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Flying in high heat areas

Discussion in 'Electronics' started by Mike Reid, Sep 13, 2013.

  1. Mike Reid

    Mike Reid Member

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    I'm just wondering who else has had experience with flying in high heat environments.

    I was flying in Northern Zambia today, outside temp is about 36C. My flights were going well until I started to feel like my flying inputs were a bit sluggish, I brought it back to make a landing and was hovering close to my landing spot when I could see the motors stop. I was only about 5-6 minutes into the flight, so the battery still had a good charge.

    The crash wasn't bad at all, only my #6 boom got a crack in it. The real damage was my 9000mAh 6s 22.2V battery, it was huge and about twice as hot as any battery has ever been after flying.

    All of my batteries are 3 months old and have no more than 8 flights each.

    Other than that I haven't found any other faults, so I have no doubts that the battery is my culprit.
     
  2. Andy Johnson-Laird

    Andy Johnson-Laird Administrator
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    If you have MK boards and a Navi-Ctrl board, could you post the GPX file, Mike?

    Thanks
    Andy.
     
  3. Mike Reid

    Mike Reid Member

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    I am DJI WKM unfortunately.
     
  4. Andy Johnson-Laird

    Andy Johnson-Laird Administrator
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    Oh. That's unfortunate -- in the sense that I don't think you have any flight data logging, do you?

    Andy.
     
  5. Mike Reid

    Mike Reid Member

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    Hmmm, I'm not sure how I forgot to put this part in. My battery had expanded to a huge size, at least 1/3 bigger than normal and was almost too hot to touch. An hour after I had taken it off it was still pretty hot and it has only returned to its normal size about 6 hours after.
     
  6. Ozkan Erden

    Ozkan Erden Distributor

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    I've flown Cinestar 8 with MK electronics at around 38-40 C degrees with 5D Mark III with 24mm prime lens many many times. The battery is Gensace 10A 4S 25C.

    The only problem was the heat with the ESCs. If I just hover, the temp goes up over 100 just in a few minutes. If I wander around, the temps are kept around 80 C.

    The Bl Ctrls are equipped with heatsinks. I might consider installing a big fan next summer.
     
  7. Andy Johnson-Laird

    Andy Johnson-Laird Administrator
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    Based on what I've read on the Internet, I would treat that battery as high-risk. My understanding is that, once they puff up like that, they are dead and gone.

    If you agree, I'd put a light bulb or some dummy load across it to drain in completely flat (zero volts!) and dispose of it.

    Andy.
     
  8. Mike Reid

    Mike Reid Member

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    I was thinking the same thing. I just killed it dead today. Now to find where in Zambia I can safely dispose of it.
     
  9. Andy Johnson-Laird

    Andy Johnson-Laird Administrator
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    If the voltage is actually at zero, then my understanding is that it is completely inert and can be disposed of anywhere that takes rechargeable batteries. You may even find that a place that takes lead-acid batteries will take LiPo (or will know who does).

    Andy.
     
  10. Casey Van Nyhuis

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    Around the office we've just been throwing all of our "scary" lipos in a bucket full of saltwater. Sucks out any left over power pretty quick. And as Andy said, i think after that most anywhere that recycles batteries will take them off your hands and do the proper thing with them.
     

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