Does LiPo Battery Break In Make A Difference | FINALLY A REAL ANSWER
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- čas přidán 25. 04. 2017
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/ thedroneracingengineer
I've completed a three-month long test on whether breaking in your LiPo batteries improves their performance. And the answer is... maybe it actually does!
Purchase these batteries here:
1500 mAh 70C - goo.gl/CwwMkn
1300 mAh 90C - goo.gl/SnK9Tr
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You need to do another round of testing to see if LiPo's are like plants and do better when you talk to them and give them positive reinforcement. :)
As adam savage says, the only difference between playing around and doing science is writing down the results.
+Michael Wilkes I like it!
Instablaster...
Joshua, I applaud your research effort's and your impressive knowledge in this hobby. I am a retired Air Force medical researcher, and I have learned a lot from you, many thanks. If you don't mind some advice from an old medical researcher, you need to eliminate as many variables as possible to attain greatest accuracy of your results. The biggest variable was clearly the discharge method, that has to be much more highly controlled or standardized. Obviously, you need more batteries to get more accurate results. What are your standard deviation calculations on your results? I'll bet these results fall within 1 to 2 standard deviation's which would be well within a margin of error. Thanks for all you do for this hobby Josh.
There simply isn’t a large enough sample population to provide statistically significant findings anyway.
I was hoping for more obvious differences, but fair enough. I wouldn't read much into the small differences. Ideally, for such a small effect, you need a bigger sample (5-10 batteries), and a statistical test (t-test, rank-sum). I hope it's possible in the future.
idk. for what these batteries cost ($150 in the case of 1/8 offroad racing) it obviously can hurt and unless your loaded its probably worth it. im assuming this would increase the lifespan of batteries.
break-in seems to be waste of cycles considering that these packs have a finite amount of total cycles that they last. I think the flight temperature of batteries are more important because it effects the chemistry.
Good video. Thanks for the hard work and taking the time to do this.
Always learning something new! Thanks for this video!
Keep at it Josh, you've helped me along with many of your videos!!
Good test and even better reflections over the result. Thumbs up!
You are definitely the quad scientist! (Kind of a mad quad scientist!) I love your understanding and application of the scientific method. You always try to be aware of your biases and are the first to point out weakness in your studies. Love your content! Keep killing it!
I'm happy with the data resulting from your battery tests. Yes happy, or satisfied that is, with the study design and methods employed being absolutely appropriate in their context of teasing out elements of meaningful data. ( To be candid with you, I started to say that I'm happy the results are absent a level of contrast sufficient to compel my buy in to the "break in"
Huge thanks for all the work on these battery testing videos Joshua.
You did a great job of helping new folks avoid making terrible decisions about batteries.
First and only pack I bought so far being the Tattu 1300 and I don't suppose the weight difference of the Infinity 1500's will be noticeable for a noob like me.
I'm grateful for you RC guys. I use lipos for vaping, not driving/flying, but the same knowledge is very useful to me
Looked like everything was within margin of error, so i'm not so quick to say it matters.
This. A small difference after 30 cycles when the batteries were not discharged in a systematic manner, and no double blind test, makes me think this is just error. I'd like to see more data, and more rigorous testing. Thanks for posting the Patreon info Joshua :)
First of all, thank you joshua for your testing!
yep, absolutely. Way to less batteries tested. For a real scientific test you need at least 3 digit testobjects for getting some kind of real results.
i understand, that joshua is not able to do that and i am surprised, that his numbers got even that close. But there is no result imo.
sᴛᴀᴄᴇʏ ABSHIRE if it was margin of error it'd be more random, this is quite overwhelmingly positive for breaking in even if it is a rather negligible difference
No, margin of error has nothing to do with randomness. The results are not significant due to, amongst other things, too few degrees of freedom. It indicates that more research with more d.f. and possibly a different experimental design are required. As Joshua says, the results are interesting and warrant further investigation.
