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Handwarmers for battery in cold weather

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.

Nice. Could you possibly post a pic of your wrap solution? Sounds good to me!
 
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.
Very good point!
My concern with these battery warmers is the draw down from 100% full battery. The 1.5 update was to fix sudden battery drops but I am still sorting out my best procedures since then. Previously I had flown several short (3-5 minute) flights. I revised SOP to fly one operation per battery and not land until ~20%.
So if a battery should be used in a continuous manner to prevent sudden power drops, is the battery warmer safe to use?
 
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.
Interesting. What sensor are you using? I have been planning to test a LM35DZ. I was going to mount it on the battery for in flight but have since thought it may be more valuable in my "hand warmer" battery bag instead as a warm battery in a running Inspire is unlikely to cool down.
 
Interesting. What sensor are you using? I have been planning to test a LM35DZ. I was going to mount it on the battery for in flight but have since thought it may be more valuable in my "hand warmer" battery bag instead as a warm battery in a running Inspire is unlikely to cool down.

I used the Dallas 18B20 sensors as I had them around, I made the PCB now a few days ago and it includes 2 x temp sensors, Real Time Clock, microSD and it's powered by a 250mah 1 cell lipo .. and it looks like this :
arduino temp sensors.jpg

As for the battery isolation, I have used untill now the 5mm thick balsa wood, it weights 23 grams and yesterday I tried other materials like 2mm felt and 2 foams, the best one is this 5mm thick and very dense foam which is also very light at just 16 grams
the best, 5mm thick, mounted with velcro.jpg
 

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...As for the battery isolation, I have used untill now the 5mm thick balsa wood, it weights 23 grams and yesterday I tried other materials like 2mm felt and 2 foams, the best one is this 5mm thick and very dense foam which is also very light at just 16 grams
View attachment 5546

Can you possibly link to the material we can buy needed for this and a brief few points how to to assemble/dimensions?

This is a very nice mod to keep things warm in flight!

Love the look of this one:

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1452355876.792216.jpg
Nice job!!
 
I used the Dallas 18B20 sensors as I had them around, I made the PCB now a few days ago and it includes 2 x temp sensors, Real Time Clock, microSD and it's powered by a 250mah 1 cell lipo .. and it looks like this :
View attachment 5544

As for the battery isolation, I have used untill now the 5mm thick balsa wood, it weights 23 grams and yesterday I tried other materials like 2mm felt and 2 foams, the best one is this 5mm thick and very dense foam which is also very light at just 16 grams
View attachment 5546
Very nice. I made mine out of Sintra (Can be digitally printed) with the DJI insulators stuck on in reverse, velcro to secure it. I like your solution. Very Elegant and easy.
 

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I used the Dallas 18B20 sensors as I had them around, I made the PCB now a few days ago and it includes 2 x temp sensors, Real Time Clock, microSD and it's powered by a 250mah 1 cell lipo .. and it looks like this :
View attachment 5544
Very interesting Ovisopa, I'm working on a minimal arduino solution that uses an RGB LED that glows green at 20C and changes towards blue below 20 and towards Red above. Will run via coin cels but as I think it's more sensible to monitor the battery storage bag weight is not important. I can monitor the temp while in flight via the Go APP. In Maps or others the airborne censor makes a lot of sense and the SD card to store a log is very cool indeed!
 
Can you possibly link to the material we can buy needed for this and a brief few points how to to assemble/dimensions?...

The one I like most is extruded polystyrene, you can find it in stores where you can buy laminate flooring, usually is packed in 5 - 10 sheets, 1 meter long .. And about the Velcro, I don't know how long will remain secured to the extruded polystyrene with only double sided tape, I sew it as this way, the velcro will be permanently mounted on the polystyrene

Very interesting Ovisopa, I'm working on a minimal arduino solution that uses an RGB LED that glows green at 20C and changes towards blue below 20 and towards Red above. Will run via coin cels but as I think it's more sensible to monitor the battery storage bag weight is not important. I can monitor the temp while in flight via the Go APP. In Maps or others the airborne censor makes a lot of sense and the SD card to store a log is very cool indeed!

