Battery for Trex 500 with FPV gear?

[mjr_larkin]

Hi guys. I'm doing a Trex 500 kinda setup with about 400g of FPV gear. I am thinking of getting an Outrage XP 30C 2500mAh battery but is this the wrong choice for aerial photography? If I'm loading the heli down with gear what kinda battery capacity and discharge rate should I aim for?

thanks a lot.

[DigitalCop]

Well, there are a lot of variables that will determine your power usage... your specific heli setup, flying style, etc.

In my opinion, the only way you will know what you will get out of the 500 so far as overall flight time will be to put what you want to carry on and run through a few packs to test it out.

Just make sure you leave plenty of reserve (I have heard a lot of guys say that for AP they leave 40-50% capacity) for your landing. Most guys get the photos they want in only a few minutes with practice.

Try to stay fairly light on the payload and test it out.

-Todd

I'm doing a Trex 500 kinda setup with about 400g of FPV gear. I am thinking of getting an Outrage XP 30C 2500mAh battery but is this the wrong choice for aerial photography? If I'm loading the heli down with gear what kinda battery capacity and discharge rate should I aim for?

[mjr_larkin]

Okay thanks a lot. Good to at least no there is no common convention like "no less than 4000mAh".

[avocado-flyer]

My 500 is nearly 2 pounds overweight with the AP rig and larger batteries. I am running two sets of batteries; one is 2, Great Planes 3S 3200mah and I get about six minutes from them. The other set is two 3S 3700mah packs and I've gotten 9 minutes out of them, although, they were discharged further than I would have liked. I put one pack on the battery tray and one underslung.

I can only assume there is a point of diminishing returns, I just have no idea where that is.

[mjr_larkin]

Great experience to share, thanks. I might go for the Outrage XP 6S 3000mAh when they come out for my FPV bird.

[avocado-flyer]

What batteries did you end up going with? I found using 2, 3s I had more options to get my center of gravity right.
Also, I only have a cellpro 4s:o

[mjr_larkin]

Heli isn't off the ground yet but I went with 6S A123. If it needs beefier I'll do 7S A123. I have a cell pro 10S and it's working pretty well with these batteries so far.