Great video : This vid certainly grabbed & kept my attention . Not only that but I'll even check those packs out if there in a reasonable price range I might even grab a few . Never can have to many lipos. Thanks again. another evening watching educational videos . Looking forward to the next one already.
Good Stuff Joshua, Very interesting episode!
excellent work.
keep testing them batteries and see how they wear down after each 30 cycles.
great job! i love your channel!
I've been running the 1500 lightning batteries for about 8 months now and they still perform quiet well. I definitely agree that are a great product at the price they run. I also just run them to fly freestyle, i don't normally do top speed or racing kinda things. I did not do any break ins so its good to see the difference is minimal. as for feeling a difference or sag in the batteries, out of 14 i haven't had any problems yet. Great video, always super informational. Thanks Josh!
Joshua, thanks for your videos!
Thanks Joshua and Banggood. Always good to check your assumptions.
First, excellent test again Joshua! I think we all appreciate you taking the time. After your initial battery tests that determined the Infinity 1500 did so well and was only $25 I decided to buy a couple. After flying with them I immediately ordered 4 more. I've been meaning to give you some feedback but you fly them so you know. I think these batteries are the absolute best bang for the buck. There is so much power and it just keeps dishing out the amps till the battery is finally done. Thanks for saving me time and money!!
woo!! great timing!! Thanks for the hard work and thorough review
using a graph for the chart at 3:53 would
be much easier to readily identify data trends to a viewer (my two cents)
Very big of you, Bardwell. Cheers -
I learnt something today.. and subbed. Hello Joshua. : )
You keep producing and I'll keep watching!
You have no idea how much you help the R/C hobby in it's whole not only drones!
great video.. now I have to go figure out what a means to break in a battery. Thanks! I learned something today.. i'm gonna go learn some more now! lol.
Wow, this May 2022 and I'm looking at a young JB, excellent advice partaked then as now 😀
Nice job. I wonder if breaking would apply more with crappy batteries. That's what I seemed to notice from years ago. Nowadays the batteries we use seem to be less venerable to breaking in. I don't break in any more with a cycle charger, but I do fly a little softer on first couple flights.
Nice vid as always! ^^, keep it up! Btw on the Lenovo plug he little middle pin is signal it's telling the computer that a charger has been plugged in :) if you remove it will power the computer but it won't charge it's going to say "non original charger" something along the lines ^^,
Fantastic tests. Self explanatory.
Brilliant, I’d also like to see battery performance till end of life with broken in vs non broken in, great vid, thanks
What would be interesting to see is how they hold up over 100+ uses. A lot of us use our batteries till they die and I have packs that are still flying over 2 years of use. I could see the slight advantage shining in the long run. I hope you keep using these in the long run and continue to test them say every 30 cycles. I think things will get interesting around 120 cycles.
Good Job! Thank you! Cheers!
I think to get a truely conclusive result would need to increase your sample size and then I would do a paired t-test (you can do this in excel) to determine if the differences in your results are statistically significant.
Keep up the good work Josh.
I'd like to see a C (your definition of C) discharge curve comparison between the two groups. Does the voltage sag? This would have much more important implications.
personally I only use Monster Cables for my wiring on my quads, gives them more amps and keeps the 1's and 0's in DShot more clearly defined. I'd use Audioquest but I reckon thats just snake oil.
