Have we flown and studied enough to come to agreement as to a safe battery level to land at? Since we do not have flight battery %'s! lets's say 14 V? Any comments!
Can We Agree On A Battery Level?
- Thread starter DroneClone
- Start date
This is not totally accurate as not all packs are equal, but it is close enough.
Print it and tape it to the back or your ST-16
Print it and tape it to the back or your ST-16
Thanks, so about 15.06 I would estimate to be safe.
My H first warning comes on I believe close to the 14.4 -14.5 level . Be aware if you are in cable cam mode it switches out of that on the first warning and the sticks become active again, kinda freaked me out the first time it happened. So make sure you have your eyes back on it if u are in that mode and you get a warning otherwise it could lead to a crash if you think its still in cable cam and give it stick imput. Anyone knows where there are any written instructions or video on the cable cam mode ?
Last edited:
I watched it very closely and was hovering after 14.7v and it gave the warning and slight vibrate immediately when it reached 14.3v. After I shut off the motors the voltage reading on the controller was then 14.6v.
That can't be right. Just a cursory look at the chart kindly posted by Typhoon Charlie puts the battery in the 5-10% remaining capacity box. Did you mean first warning at 15.4%?
Listen up folks. I don't want to sound like a know-it-all or some blowhard, but LiPo battery management both during flight and also in storage is an extremely important part of this hobby. A generally accepted rule of thumb is to never run the battery past about 20% of its rated capacity. What is this battery in the Typhoon? A 4S, 5400mAh battery? If so, you really need to land the vehicle with about 1080mA remaining. I get that this is hard because apparently, the only readout the ST16 is giving you is voltage. Is this correct? Normally it would be easy to know how much mA were consumed when you go back and put it on your (high end) charger and actually see how much it puts back into the battery. But this is not possible with the factory supplied lame Yuneec charger so I guess we're all limited to monitoring voltage (as per the chart above) until we have a better solution to monitor consumption.
Ok, so I see that Harvey has posted that he didn't get a warning until 14.3V. This is WAY too low and if flown repeatedly to this low battery state will damage it in no time at all. Can someone confirm if it is possible to change the battery warning state to a higher level in the ST16?
Voltage sag. Under load you will get this 14.3V number for example, but when load is removed the battery will immediately "recover" to a higher voltage state. This can sometimes trick inexperienced pilots into believing that they can go back up and fly another few minutes and then bam! Down she goes. This is why knowing how many mA you have consumed over time is SO important.
John, I ran another flight and ran until display showed 14.5v and the lower battery warning still had not come on so I would expect it again at 14.3v. Not saying that is good or not but what it is. However, that is voltage reading under load and when I turned it off yesterday after reaching 14.3v it then read 14.6v.
A fully charged battery showed 16.6v when I first turn on the motors so that is a drop of about 0.2v. If I was targeting 14.9v as a point to land should it be okay to run motors until display showed 14.7v figuring the battery will be at 14.9-15.0v once motors are turned off? Would be nice to have Yuneec weigh in on this and let us know if we might be able to adjust the warning level.
Harvey, is it possible to change the "low battery" threshold in your ST16 Tx to a different (higher) value? As I'm still waiting to take delivery of my Typhoon I of course cannot look.
Not from what I can see but will keep looking and maybe will write to Yuneec about it.Harvey, is it possible to change the "low battery" threshold in your ST16 Tx to a different (higher) value? As I'm still waiting to take delivery of my Typhoon I of course cannot look.
I see your logic and agree that's a good kludge given that it appears there is no way to know mA consumed in flight. Before I started adding telemetry to my MR's I would time my first initial flights (especially when using a new battery) then put them on my iCharger to see how many mA were put back in. This gave me an excellent benchmark for how long I could fly on a particular vehicle with a particular setup. Very frustrating that there is no way to do this with the charger Yuneec supplies, nor will it be possible (without an adapter that currently does not exist) to use my iCharger on this rather odd battery.
- Joined
- May 13, 2016
- Messages
- 187
- Reaction score
- 33
- Age
- 51
Looks like I need a degree in chemistry and/or electrical engineering along with a pilot's license to fully understand this hobby. Ugh.
I hope someone comes up with a number I can land at and not ruin my battery because this is very confusing.
I hope someone comes up with a number I can land at and not ruin my battery because this is very confusing.
