Flying time battery percentage

[Samuel Fowler]

Hello all,

So after a battery is fully charged is around 16.7 volts I think or thereabouts. So with that being said the warning comes on at around or thereabouts 14.5 volts.

So flying past this warning mark is bad? What about all them other volts - we are not allowed them to use for flying or can we? We are only using about 2 volts then we get that warning on the screen. At what voltage point can you not fly anymore ?

Thanks just trying to understand the battery warning levels... And how long I can really fly.

 

[DroneClone]

14.5-14.7 v is a good land at voltages ! In my mind !

 

[David Wilson]

LiPo batteries are very serious, even deadly things. You need to do some studying so you understand how they work and how to handle them. And no those other volts are not available for fun and flying unfortunately. Like drone said, you need to land anywhere before it gets to about 14 v. My early warning starts at 14.3. Good luck and start googling lipo batteries for rc.

 

[Typhoon Charlie]

Hello all,

So after a battery is fully charged is around 16.7 volts I think or thereabouts. So with that being said the warning comes on at around or thereabouts 14.5 volts.

So flying past this warning mark is bad? What about all them other volts - we are not allowed them to use for flying or can we? We are only using about 2 volts then we get that warning on the screen. At what voltage point can you not fly anymore ?

Thanks just trying to understand the battery warning levels... And how long I can really fly.

The motors would not produce enough power to fly the craft if the voltage drops much bellow 14V even if the battery was capable of delivering lesser voltage without damage. A neat analogy to help understand these terms is a system of plumbing pipes. The voltage is equivalent to the water pressure, the current is equivalent to the flow rate, and amp/hr is the capacity of the reservoir ( Battery). I suspect the H is using 800KV to 1000KV motors. This means that for every volt the motors receive they spin 1000RPM, so a 1000KV motor will spin at 16,700 RPM with 16.7 Volts, and 14,000 RPM at 14Volts. With the size prop, the pitch of the props and the KV of the motors the craft would probably not fly much bellow 14Volts. You can go to eCalc and plug all the specifications in of the H and play with battery voltages and see at what point it will not fly.
Hope this helps.

 

[Samuel Fowler]

Thank you everyone. Just needed some understanding and clarity on that.

 

[BobW55]

Charlie,
Great explanation.
I was trying to come up with a logical and scientific answer but my brains battery was below 14 volts.

 

[JohnL]

@Typhoon Charlie You must be psychic. Great explanation, dude!

 

[Typhoon Charlie]

Thank you

 

[Chuck79pacecar]

Thank you Typ Charlie, I am not used to electric motors and that was a great analogy, in my day job I use Jet A.

 

[glider]

At 13.7v it's going to land.

 

[DroneClone]

In a tree or water maybe!

 

[JohnL]

At 13.7v it's going to land.

....hard!

 

[n3srj]

did we ever cipher out of all this information what a good storage voltage/percentage is best?

 

[glider]

In a tree or water maybe!

I always test failsafes; want to know what the limits are. At 14.0 you'd better be on the vertical approach to the ground because that final warning is "land immediately", then with 13.7v it lands. How high it will be able to land from I'm not willing to test without a big net, but it landed.

I always use telemetry lipo sensors so know what each cell is and what my other copters will tolerate if absolutely necessary, but am comfortable landing the H at 14.5 or even 14.3 (on the way down). 3.5v/cell on this weight copter should not pose a disaster at 1.8kg but it's not worth the risk.

If you look way down inside the H it appears Yuneec considered pinouts for lipo sensing

....hard!

At 1.8 kg AUW, 13.7v should not cause it to land "hard" if on descent. That's still >3.4v per cell. I've had to run down to <3.4v on a 3.2 kg Y6 (just the other day in fact while tuning it) and it did it without issue. Even cheap MS batteries will go to 3.2 on a 2.47 kg quad. It should not crash at 3.4v.

Yes I put batteries through the ringer to see if they have the balls to work in extreme circumstances. I did it with one Yuneec battery, it passed the 3.4 test and did not land hard from 3 ft up. The GCS just screamed at me to land NOW before forced landing, but I still could adjust pitch/roll IIRC.

Normal flying it's good to have it on the ground at 3.6v. I have two year old batteries that still work fine using that rule of thumb. The key is the storage voltage. That's why I modded the Yuneec charger right away.

A graphene battery OTOH drops from 3.5 like a stone so I've learned to get it on the ground asap when the first cell hits 3.6. I'll post a picture of the discharge curve while flying.

 

[JohnL]

I always test failsafes; want to know what the limits are. At 14.0 you'd better be on the vertical approach to the ground because that final warning is "land immediately", then with 13.7v it lands. How high it will be able to land from I'm not willing to test without a big net, but it landed.