Damien Pitt LOL 😂
Good One ! :)
Plz let diz b sarcasm xD
Thanks for the testing... valuable info anyway you did it. I break in all my LIPO batteries but do it by not going below 3.8v new or above 4.10v the first few cycles (it's said some/most have a storage chemistry that needs to change) and would not call deep cycling them down to 3.5v when new beneficial at all based on a few mistakes I made that deep discharged a few but were still above 3.0v that lost capacity before the other batteries from the same batch kept above 3.6v and were broken in above 3.8v but who knows... it may be the Pauli effect as I have great luck with batteries;-)
I think the main thing with LIPOs is you want to store them cold and dry to stop storage time loss, and stay in the middle around 3.8v as much as possible and keep the batteries cool by using a high enough C rating. Doing so is shown to at least double or triple the life of most lipos based on what I've studied but of course run time matters especially on quads that have short run times so have dropped low often and had great luck with the higher C Nanotechs taking a beating. Stopping the charge at 4.10v is where I'd stop if on a desert Island with limited supplies, but I charge my quad LIPO cells to 4.2v normally and aim for 3.7v without OSD as the min LVC knowing under load the voltage went lower. And on larger more expensive batteries 3.75v or above and just use a larger battery in planes to add airtime. Keeping the charge rate as low as possible by using multiple batteries instead so not in a hurry and the charge/discharge rate super low breaking them in seems to really work well and can say the batteries definitely balance better. If I screw up on one going too low I can remember which one just by watching it charge. Cells are seldom equal new but you can make them behave as if they are using a good charger with a low C slow balance charge and discharge cycle the first 5 charges where the first 3 seem the most important to get the cells ready for use.
Thank you, maybe old news but new to me and every little bit helps. Happy flying!
@@Roboticdoughbull3k No problem and thanks. BTW I said "I think the main thing with LIPOs is you want to store them cold" and 3 years later I believe that even more. I still have almost every Lipo battery I've owned and keep cold going back to July 2014 and while the ones used the most in quads that drop voltage to 3.0V a cell under load have lost some performance only few off brand lipos have warranted being thrown away as they still make good batteries for low load non RC applications. At some point I'm going to do some testing and see how much capacity loss they suffer as the performance drops but will need some test equipment as what a normal charger puts out balance charging is not the true capacity the battery accepted as some think although if you know the battery well it gives some indication to compare the same type to each other.
btw josh i have 3 of the 4s 1500 infinity and i found similar results as you did and love those packs .
Do the not broken in batteries have same amount of cycles as broken in. Like used on quad a few times?
I have some real world experience with LiPO break in with my RC car. When using a brand new battery I charged it with balance mode as I always do and ran the car until the car stopped on lipo cutoff. And when I connected the battery to the charger to charge it one cell was at 2.8v and the other at 3.8v, so one cell was not fully broken in or something. But after charging it 5 times and only running shorter times between charges the battery performed well and both cells have not been uneven after that when running to the cut off again. The battery was really in the dangerzone of being damaged but it have served 2 years at least so I was lucky that I have the lipo cutoff higher than default or it might have been worse. The charger reports internal resistance of both cells to be the same. So be aware that the break in effect can happen in different ways. After this happen I have seen it almost happen to another new battery and all new batteries I have bought since I have only run 20-50% and then balance again for the first ~5 charges.
I think another factor that was left out which I think is very important is weight . A few grams of material can give an increase in mah . One more small factor as well would be room temperature . I'm thinking that may also influence the final test . Just my thoughts . . .
Did you label for break in then heat shrink em as to make it at least blind for the discharge? Thank you for the knowledge.
No, but I didn't really pay any attention when flying. I was too busy flying to notice the battery's status.
dispelling FPV myths like a boss :) thanks, great job
This is another reason why your one of the most important people to this hobby . You should be bloody proud of all the work you do .
Oh yeh and your hairy mate 😉
Sounds like calibration which is done for a protection circuit to recognize full capacity. It's not needed for performance most likely.
More important is to get higher capacity, higher C rating at the lowest weight and volume. Didn't mean "C" rating since overdriving batteries can be potently dangerous due to overheating.
Heard about cycle life charging/discharging - basically using Li-ion batteries at 20% to 80% of charge and charge it slowly for chemistry not to break down so quickly. It's most beneficial for power walls.
What you think on the 4S 1300mAh 70C Graphene Infinity and the Infinity 1300mah 90C 4S batteries, for $25 ? or at this price is better to buy the Thunder Power 1300mAh 4s Adrenaline .
