As the title says I'm interested in what make and size of pack people are using.
I have the newer Y6 which they appear to recommend a 4s battery with. At the moment I'm running two 2200 mah 3s packs which gives me about 7 mins at 80% but want to buy some dedicated packs as these are just from my trex 450.
I was thinking of the Turnigy nanotech 4s 6000 pack but wanted to know what others thought of the brand and size. Are there any drawbacks with 4s, presumably the esc are working in a different part of their range etc.
At the moment I just run with a gopro mounted directly but eventually I'll have a gimbel and maybe some FPV gear.
Anyway all thoughts appreciated.
Replies
I use the Tiger Atomic Power 6000 mah battery that comes with the RTF Y6. I don't recall where I bought them at the moment, but they were $65. I use a iCharger 206b.
Speaking of batteries, the battery straps are excessively long. What are others using to compensate for it? I ended up using 2 1x1 blocks of wood. Maybe some day I'll hook the two in parallel, but I'm not that brave yet.
I use the recommended 4s batteries and they last very well though I haven't had the nerve to test the battery failsafe voltage RTL yet. I set the radio alarm at 10minutes and from the recharge info I've never had to put in more than 4000 mA. I do know that motors on 4s batteries draw more current (and give a much higher power output). I haven't measured mine but will take a clamp meter to the field this afternoon and see what I get.
Hi Andy, I am just waiting for my Turnigy Nano 4S 6000 to arrive, my decision over single pack vs parallel was made by stock levels so fingers crossed everything will be good with this pack.
FYI the battery failsafe is great although I have mine set to just land as I'm assuming I may not have enough flight time for a RTL when it triggers, if you've evey flown with a duff pack you'll know what I mean (had a couple on helis), get it down ASAP is the name of the game. It is triggered by either voltage drop below 3.5v per cell or 80% of the packs capacity (4800mA for the new pack).
Would be nice if we could have two stage alert on low voltage without the telemetry, ie first sounds the buzzer at 70% for example. Maybe I need to put my coding hat on and write something.
The Pixhawk has a buzzer - not sure what it's used for or its range. Risk if you are flying some distance away of not hearing it. I find the telemetry that tells you what the battery % is useless; it cycles up and down during the flight with nonsensical numbers. I must have a setting/parameter wrong somewhere because it could be useful (this is on DroidPlanner 2)
Yup, a buzzer would only work fairly close up but as this would just be a first warning it's not too big an issue if you missed it.
Maybe I'll just have to fit a TM 1000 which is the spekturm telemetry unit, I have it on all my helis, this can get my TX vibrating at specific voltages etc.
Unfortunately in the UK it looks like the 3dr telemetry unit isn't approved and certainly not at the power levels where it would give you a decent range.
Ours has a gopro on a Tarot gimbal, GPS on a mast, and a video switch. The 4s 6000mAh's that came with it gave me 11.5 minutes of flight time on a run that including cruising around the yard at medium speed, flying around a bit faster for 1/3 of the time, and an Auto mission that took it up to 100m and back, among other stuff. So, pretty decent use.
I've seen a 4s 8000mAh that, according to the specs, weighed around 600 grams, but was $200. Our TigerPower batteries are right about 600g, and I think the Turnigy weighs 623g as a 6000mAh and 820g as an 8000mAh. I'd love the extra 25% life of the 8000, but not for $200 and not for 200 extra grams. I'm pretty happy with the 4s 6000.
Thanks for the info. What maximum current draw are you seeing?
I was a bit confused by a comment I read before where someone said they had a higher current draw on 4s packs which doesn't make sense to me. Anyway I want to check that I have plenty of headroom with a 25c 6000 mah pack which should be capable of 150amps which I believe is well above the actual rating of the pdu anyway.
After giving it some more thought I'll probably end up going for 2 x 4s 3000mah packs rather than one large pack, it should help with redundancy, weight distribution etc.
I actually don't have a reference for current draw that I really trust, and I haven't looked at the one in Mission Planner lately. Weight distribution on ours is very well centered with the 4s 6000 placed transversely with its back edge aligned with the rearmost battery hold down slot. I wouldn't mess with the extra weight and extra connectors involved in using a pair of packs. The craft is fast and capable, in my view, with the whole battery, so I wouldn't carry a single 3000 in an attempt to improve speed. Your weight distribution would be pretty far off unless you tied it to the rear boom, I suspect. I also don't think there is much more redundancy, if any, in taking essentially the same number of cells in the same layout and arranging them in two separate bricks vs one brick. You could lose a row of cells from either configuration and still fly. You also need twice the number of charger ports to get back in the air. I don't see an advantage to using a pair of 3000s.
My batteries sent to me by 3DR are 30c, FWIW.
I think the main redundancy is if you lose a strip then you don't lose the whole pack, you still have one that's good ;-).