I always use telemetry lipo sensors so know what each cell is and what my other copters will tolerate if absolutely necessary, but am comfortable landing the H at 14.5 or even 14.3 (on the way down). 3.5v/cell on this weight copter should not pose a disaster at 1.8kg but it's not worth the risk.

If you look way down inside the H it appears Yuneec considered pinouts for lipo sensing


At 1.8 kg AUW, 13.7v should not cause it to land "hard" if on descent. That's still >3.4v per cell. I've had to run down to <3.4v on a 3.2 kg Y6 (just the other day in fact while tuning it) and it did it without issue. Even cheap MS batteries will go to 3.2 on a 2.47 kg quad. It should not crash at 3.4v.

Yes I put batteries through the ringer to see if they have the balls to work in extreme circumstances. I did it with one Yuneec battery, it passed the 3.4 test and did not land hard from 3 ft up. The GCS just screamed at me to land NOW before forced landing, but I still could adjust pitch/roll IIRC.

Normal flying it's good to have it on the ground at 3.6v. I have two year old batteries that still work fine using that rule of thumb. The key is the storage voltage. That's why I modded the Yuneec charger right away.

A graphene battery OTOH drops from 3.5 like a stone so I've learned to get it on the ground asap when the first cell hits 3.6. I'll post a picture of the discharge curve while flying.

That's good information and I generally concur. My "wink" remark was meant that I don't generally trust this platform (talking about the typhoon-H here) as my particular vehicle and Tx have been extremely problematic. But that's another story.

Hey, I just realized you're Slimething, right? He he.

 

[n3srj]

did we ever cipher out of all this information what a good storage voltage/percentage is best?

Guess not...

 

[JohnL]

did we ever cipher out of all this information what a good storage voltage/percentage is best?

I think the "generally accepted" number for storage is around 3.75-3.8V. Some will argue it should be 3.7V, while others will say it has to be 3.8v. My iCharger defaults at 3.75v which just seems fine and dandy to me.

 

[Jared]

Here's a quick guide I just made that might be handy to have around. I hope Yuneec will make the battery level UI on the ST16 a little more intuitive.

 

[freekingoldguy]

Thank you Typ Charlie, I am not used to electric motors and that was a great analogy, in my day job I use Jet A.

Bingo fuel.....

 

[FlushVision]

I always test failsafes; want to know what the limits are. At 14.0 you'd better be on the vertical approach to the ground because that final warning is "land immediately", then with 13.7v it lands. How high it will be able to land from I'm not willing to test without a big net, but it landed.

I always use telemetry lipo sensors so know what each cell is and what my other copters will tolerate if absolutely necessary, but am comfortable landing the H at 14.5 or even 14.3 (on the way down). 3.5v/cell on this weight copter should not pose a disaster at 1.8kg but it's not worth the risk.

If you look way down inside the H it appears Yuneec considered pinouts for lipo sensing


At 1.8 kg AUW, 13.7v should not cause it to land "hard" if on descent. That's still >3.4v per cell. I've had to run down to <3.4v on a 3.2 kg Y6 (just the other day in fact while tuning it) and it did it without issue. Even cheap MS batteries will go to 3.2 on a 2.47 kg quad. It should not crash at 3.4v.

Yes I put batteries through the ringer to see if they have the balls to work in extreme circumstances. I did it with one Yuneec battery, it passed the 3.4 test and did not land hard from 3 ft up. The GCS just screamed at me to land NOW before forced landing, but I still could adjust pitch/roll IIRC.

Normal flying it's good to have it on the ground at 3.6v. I have two year old batteries that still work fine using that rule of thumb. The key is the storage voltage. That's why I modded the Yuneec charger right away.

A graphene battery OTOH drops from 3.5 like a stone so I've learned to get it on the ground asap when the first cell hits 3.6. I'll post a picture of the discharge curve while flying.

On my first test flight using the T-H I had an issue at the point of the first low-level warning in that it became unresponsive...I couldn't bring it home and is was about 500 ft away (I actually got caught with my pants down, so to speak) It turned out that the switch for the safe mode had been caught when I was acknowledging the warning on the pad. Anyway, the second warning came so I landed it where it was. It was a good landing all the way, albeit some distance away and the beginning of a nice walk to get it.

What I'm trying to say is that although I think I should have been landing it earlier than I did...actually been in the process of landing at 14.3v if not already landed, I was still well in control of it's decent after the second warning. It's something that I'll avoid in the future but it's nice to know I can land it safely after the second warning...just saying.