At the and I need battery that will give me lots of cycles . thanks
All I ever do, is charge them, with a top balance with a voltage balancer. That ensures that all the cells are in the same state of charge, then, fly them. The batteries will "break in" as a part of normal cycling. It is important, to ensure, that a cell at a lower state of charge, doesn't get overly discharged, by the stronger cells. Another test, is to apply a variable load and variable charge and observe the voltage sag during discharge, and voltage rise during charge, to get an idea of the equivalent series resistance of the cells in a battery. To do this, I use either a constant current load, or constant current power supply, then have another resistor, that's switched in and out with a power transistor. By varying the load with a fixed value of resistance, I can measure the voltage drop or rise, and from that, calculate an equivalent series resistance of the cells. I just have to measure through the voltage balancing leads coming out of the battery.(I won't buy a battery that doesn't have wires to the cell connectors, allowing voltage balancing) It might be worth it to test the resistance after a break in, and see if the resistance is lower. The lower the resistance, the better the performance, the less heat. If all the cells have similar internal resistance, it'll fly. Lower ESR means better flight performance, capacity means longer flight time.
I've mostly just run these tests, to see if it's a decent battery. I've never thought about "breaking in" a battery, beyond these tests.
Cheers for your efforts on this JB. IMO that's such a small difference that it's not worth it. As of late I just charge to 4.2, discharge at low C to 3.5 and charge again, then I go spank them.
How to cook a Lipo
~fly hard & juice at high amps or high C rate
~heat up the battery beyond 80 F 27c
~fully charge to 4.26vdc
~fully drain to 3.1vdc
Want to make Lipo in your smartphone, tablet, drone, toy, last longer, keep it cooler & 30-80% charged, never empty, never fully, avoid fast charing, only charge for brief time intervals, like plug your smartphone in for 10-40 min - never all night long // high heat & over charging & parking fully charged on the charger will radically shorten the life of the batteries if they are are common lithium cobalt oxide carbon lipos super common in all the devices listed above // especially drones
i remember racing 10th scale we had a string of light bulbs to completely drain the batteries and the smart chargers would condition the batteries for say a 4 minute race if we were doing most laps .we used a 6 cell nimh
Because LiHV have different internal chemistry can we get another test to see if the margins are still very close.
Also to see if breaking in LiHVs will have an affect on longevity or number of cycles for broken in vs out the box charge then go windows to the walls LiHVYOLO
Weird to hear about the undersold mah batteries because about 30 mins ago I was salvaging a cell from an old 3000mah Floureon pack, and it had "3200MAH" clearly written on each cell. It makes the battery feel like it is lasting for a long time, until it puffs on the 15th cycle. I wonder if any thought went into just how long it takes for a costumer to buy another one vs when they are engineered to fail. Those slick marketers
The best reason to do cycle charge discharge on a new battery is you can see if there is a problem before the warranty runs out. Lot of us buy batteries let them lay around waiting to get a project done maybe test a motor, or setup servo's then by the time you fly it's 3-6 months down the road then you discover a bad cell in a battery warranties are long gone. As soon as I receive a new battery I solder the connector on, and cycle the battery 6-10 times on my charger while monitoring the cells set to storage charge and check it after a few weeks and each month.
Well, to be honest, this is the first good reason I can think of to "break in" your batteries.
Joshua Bardwell
I have a question about lipo charging and leaving them charged.
everytime that i come home from flying i set my batteries in storage at 15.23volts.
i find it very annoying to charge them only if im sure im going to fly.
sometimes i just want to fly right away but i have to wait 2 hours before i have all my batteries charged.
how do you do that?
do you charge all your batteries and leave them so you can fly when you want to or do you do it like me and charge them only when you are sure that you are going to fly?
is it a bad (dangerous) thing to leave them fully charged or am i doing it right and should i keep bringing them to storage voltage when im done?
thanks for reading this i hope you have an answer to this.
your video's are awesome and i learned a lot from you.
thank you.
