Setting change for larger battery? MultiStar 5200mAh Testing

Posted by NateMac on August 14, 2014 at 6:26pm

My IRIS comes tomorrow, so I'm asking this blink. A Quad-newbie.

Instead of buying replacement batteries from 3DR I picked up the 5200mAh MultiStar batteries from hobbyking(http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__56839__Multistar_High_Capacity_3S_5200mAh_Multi_Rotor_Lipo_Pack.html)...
I thought I remember reading a discussion when using a higher mAh batteries that I needed to update the low voltage alert, or something like that.
Am I making something up, or is there something I need to do when using a higher capacity battery?
Thanks for your help, can't wait to pop my cherry tomorrow.

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Replies

  • NateMac August 17, 2014 at 9:59am

    Was able to get 18:30 out of the MultiStar 5200 after changing the battery capacity in Mission Planner. For $29, I think this might be the way to go.

    3701808895?profile=original

    • John O'Shaughnessy > NateMac August 17, 2014 at 12:39pm

      Cool.  Nice battery life!  Was this a fairly level flight, or were you climbing and descending a lot? I'm guessing that has a big impact on flight/battery duration.

      Yet another question -- how do you get the track log to show on DroidPlanner 2?  One day, the tracks were showing up.  The next time I few, they did not.  Any ideas?

      Thanks,

      John

    • NateMac > John O'Shaughnessy August 17, 2014 at 1:13pm
      This was all over the place flying, mostly in Stabilze Mode, throttle all the way down seeing what I could do with it. As far as DroidPlanner, I notice it resets the flight information when I arm and disarm the IRIS. So I landed the quad 2 or 3 time in this run, from what you can kinda see from the screen, this was only my last flight. I'd like to get a map/data of the entire flight, it would be nice to see how high I went and what-not. I'm just as interested in figuring this out too.
    • John O'Shaughnessy > NateMac August 17, 2014 at 1:27pm

      Thanks for the info.  I know that post-flight, you can load the tlog data you captures in DroidPlanner 2 into either Mission Planner or APM Planner and review/replay the flight logs.  With that, you can check altitude, battery voltage, and a host of other information.  You can also replay your flight onto Google Maps, or even upload to Droneshare.com .  Some pretty cool options.

    • hal > John O'Shaughnessy August 17, 2014 at 8:17pm

      I think you need to go into the setup optional hardware screen, then change the battery size in mission planner.  At least that is the way it works on my small laptop.  But I'm using mission planner not droidplanner.  You should be able to also set the low voltage point in the same place.  But I would not change that, only change the battery capacity portion.  I don't know if the auto land is triggered off of voltage or capacity, but my guess is you can probably choose either somewhere in an advanced config screen, or in the failsafe screen.

  • NateMac August 16, 2014 at 1:05pm
    So I forgot to charge the tablet but I did some timed test today.
    I made no changes to the software or anything this is stock out of the box IRIS.
    Flying almost entirely in Stablize Mode I was able to get just over 10 minutes out of the stock battery and a little over 15 minutes with the MultiStar 5200mAh battery. My transmitter was reading 11.2v when the IRIS went into auto-land mode.
    Hope this info helps.

    I though I read people having their battery go to 10.9 or 10.7? Is this something I can change?
    • John O'Shaughnessy > NateMac August 17, 2014 at 7:27am

      I assume these times are with the short legs, and no gimbal or camera, correct?

    • NateMac > John O'Shaughnessy August 17, 2014 at 7:40am

      correct.

  • Pedals2Paddles August 16, 2014 at 5:00am

    I don't use a buzzer connected to the flight controller, so I'm actually not sure what it uses to determine the battery is "low".  However I can tell you that the % resets when you hook the battery up because it assumes you are hooking up a fully charged battery to the capacity entered in the power module configuration.

  • NateMac August 15, 2014 at 8:17pm
    Can someone fill me in on how the battery measurements work? Is it based on voltage and/or time or something else?
    What causes the IRIS to go into low battery mode(make noises and land on its own)?
    Where do I go about changing parameters when using different size batteries?
    ...Although with 3 of the 5200mAh, I'll probably just stick with those.
    I noticed when I discounted and reconnected the battery the tablet reads 100% battery and starts recounting down, what's the situation here? (Although it did jump to low battery as soon as it needed to)
    Thanks for helping a newbie out, one day and I'm hooked.
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