IRIS flight times?

Since it is imperative when planning auto missions to know your flight times I have been testing with stabilize/loiter hovers and measuring air time while I familiarize myself with the Arducopter platform.

I now have 17 full flights with respect to battery failsafe at 10.5 volts. I bought 3 batteries with the IRIS.

On these batteries the best hover time I can get is 10.5 to 11 minutes.

Yesterday I bought a more expensive Thunder Power RC G6 Pro Performance 3850mah 45C battery and a HI-Tech X1 MF balance charger. On the first flight with that battery I got 13 minutes hover/loiter. I hope to try it again today. Maybe it will get better after a couple of cycles. I only charged it with 1.9 amps for the first charge.

BTW - The $74 I spent on the charger was worth it. It charges the IRIS 3500 packs in an hour at 2 amps(well below 1C). The stock charger was taking 2.5 hours. it also displays the individual cell voltages and has a storage charge feature.

All battery tests were done with no payload. No legs, no camera, just like it comes out of the box.

I am curious to know what others are getting. The IRIS was advertised 10 to 15 minutes flight time. Assuming that it means 15 minutes with no payload and 10 minutes with legs and gimbal I would obviously like to be at 15 minutes with no payload. Doesn't seem possible as delivered.

Thanx,

Flight in general changes between cold and warm temperatures. it has to do with the density of the air. So that could increase or decrease your flight time somewhat. As for the battery the LiPo likes to be kept cool. Heat is not good for it. as for the comparison of flight times I think most manufactures rate them with the least amount of extras so it looks better to those wanting to buy. What upsets me is when they are so far off and you make the purchase believing you will be able to fly this long only to find out the opposite.

If I wanted to send my Iris with all my equipment on it 1/2 mile away to fly around and take some video there is a good chance I will not make it home. So if you plan on use the Gimbal and Autonomous waypoints you might as well forget it unless it is within a few hundred feet. If you want to just fly Autonomous and nothing else, then take everything off the iris and you might have better luck.

If I was the one manufacturing a product like this and knowing what will draw people in, I would have found a way to build it giving some of the highest flight times. I know the cost would change, but look how many people are buying the Phantom Vision!

Replies

- Jordan Brown > Jordan Brown April 7, 2014 at 5:13pm
  
  Its a little tight closing the door because the battery leads are big 10ga wire, I cut them to about 2" and put a xt60 connector, I might try disassembling it and using some 12 ga for and easier fit.
- Michael > Jordan Brown April 7, 2014 at 5:09pm
  
  Did you have any problem getting it to fit or close the door? I will be testing a few new batteries later this week that are being sent to me. I will be testing it with the Gimbal, long legs, Gopro 3+ and fpv 250mw transmitter. I just need to know which logs to compare things too so I get the most accurate information.
- Jordan Brown > Jordan Brown April 7, 2014 at 4:16pm
  
  I wasn't aware of the log bug. So is it better to remove the sd card and pull the logs that way?
- Mark Prince > Jordan Brown April 7, 2014 at 4:13pm
  
  Your right Jordan, MP can't do the failsafe. I mis-understood. So you flew it to the failsafe and you don't see lower than 11 volts in the log?
  
  You know about the log download bug huh? My logs were chopped off short until I started retrieving them directly from the SD card.
- Jordan Brown > Jordan Brown April 7, 2014 at 4:03pm
  
  Yea I changed the battery capacity in mp and in the pixhawks parameter to 5000. I have mp to alert me at 10.9 just so I know when I'm getting low but I didn't think mp could activate the low voltage failsafe. I didn't even have mp connected during the flight.
- Mark Prince > Jordan Brown April 7, 2014 at 3:56pm
  
  the battery failsafe works on voltage level but in the MP config you can set an alarm for voltage as well as an alarm for percent remaining. The default is 20% and you are probably still configured for a 3500mah battery. The verbal warning alarm comes in at volt or pcnt, whichever comes first. The 20% trigger most likely came in before the batt voltage got low. It's just calculated % of whatever you batt mah setting is base on the current draw.
  
  I put the % alarm at zero so I don't get the false alarm if the % limit is reached before the low batt voltage trigger.
  
  Let us know what you get in loiter if you go down to 10.7 volts. I wouldn't be surprised if you get at least a couple more minutes. One guy got 17 minutes with 4400mah 3S Nanotech with no payload.
  
  Thanx for sharing,
  
  mp
- Michael > JB3 April 7, 2014 at 10:44am
  
  Flight in general changes between cold and warm temperatures. it has to do with the density of the air.  So that could increase or decrease your flight time somewhat. As for the battery the LiPo likes to be kept cool. Heat is not good for it.     as for the comparison of flight times I think most manufactures rate them with the least amount of extras so it looks better to those wanting to buy.     What upsets me is when they are so far off and you make the purchase believing you will be able to fly this long only to find out the opposite.
  
  If I wanted to send my Iris with all my equipment on it 1/2 mile away to fly around and take some video there is a good chance I will not make it home. So if you plan on use the Gimbal and Autonomous waypoints you might as well forget it unless it is within a few hundred feet.   If you want to just fly Autonomous and nothing else, then take everything off the iris and you might have better luck.
  
  If I was the one manufacturing a product like this and knowing what will draw people in, I would have found a way to build it giving some of the highest flight times. I know the cost would change, but look how many people are buying the Phantom Vision!
Murat April 3, 2014 at 8:11am

4S 3000mAh 20C from Zippy is a bit tight fit, but giving me around 12-14 mins throttle time, depending of how aggressive I fly.
- Nitro > Murat April 3, 2014 at 9:18am
  
  Is that with or with out gimbal and gopro. I am assuming with out.
- Murat > Nitro April 3, 2014 at 9:59am
  
  No gimbal, but with a GoPro 3+.

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