I leave them at storage voltage except when I am going to fly. The night before or the morning of I'm going to fly, I charge them. It takes about an hour with parallel charging to charge all of my batteries, no matter how many there are.
Joshua Bardwell
I also Parallel charge but my charger is only 50 watt 6 amps so it takes longer.
suposed to be 6A but only charges at 3.9A because it is only 50 watt.
But it works.
Going for a better one soon.
Any suggestions?
Thank You for you answer.
Have a Good day!
Thanks for all your efforts. I don't want to be selfish, but keep it up. Cheers.
Makes me think that I will still simply fly my Lipos right out the box!! The marginal difference is NOT substantial enough to justify having to break them in, is this better in an argument...Nit picking, naaaaa. To each their own is what I say! When these results become more significant, then I will certainly change.
For now though, the skies beckon, enjoy the flight ;) ;) ;)
Thx Joshua for doing this testing, you are a star, good Sir!!
That's what I do. Not wasting my lipos limited charge cycles on break-in. I'll break them in one Mattyflip at a time;p
How do u break them in my e revo ? At a skate park 😁
I have some infinity batteries as well and I love them
When I get a new lipo, I usually give them a few quick runs just to make sure I don't have a faulty battery. When you have a multirotor drawing 80amps, if there is a slight defect in the battery, then there is a possibility you could lose an aircraft never mind a battery. Although I've only heard a couple of stories of a new battery catching fire on first flight, just a few slow flights to give me the confidence I don't have a duff battery is enough for me. Not so much breaking in the battery, more for safety and to make sure the battery isn't duff.
I've been watching this and also comparing Stinger's battery test. Both of these seem to suggest the SMALL benefit of break in's. Right now you are at 30 cycles, what happens when it hits more cycles, does this small difference actually get bigger or does it stay the same, meaning. if it is a small difference at 30 cycles, IF the batteries make it to 60 cycles will that small difference double?
Did you shake them during break-in?
I like the comment and the avatar.
wondering the same
pfffft
I use an ultrasonic oil bath while charging
a what
is there a benefit of breaking in lipos after a few normal use cycles?
How long cycling time lipo battery? 100x use?
hi mate. ask the for more batts and do controlled bursts on the bench.
I'd be interested to see how they performed after 200-300 cycles.
I am curious about the overall useable life of the battery. Will a broken in battery last longer? I don't believe you will get more power out of a given battery without making physical changes. Is long term battery condition improved? Saving money on replacement batteries.
I'm a little concerned with the Infinity with the production consistency... what i mean is that different batches will have quite different batteries... unlike ones from Tattu, Thunder Power, SMC, etc...
Hey I am new to the hobby What is the best charger you recommend
Iwonder if this brake in process is also ok with graphene LiHv Batteries
Thanks for the long term testing. I think your results are probably within your margin of error like you so correctly point out. I think what makes the biggest difference that no one talks about is charge rate. I charge all of my race packs at 1/2C, and I see a lot of guys charging at 2C-3C which I think is wrong. Might be a follow up test you could run on the same packs from Banggood. I certainly would like to see the results of that testing.
lol 30 cycles is NOT long term testing
one interesting thing to note is that the 1500 mAh batteries pretty much had the same stats at 0 cycles and at 30 cycles however the 1300 mAh batteries seem to be more degraded (especially in the # and longest burst metrics). Looks like the higher 90 C rating of the 1300 mAh battery only lasts 30 cycles or less then they more or less become the same as the 70 C rated batteries (if you compare burst time). I would be very interested to see what the stats look like after 60 and 90 cycles! :)
Great stuff. My vote is about where you landed, but I'm still planning to charge and fly with new batteries. Mostly because 1-3% is not worth my time.
