anyone know about cold temp with battery's ?
- Thread starter autoking
- Start date
FlushVision
Premium Pilot
The cold effects the batteries performance. Generally, the colder it is-the shorter flight time. However, 46deg isn't particularly cold in the scheme of things. With such a temperature I would expect a shorter than 'normal' flight time, but not significantly shorter: You get significantly shorter flight times when the batteries are closer to freezing. Of course, it's always best to keep your batteries warm before a flight. When needed I use old socks to keep them warm.
We need a bit more info from you. Was the battery fully charged before take-off? How long was you in the air before the warning? How aggressively had you been flying the aircraft?
For a non-aggressive flight in 'normal' non-windy and not cold weather conditions I would expect a fully charged battery to last up to 18 minutes before the first warning and maybe a minute or so longer if you are flying very smoothly and with a bit of luck. Of course, flying to the first warning should be avoided if you want to prolong the battery's overall life span.
As mentioned above, use the search feature of this forum for more info. The magnifying icon at the top right of the screen
Last edited:
Hello-
This is my first post that said..
I live in Chicago and have been dealing with sub zero and sub freezing weather for a month straight now. Except today yay! Lol it’s 40 f
The isssue with cold with respect to the batteries is the biggest issue you can crash!
If you do a couple steps it shouldn’t be an issue. I have flown in -20 degree F windchill with no problem.
The key is to PREHEAT or warm up. If it’s below. What I do is run it inside for a minute to warm up then bring it out and no problem.
If you use cold batteries in the cold like freezing or lower what happens is the colder the LiPo’s get the less stable and more frequent voltage inconsistencies. If the CPU sees a voltage below the preset battery cutoff 1 of 2 things can happen. Depending on how low it see the spike it will land or shut off completely to save the batteries and electronics. If LiPos discharge to low they are done for good that’s why there is always an electronic cutoff. Not like a nicad in the old days were you can hear it get slower and slower. My thought is in the cold to be safe is run it inside for a minute before going out and always try to have the batteries at room temperature at flight time as much as possible. If you do this you should never have an issue in the cold.
This is my first post that said..
I live in Chicago and have been dealing with sub zero and sub freezing weather for a month straight now. Except today yay! Lol it’s 40 f
The isssue with cold with respect to the batteries is the biggest issue you can crash!
If you do a couple steps it shouldn’t be an issue. I have flown in -20 degree F windchill with no problem.
The key is to PREHEAT or warm up. If it’s below. What I do is run it inside for a minute to warm up then bring it out and no problem.
If you use cold batteries in the cold like freezing or lower what happens is the colder the LiPo’s get the less stable and more frequent voltage inconsistencies. If the CPU sees a voltage below the preset battery cutoff 1 of 2 things can happen. Depending on how low it see the spike it will land or shut off completely to save the batteries and electronics. If LiPos discharge to low they are done for good that’s why there is always an electronic cutoff. Not like a nicad in the old days were you can hear it get slower and slower. My thought is in the cold to be safe is run it inside for a minute before going out and always try to have the batteries at room temperature at flight time as much as possible. If you do this you should never have an issue in the cold.
PatR
Premium Pilot
If the batteries were cold before initiating flight the internal resistance (IR) would have been high. They may not have been capable of delivering the current necessary for the system to function properly. IR increases as temperature decreases. There is a thermal level at which lipo’s cannot function at all. You weren’t there yet but the batteries may have been “cold soaked” long enough to render them almost useless.
PatR
Premium Pilot
Depends on the component. Military stuff is often certified to -20C to +60C. Your television at home likely would not hold up at -10C, nor would your laptop. If your cell phone is not kept warm by being against your body the battery life drops considerably at 0C. The design standards aren't as demanding. There are no (zero) design or certification standards for multirotors so they are made with the least expensive components available. We should not expect ultra low thermal capabilities from our stuff. We get what we get and there can be considerable variability from brand to brand and unit to unit.
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- Joined
- Dec 27, 2017
- Messages
- 12
- Reaction score
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- Age
- 59
sorry new to this but the battery was full and about 30sec and 25 ' started flashing stop after screen message and came back down and stopped voltage started going back up and after we talked about this I remember that I was charging battery's in my shop and it was cold in the shop so the battery was cold when I started flyingThe cold effects the batteries performance. Generally, the colder it is-the shorter flight time. However, 46deg isn't particularly cold in the scheme of things. With such a temperature I would expect a shorter than 'normal' flight time, but not significantly shorter: You get significantly shorter flight times when the batteries are closer to freezing. Of course, it's always best to keep your batteries warm before a flight. When needed I use old socks to keep them warm.
We need a bit more info from you. Was the battery fully charged before take-off? How long was you in the air before the warning? How aggressively had you been flying the aircraft?
For a non-aggressive flight in 'normal' non-windy and not cold weather conditions I would expect a fully charged battery to last up to 18 minutes before the first warning and maybe a minute or so longer if you are flying very smoothly and with a bit of luck. Of course, flying to the first warning should be avoided if you want to prolong the battery's overall life span.
As mentioned above, use the search feature of this forum for more info. The magnifying icon at the top right of the screen
Not sure if I need new batteries. Any proceedures for keeping the batteries warm whilst waiting for the the camera to boot up? By the time I get airborne, I almost immediately get a low voltage/height limit warning
FlushVision
Premium Pilot
If the battery is in the aircraft already then I know of no way to safely warm the battery while waiting for the camera to connect. That said, if the battery was put into the aircraft in an already warm state then it will take some considerable time for it to cool down to a point where internal resistance becomes an issue.
How long are you having to wait for the camera to connect? I ask this because at the start of 2017 I was doing a commercial flight for a client in temperatures of just a few degrees centigrade. The connection times had been progressively getting worse over the previous month or so and by the time I was doing this commercial flight the camera took over half a hour to connect. That experience prompted me to update all the firmware to sort out the long camera connection times.
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