Battery Flight Time Scary

[CAPTAINDRONE]

Yesterday I took my Phantom 3 and Typhoon H out to film some scenes a half kilometer away. It was an extremely windy day. I flew the drones out a half kilometer down wind and then made 3 passes of a scene and then brought the drones back to me against the wind.

The Phantom used up 1/2 the battery power making its way back to me against the wind and the Typhoon H dropped down to one bar on the way back against the wind giving me the low battery warning. I had to quickly switch to Turtle mode on the H to conserve power. I swear, someone has to come out with a better battery that produces more flight time under load.

 

[David Wilson]

What was your starting voltage? I often fly one to one and a half miles out and back and still have plenty left to play around for several minutes. You either have a bad battery or were not fully charged. You should be at 16.6 volts when you turn on your Typhoon H. I do have one of four batteries that does not charge all the way, thus draining several minutes faster than the others.

 

[PatR]

Measured with a volt meter a fully charged H battery often measures at 16.74v. I see his quite often with several batteries. VOM is a Fluke.

 

[CAPTAINDRONE]

What was your starting voltage? I often fly one to one and a half miles out and back and still have plenty left to play around for several minutes. You either have a bad battery or were not fully charged. You should be at 16.6 volts when you turn on your Typhoon H. I do have one of four batteries that does not charge all the way, thus draining several minutes faster than the others.

It was fully charged but the strong winds sucked the life out of the battery as it struggled to fly directly against the wind. I will say that the Typhoon flew much faster into the direct wind than the Phantom, but yet the battery on the Phantom didn't bottom out under load whereas the battery on the Typhoon did, which is not a good thing.

 

[NRRTRAINS]

the problem with the Yuneec and for that matter is mostly all drones that have a battery that just fits into a box like area is size , battery size , unless some one comes out with a better power supply to increase more MAh and made the to same size as the original battery your drone came with there is no way to put a 5s into a 4s slot . two things you should know and remember is # 1 is know your batteries ( and about how long they will last ) . # 2 just because the wind on or a little above the ground is just a little windy , 300' up is a different story could be 20 mph plus and more , a small Q and H's are not made for that type of wind . try flying with out GPS in a strong wind and see what that strong wind will do to your bird , you will have more power but you will get tossed around . it like the small indoor quads that you master indoors and then take outside and a small breeze takes your quad for a ride .
fly safe

 

[Vegasrobbi]

I'm pretty happy with the approximate18 minutes I get with my H, about 4 minutes longer than my Solo and a bit less than my P3P.

CD I'm curious if you fly with GPS disabled? It stretches the battery life out on my Solo; however, I don't know the effect it has on the H.

 

[Brandon Lowe]

How about one of these with a 6600mah battery in it?
Typhoon H battery tray

 

[JCFlippen]

See other thread - Venom will be bringing out a 7100mAh H battery ready for winter flying.

Surely flying within your battery range is part of the skill of this activity.

 

[CAPTAINDRONE]

I'm pretty happy with the approximate18 minutes I get with my H, about 4 minutes longer than my Solo and a bit less than my P3P.

CD I'm curious if you fly with GPS disabled? It stretches the battery life out on my Solo; however, I don't know the effect it has on the H.

95% of the time I fly with GPS enabled. For the event in this post, the GPS was enabled. I believe if I would have disabled the GPS and attempted to bring the Typhoon back against the wind I would have hit zero power much quicker as without GPS enabled, the motors are running at a full out burn.

The problem is that the 6 motors, when under a power load, are sucking so much power that the battery if at 50% will suddenly drop to 25% or lower under such a load which causes the Battery warning. If one then stops moving forward, the battery suddenly reports it is back up to 50% and if you take it much slower then there is less demand for power and the battery no longer gives the low battery warning. I just found this surprising. The fix is a different (better) battery.

 

[CAPTAINDRONE]

View attachment 2142 How about one of these with a 6600mah battery in it?
Typhoon H battery tray

That appears to be an improvement.

 

[Tuna]

I had to quickly switch to Turtle mode on the H to conserve power. I swear, someone has to come out with a better battery that produces more flight time under load.

The clue is there - the H encourages more aggressive flying and that puts more demand on the battery. Fly slower and you get longer battery life.