Wish I could like BG, but they seem to only like their YT reps. General customers...well, they could care less and will treat you like yesterday's newspaper.
+InFrontOfYourBack1 FWIW I have been a Banggood customer since way before I was a YT'er and only had good experiences. It's why I feel comfortable repping them now. I still shop there and occasionally deal with customer service and I don't pull out the "do you know I know Sue in Marketing" card. They're not perfect but I do think they're a good place to shop.
More data is always helpful
FYI, Wh is V x mAH, not V x A. A suggestion: make a CC (constant current) discharger with auto cutoff and timer. Watching one of your battery tests, the "60A" was moving all over as voltage dropped and timing was not accurate, two huge variables that should not be. CC circuits are pretty easy to make, i personally would you a hall sensor for the current measurement, but not mandatory. You also mention cooler batteries preform better, but in most cases that is opposite, also you might want to check temp before and after the test to see the delta. Thanks for the videos!
All batteries started the test at the same temperature.
What I meant to say was that a battery that was cooler at the end of the test probably had a lower IR than a battery that was hotter, all else being equal. A battery that is warmer will have a lower IR than a battery that is cooler, yes. But a battery with a higher IR will heat up more for a given amp discharge than one with a lower IR. If you take two batteries and discharge 60 amps for 10 seconds out of each, the one with the lower IR will be cooler at the end.
It's like ads for health products. "This product MAY help reduce weight. (When combined with regular exercise and a healthy diet.)"
So, in regards to Yuneec batteries 10/10 break in procedure..Is it charge/fly 10 minutes/10 times, or charge /fly 10 mins/ re-charge/and fly 10 mins till the end cycle. OR Chg/ fly 10 mins/ discharge /then charge and fly the remaining..and also what is the interval time between the 10/10 break-in rule?...Ive also done testing, but with only 4 batteries, 2 10/10 and 2 use up to the advertised flight time (25 min advertised ) ( actual 18 to 21).. The term for batteries on almost all drone always use "UP TO", what exactly does the term "UP TO" mean???
With results that close, beware the Placebo effect.
I don't see enough of a difference to justify the effort.
"Confirmation bias" is the term you were looking for.
Just thinking out loud, there is strong focus on automated manufacture but automated and technologically supported research (and development) would be exponentially more beneficial.
ESPECIALLY where lithium cell compounds (and their recyclability) are concerned.
Take out the human variable.
Im sure you could find a developer pretty cheaply to write some software to automate this test to make it a little more empirical. And the plus, im sure the dev would enjoy writing it, and not a boring test for you :)
More research on a given subject is never a bad thing. It gives more variables that contribute to the final conclusion.
This is exactly the result to expect from breaking in lithium-ion cells. Not an increase in initial capacity (not sure where that came from) , but an increase in current sourcing ability and capacity over the life of the cell. There is legitimate research into this phenomena in scientific papers on the web. Here is a video /watch?v=pxP0Cu00sZs (long, but well worth the watch) that will help explain some of the concepts behind this. Its explaining a slightly different chemistry , but still applies to most Li-Ion cells. I'm really not sure why people have to question this stuff when the data is available with a few minutes of your time searching. This stuff is pretty well known in industry , however I will concede that the majority of the data is vaulted behind lab doors , but enough is out there.
I would like to see you revisit this test with the new battery test machine.
Excellent experiment! Now that you have this data, it would be interesting to track these batteries over their lifetime to document how their performance falls off over time. I do not believe there is a good amount of information out there about how many cycles an average user can expect to get out of a battery before they should look at replacing it. For most "bashers", this may not matter much, but the racers and high-end performance community would probably benefit from having a rough idea of how many cycles they should expect before they start seeing a noticeable drop in performance.
Personally, I tend to destroy batteries by crashing before they lose performance.
