my life has paid off.


Sent from where the wild things were using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Do you mean putting the warmers and battery in the can cooler prior to flight?

Interesting if we could figure out how to wrap the battery compartment with the stuff the can cooler is made of?
 

Got a picture of that? Sounds great.
 
Found this concerning sheets of neoprene. Will try to make a mold of battery compartment and see what I come up with. Limited to an analog instant read and point and shoot thermometer but might be enough to show whether it's going to help or not.
Link to neoprene Neoprene Rubber Sheet | Sheet Rubber & Rolls


Sent from where the wild things were using Tapatalk
 
I keep the batteries in my pockets close to my body and temp at take off is above 15C, then i have no issue as it starts to warm up with current draw.
Flew at 9000ft in the Alps in winter using this technique and never went below 15C.
 
Yes if batteries are warm to start it has to be pretty **** cold to need hand warmers attached to craft. Just some kind of insulation on outside of craft.

I made insulation with coroplast and used thick elastics to secure it. Todays test results with my insulators:
Outside temp: 0c
Starting battery temp: 10c
After 10 mins of flight: 40c

My thinking is that without the insulation today the battery still would have warmed up in flight.

I just keep a cooler with batteries and handwarmers in it before flight.
 
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