Battery run times.....

[misterg74]

I've been reading that some of you are getting up to 12 minutes out of your batteries. I've been timing mine I'm getting about 5 minutes out of a stock battery and 7 and a half 8 minutes out of my g-force 2250 25c batteries in a hover. Do i have a problem with something binding or dragging or is this about right? I am running a CC Thunderbird 36 ESC, GY401,DS285's, 3400g on the tail and a sport BEC at 6 volts.

[visuvius]

I dunno, I would take those 12 minute quotes with a grain of salt. i don't know what the heck kind of battery that would be. I get 7-9 minutes with batteries ranging from the 1800mah that it came with to Thunder Power V2 Extreme to Loong-Max batteries from Hobby City. I set my time at 8 minutes and take it from there.

[misterg74]

The g-force batteries are supposed to be the exact same battery as the longg-max so it does sound like my flight times are a little short as I am barely getting 8 minutes outta the bigger packs .............. I dunno ............... I've gone over this thing from top to bottom cleaning lubing setting belty tension checking for binding. Everything seems in perfect order I guess I'll just keep my flight times on the large packs at seven minutes rather than risk killing them.

[carlo_the_wonder_frog]

Hovering is harder on the battery than forward flight is. in forward flight you have the moving air helping you stay aloft hence less power needed. 8 minute flights is pushing it, 12 minutes is killing a LiPo by overdischarging. If you fly the heli until it does its Low Voltage Cutoff then you are probably killing a LiPo too.7 minutes is normal for a 2100 mah battery doing some hovering/ FF. 6 minutes is all its good for when flying hard and doing lots of aerobatics.

You will notice over time the lipos will all of a sudden have a little less power, thats your que to land. It takes alot of flights and practice with the same batteries to know when this happens, until then keep your flights shorter and get a good charger that tells you how much amps your putting back into the battery, that the only way to really know.

[misterg74]

Thanks ....... yeah i am using a cellpro 4s charger so it does tell me what I am putting back into the batteries with my 2250 25c batteries at 8 minutes of hover the charger tells me that there is about 10% left in the battery when I put it on the charger. .......... Am I draining them to far or is that acceptable .......... Am new to lipo's and I really am not sure what will kill the battery and what won't.

[Heli Jim]

If you're going to 10% remaining in your LiPo's you are at the limit
of what you should be taking out of your batteries. 8 minutes is about
the most I can get out of mine, too. I'd rather fly 1 minute less per battery
and not take the chance of over discharging it.