LOL! Funny how that happens. ;-)
Hello Joshua. Thanks for sharing your experiment. Well, I have a question, maybe one that has been asked and answered a lot of times before, but I don't know the answer. Well, would it be a waste of money to buy 4 X 30A esc for a quadcopter? Bear in mind that it is intended to be used in a 200mm quad, with 2205 motors and 5" props... And I intend to use a 1500mA 4S battery, like a Turnigy Graphene or Infinity... If this kind of battery isn't able to offer 60A consistently, even worse 120 (what would justify 4 X 30A esc). Would 4 X 20A esc be enough? Thanks in advance.
I suggest a combined methodology of battery shaking and break in.
Fantastic.
good test are you going to see what happens after another 30 cycles or till there done to see how many cycles can you get out of them?
+Papo Fpv. I'm concerned they may not make it 60 cycles. I killed two of them last weekend crashing.
I have used the 1300 90c for 2 weeks now and they are damn close to the r line 1300mah in flight performance.
Curious to know what kind of battery to battery difference you saw as opposed to group averages.
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Have you ever tried charging at lower c rate for first few cycles ? Like when reviving older lipo. I think its cause batteries were like balloons you had to stretch them before even first lipos but chemistry has changed a lot. You can put more power in this tanks but can crack them if too much put in or pulled out leading to failure
+youel adamas yes I charged at a lower c rate for the first few cycles. I don't think you were paying attention when you watched the video...
Yeah sorry while reviewing I realized you said 1amp not 1c lol its funny you drop this vide today cause I have been dealing with bad batteries all day. Lol they are sagging like old man balls as soon as you throttle
Do you know if quads have high amp draw on 3s batteries compared to 4s and if this would play a part in faster voltage sag ? Lol I need to get me some meters but I know you have tested many types of batteries so had to ask.
Does it effect the longevity of the battery ? If your going through all this, why not take it 1 step more ?
Thanks Joshua, the age old question. I have my taranis alerting me when my Battery is low and again when critical.
My question is what is the best value to safely set these two parameter so I don't damage the batteries.
Thanks again.
My goal is to have the batteries resting at about 15.0 volts when I land, and to never go below about 14.0 volts in flight.
Ok, I have my warning set to 14.5 and critical alarm at 14.3, do you think that's safe?
+NyxFPV if you fly aggressively you will blow through both of those in one throttle punch. And if you don't fly aggressively, you will have little enough sag that you may be resting closer to 14.7 or 14. 8 at the end. Ultimately, just go fly, and if you're resting at 15.0 you're doing okay.
Josh, I just bought a fc40 phantom just to play with and I bought 2 new Ovonic lipo batteries same spec as stock and they only last 30 seconds - 2 mins tops. My stock battery is very old and puffy but it last at least 3 mins. I'm guessing Ovonic is overrated bad or just junk. What is a good cheap battery brand to get for this old girl? I heard this big phantom is supposed to get at least 10 mins. I hope nothing else is wrong with the phantom. It seems good. Motors are in great shape. I just oiled and cleaned them. Is my battery just junk?
very nice Joshua. i learned something today ;). i think you should do speed test with every 5inc quad that banggood have. you can thank me later with couple quad and you will learn something that day :).
Good work Mr Bardwell. How many cycles are you getting from batteries? For me more than 50 cycles is a bonus. Hopefully my Turnigy Graphenes will last hundreds of cycles (only up to about 30 so far).
+Bongo Fury these are still usable after 30 cycles. I usually don't count cycles very carefully.
I think lipos gain capacity with cycling, the positive results could be just more cycles, meaning eventually they should even out, longer testing would be cool!
Josh talking about battery I finally got a 4s 1300 mha graphine . My quad flies fine with a 1300 3s then I put on the 4s half throttle it flips and looses power.
+Jeffrey A you likely have a damaged ESC.
I ordered a twin pack of lipo 1500mah 7.4v 2s battery’s and charger off eBay. I would test them and let you know how I got on but they never turned up 🤷🏻♂️