Battery Comparison by a "standardized" test cycle

[APack]

After all the discussions about battery capacities or better flight times I wonder, if it would be of any use, if we would implement something like a standardized test cycle to get better and more comparable results - something in accordance to the test cycles of the automotive industry.
Of course, real flight times depend on many, many aspects that won't be reproduceable at all, but I think, it still would be a big advantage if we would create a "standard mission" (CCC or way point mission) with a realistic setup of climbs and descents and some maneuvers to simulate a "normal" flight. Wind speed should be a part of the consideration as well as the use of the camera (mounted, not mounted, active or recording).
Would be interested in your opinion if that would make sense and if you have anything to add to that idea?
From my point of view, battery comparisons will become more and more interesting since we don't know, how long original batteries - and even aftermarket clones - will be available in future.

 

[PatR]

Not hard to do but some expense would be involved. I would want a “worst case” time result.

Establish the maximum current load that is placed on the battery by the aircraft. I’ve already done that for you in another thread. In fact, the entire equation is there for anyone that wants to do the math. Battery capacity in amp hours, C rating, applied load. That’s all you need to determine flight time.

In practice, employ a load bank to load the battery until a predetermined low voltage level is achieved. Establish how long it takes to go from full charge to low charge with the load applied. The result would be the best flight time you might anticipate under worst case conditions.

It might be a lot better to see flight time estimates listed as “at least X” minutes instead of “up to X” minutes.

 

[PatR]

Just an FYI, the one data point most critical for users to know when making battery selections and flight time estimates is the one no consumer drone manufacturer provides; System current load.

Without that value you cannot effectively establish the necessary battery C rating nor determine the minimum battery capacity needed.

A second critical value is maximum flying weight. That weight establishes how large battery can be and not decrease system efficiency and flight performance.

Lastly, by not providing consumers a designed center of gravity location manufacturers make it extremely difficult for system owners to add or subtract payload features while maintaining any level of efficiency. In theory a multirotor would use center of mass as the C/G but that only works when all the motor booms are equal length and crossing at an imaginary center point on the frame that maintains boom length equality.

 

[APack]

PatR, I'm not sure but I think you misunderstood my attempt. My idea was to create a shareable flight pattern, reproduceable on any free field and add some fixed parameters to get comparable flight times. Example: someone gets a new battery (new in a sense of "new to the market"), loads it to the advised specs, downloads and executes the flight mission, makes some after flight checks (IR, remaining voltage etc.) and shares it to the community.
It might not be the most scientific approach, but not everyone has access to electronic tools, but everyone has a copter, a charger (of course minimum like a skyrc d100 or equal) and is able to load a ccc route to his drone. As I said, no rocket science ?, but at least not a comparison between people hovering 40 minutes in 50cm height with no load attached and people flying with cam recording 100m AGL and full speed coming down after 10min.

 

[PatR]

Nice idea but the results would be less than satisfactory. Unless all the tests are performed under exactly the same conditions on the same day in exactly the same way the results would end up all over the map. It’s the nature of subjective testing as there are no controls over the testing process.