I made the sensors just to test which material is better because the temperature goes up and down in flight depending the flying patterns and speed, I really wanted to know the temperature between the battery and insulation ... today I made some tests but I think it was badluck, you see I used double sided tape to secure the small battery on the blue plastic sheet, the badluck was I placed the battery exactly on the arduino reset button, and when I secured the sensors on the Inspire I think the elastic rubber band pressed the small battery on the reset button as it didn't recorded anything !!! And I just tested the device for 2 minutes just before I left outside, I checked the card and it logged both sensors, everything worked well except the moment when I attached the seonsors to the inspire.

I'll make some more tests when the weather will be better as it started to rain :(

About you project, will the coin battery be enough to power the arduino and the rgb led ? I really want to add an RGB led also, just to have a confirmation if the board is logging and saving to card, to prevent the events like the one in the morning when I was thinking everything is fine but in fact nothing was logged. The 250mah lipo battery I used is able to power the arduino + sd card + rtc through a boost dc to dc converter (3v to 5v) for 4 hours maximum (no sleep) , check the orange line in the graph, it's the battery voltage across 2 hours, and one hour the whole device and battery ware placed outside at 3°C, the 3 spikes on the red line are when I hold the sensor in my hand. arduino_sensors_graph.jpg
 

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The one I like most is extruded polystyrene, you can find it in stores where you can buy laminate flooring, usually is packed in 5 - 10 sheets, 1 meter long .. And about the Velcro, I don't know how long will remain secured to the extruded polystyrene with only double sided tape, I sew it as this way, the velcro will be permanently mounted on the polystyrene



I made the sensors just to test which material is better because the temperature goes up and down in flight depending the flying patterns and speed, I really wanted to know the temperature between the battery and insulation ... today I made some tests but I think it was badluck, you see I used double sided tape to secure the small battery on the blue plastic sheet, the badluck was I placed the battery exactly on the arduino reset button, and when I secured the sensors on the Inspire I think the elastic rubber band pressed the small battery on the reset button as it didn't recorded anything !!! And I just tested the device for 2 minutes just before I left outside, I checked the card and it logged both sensors, everything worked well except the moment when I attached the seonsors to the inspire.

I'll make some more tests when the weather will be better as it started to rain :(

About you project, will the coin battery be enough to power the arduino and the rgb led ? I really want to add an RGB led also, just to have a confirmation if the board is logging and saving to card, to prevent the events like the one in the morning when I was thinking everything is fine but in fact nothing was logged. The 250mah lipo battery I used is able to power the arduino + sd card + rtc through a boost dc to dc converter (3v to 5v) for 4 hours maximum (no sleep) , check the orange line in the graph, it's the battery voltage across 2 hours, and one hour the whole device and battery ware placed outside at 3°C, the 3 spikes on the red line are when I hold the sensor in my hand. View attachment 5566


What material was this one made from?

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1452371682.767905.jpg
 
That's a textile used in automotive industry, it's used to cover the car seats :)
 
About you project, will the coin battery be enough to power the arduino and the rgb led ? I really want to add an RGB led also View attachment 5566
I have a double coin holder so 6 v. I am still testing on a breadboard. Having trouble burning the code to my raw chip. Perhaps we can chat directly and sort out a few things. Very impressed with your process!
 
i made myself these.
i made myself these.
i can not insert pics off of my phone and will put them up on monday. i found the core material that dji uses for the warming pads. the i used some cartonplast to make a "hood" and 3M dual velcro (the all plastic kind) to put it up. holds the battery nice and cosey.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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Your construction looks very similar to what i created and i think the velcro will create a gap between the plastic material and the airframe allowing air in. That is why i used elastics to push my coroplast pieces against the airframe. Yes i know the elastics are not as pretty as velcro but the elastics i used stay very securely.
 
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looks all a bit complicated, i just use (PE or PP) closed cell foil. you'll find them in diff thicknesses; i use 3mm.
Add some double sided tape to stick it o t frame. i keep some spares in case i lose one.
When i go out for a flight i keep my Batt's in a seperate box around 20˚C and add a 33cc softdrink bottle with water at 60˚C (don't let it touch the batt's)
i flew at 5-8˚C outside T˚ and when i landed after 15-18min flight GoP app indicates 30-35˚C .
i made a new box lined with a Gyproc&tiles with seperations for each batt, (also for safety) so if i pre heat it it will keep warm for a while.
i always double check with a little IR T˚gauge during testing.

2 the Battmobile ! let's go !
 

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