Safe volts to fly

[DebianDog]

I always hear everyone say make sure to check your batteries (and I do) but I was wondering what the cut off point is?

Radio 5 volts? Less?

Heli?

[polymorph]

cut off point???i just thought you charged the batteries n went flyin :? :roll: :oops:

[polymorph]

u can tell i aint done this before

[Joel Mann]

I thought it was 9.7 on the transmitter and 4.9 on the receiver...Check the voltage on your batery packs bt reading the back of them.Unless youre flying duralites...I think thats right :shock:

[Hotshot Charlie]

On the receiver pack, (Nicad/Nimh) 5.0v is in the "meat" of the battery. My safety point is, Stop flying or recharge at 4.9v on a meter with a load.

I have a 1400ma pack on my Stinger 50, I get 3 good long flights. I have 1700ma pack on my Hawk Sport and can get up to 5 flights. (This is just for reference, your conditions may vary)

I fly my transmitter until it "beeps" at me. heheheee Really, I never run my transmitter down in a day of flying. The only time it beeps at me is when I am doing setup on a heli and I just let her stay on tooo long or forget to turn it off ! :shock:

[Spitfire_mk5]

I stop at 9.8 Tx and 5.0 Rx (under load) if its a nicad, which means 1-2 flights a charge for the Rx and about 7-15 on the Tx for me.

... and thats why I use duralites on the Rx.

[DebianDog]

Thanks all. Thats what I needed to hear.

In other good news... I was reading through my GV-1 manual and just found out it has a battery alarm (I bought the Heli used so I did not read it before). It activates at 3.8 volts, always good to have a secondary safety.

[cgroves]

It activates at 3.8 volts, always good to have a secondary safety.
At 3.8V on a 4cell you are out of power, the battery is on the steep side of the curve and you are right on the edge of gyro and Rx malfunctions. Cut-off voltages are very dependant on current delivery capabilities of the battery and the amount and type of equipment you are running. I suggest finding out at what point your helicopter reaches 4v or higher under full load (2 amps on my digital R30 with 2 jams and all other servos moving quickly) add a safety margin of 250-500mAh on top and then also add your highest measured per-flight consumption. Add these all up and this is your minimum safe capacity to start a flight. With some testing you can find what voltage the battery is at under a fixed load when it has this capacity. This needs a good voltmeter and a discharger/charger that can tell you how much is left or put into a battery. It takes time but combined with good battery monitoring/testing can easily save your heli.