 

[WilsonFlyer]

See other thread - Venom will be bringing out a 7100mAh H battery ready for winter flying.

Surely flying within your battery range is part of the skill of this activity.

Would ya mind a pointer to that thread. I must have missed that. That is not insignificant.

( I found it. Thanks.)

 

[Gurusonwheels]

Yesterday I took my Phantom 3 and Typhoon H out to film some scenes a half kilometer away. It was an extremely windy day. I flew the drones out a half kilometer down wind and then made 3 passes of a scene and then brought the drones back to me against the wind.

The Phantom used up 1/2 the battery power making its way back to me against the wind and the Typhoon H dropped down to one bar on the way back against the wind giving me the low battery warning. I had to quickly switch to Turtle mode on the H to conserve power. I swear, someone has to come out with a better battery that produces more flight time under load.

the typhoon H does not have bars for the battery .
only the ST16 controller .

the typhoon H displays voltage not bars .

 

[David Wilson]

Tuna nailed it. When I fly on windy days, which are often at the beach here in Florida, I simply turn my speed dial down and keep my max speed going out to about 15mph. That is generally fast enough to get you anywhere you need to go, a mile or more, and I've found this is a nice speed for shooting video, not too fast, not too slow. There's still plenty of battery to do your work then get home safe. If I'm flying home down wind, I crank it up and fly back at the max 28-30mph and I always have plenty left. As stated earlier, learning to manage your batteries is a big part of this hobby.

 

[Rayray]

View attachment 2142 How about one of these with a 6600mah battery in it?
Typhoon H battery tray

I have that set. So far get about 2 more minutes over stock H batteries.

 

[CAPTAINDRONE]

the typhoon H does not have bars for the battery .
only the ST16 controller .

the typhoon H displays voltage not bars .

Are you flying the same Typhoon H as I am? I have battery bars plus voltage in the top left which is for the Typhoon.

 

[raptorheli2]

Some of these threads are a joke on this forum these days. Here is a simple fact, it takes more energy to fly a bigger drone with more motors than a smaller one. Add wind into the mix and guess what, you still need more power!

 

[CAPTAINDRONE]

Tuna nailed it. When I fly on windy days, which are often at the beach here in Florida, I simply turn my speed dial down and keep my max speed going out to about 15mph. That is generally fast enough to get you anywhere you need to go, a mile or more, and I've found this is a nice speed for shooting video, not too fast, not too slow. There's still plenty of battery to do your work then get home safe. If I'm flying home down wind, I crank it up and fly back at the max 28-30mph and I always have plenty left. As stated earlier, learning to manage your batteries is a big part of this hobby.

It's true that the Typhoon H does fly longer on a battery if you keep the speed down. This is the first drone that I have seen bottom out the power under a heavy load. It sounds like you are OK with this problem and avoid it by flying in the slow lane in order to keep the drone in the air.

My prediction is that an upcoming firmware update will address this especially now that we can turn GPS off in flight. DJI had a similar battery problem but fixed it with a firmware update a year or so ago that now gives you a window on your screen saying that you no longer have full power in order to reduce the draw on the battery. In the cold winter, flying a DJI product, I get this screen often. I would not be surprised if Yuneec puts out something similar to avoid drones falling from the sky when users are going full power against a strong wind for several minutes or on sub zero temperature days when full power is used and the battery is at 50%.

 

[Michael Walker]

the typhoon H does not have bars for the battery .
only the ST16 controller. The typhoon H displays voltage not bars .

To reiterate:

Typhoon H = voltage (on the left)
ST-16 = bars (on the far right)

Just want to be sure we're all talking about the same thing.

So DC, what was the H voltage when you were flying back? Just curious.

 

[CAPTAINDRONE]

To reiterate:

Typhoon H = voltage (on the left)
ST-16 = bars (on the far right)

Just want to be sure we're all talking about the same thing.

So DC, what was the H voltage when you were flying back? Just curious.

Honestly, no idea because the really well thought out in your face massive red window announcing low battery warning which blocks out most of the screen kinda focused my attention elsewhere.

I will say the 4 bars on the top left which occupy the same space as the voltage went from 2 bars to 1 red bar. Once I released the right stick it returned to 2 bars and stayed that way for the next 250 meters home in Turtle Mode against strong winds.