- Joined
- Mar 16, 2018
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- Age
- 52
I've read through several posts/articles/forums on how or why some Inspire 1 drone owners had crashed or fallen out of the sky. One common cause of crashing appeared to be sudden battery discharge. This has me paying closer attention to the batteries themselves.
The battery system is intelligent but it seems to have some faults. Lithium-Polymer batteries aren't perfect either and require some attention and proper charging cycles. I'm guessing that the mAH capacity readout is determined by the average voltage and current of each battery cell. I'm not aware of a means to measure capacity in a battery other than current and voltage calculations.
Somewhere in one of several Inspire 1 PDF manuals I'd read to "recalibrate" the battery cells by leaving the drone on until completely discharged and than fully recharge the battery. I did this with 3 of 4 batteries.
I was flying with the 4th battery that I did not fully discharge and recharge. It had been fully charged and the four charge indicator lights were illuminated. It has a total of 10 charging cycles on it. About 45 seconds after take-off, I ascended about 30-feet and suddenly the Inspire 1 landing gear came down followed by a verbal message on the iPad; "Battery Voltage Low". The drone than landed in it's immediate location.
The battery cells each indicated somewhere around 3.75V - 3.82V. Although a Li-Po cell is considered 3.7V, that's the low end of a Li-Po cell charge. 4.2V+ as I recall is near a full charge. Anyhow, that sudden emergency landing with a "fully-charged" battery had me freaked out. The "low voltage" message and emergency landing must be part of a newer firmware update. Perhaps partly due to the number of crashes from sudden battery discharge.
I installed a fully charged "recalibrated" battery on the next flight. I flew to about 35% capacity at low altitude. I left the drone on to view video from the tablet and watched as the battery percentage dropped. It finally hit 0%. It continually gave out audible"low battery" messages. It sat at 0% for over and hour. I haven't had a battery sit at 0% this long.
Since then, I've paid more attention to the battery voltage levels. The battery monitoring system seems to have some issues that need to be worked out.
Has anyone else had battery issues? How do you maintain your batteries?
The battery system is intelligent but it seems to have some faults. Lithium-Polymer batteries aren't perfect either and require some attention and proper charging cycles. I'm guessing that the mAH capacity readout is determined by the average voltage and current of each battery cell. I'm not aware of a means to measure capacity in a battery other than current and voltage calculations.
Somewhere in one of several Inspire 1 PDF manuals I'd read to "recalibrate" the battery cells by leaving the drone on until completely discharged and than fully recharge the battery. I did this with 3 of 4 batteries.
I was flying with the 4th battery that I did not fully discharge and recharge. It had been fully charged and the four charge indicator lights were illuminated. It has a total of 10 charging cycles on it. About 45 seconds after take-off, I ascended about 30-feet and suddenly the Inspire 1 landing gear came down followed by a verbal message on the iPad; "Battery Voltage Low". The drone than landed in it's immediate location.
The battery cells each indicated somewhere around 3.75V - 3.82V. Although a Li-Po cell is considered 3.7V, that's the low end of a Li-Po cell charge. 4.2V+ as I recall is near a full charge. Anyhow, that sudden emergency landing with a "fully-charged" battery had me freaked out. The "low voltage" message and emergency landing must be part of a newer firmware update. Perhaps partly due to the number of crashes from sudden battery discharge.
I installed a fully charged "recalibrated" battery on the next flight. I flew to about 35% capacity at low altitude. I left the drone on to view video from the tablet and watched as the battery percentage dropped. It finally hit 0%. It continually gave out audible"low battery" messages. It sat at 0% for over and hour. I haven't had a battery sit at 0% this long.
Since then, I've paid more attention to the battery voltage levels. The battery monitoring system seems to have some issues that need to be worked out.
Has anyone else had battery issues? How do you maintain your batteries?