I recently purchased a used Phantom 3 standard, and it appears like the battery is depleting quite quickly. After only taking off and moving around in the air for a few minutes, the battery drained to one and a second level is flashing. When I saw the alert was below 25%, I immediately sent the drone home. After it landed, the battery level showed one solid and the next flashing. Is 25% too soon to send the drone home? How much longer can I fly with 25% left?
No, it is not too soon to bring your drone back home when the battery hits 25%… Especially since it is a used battery and you write it depletes in a few minutes… Is this “Few minutes” like when an “entitled” person parks their car in a Fire Lane and gets upset that they got a ticket after 20-minutes?
I do not have a Phantom, so I am just guessing here. Does your app show you how many cycles of recharging that battery has gone through. Perhaps it is just worn out and best saved for “bench testing” and not flying.
If you do not land the drone and merely fly it nearby, how long will the drone fly before it goes into a forced landing?
Perhaps your best course of action is to buy a new battery.
Thanks I will try next time by flying low to the ground near where I stand so if it die it can fall on the grass. I just want to test how much longer it can hover before completely shut off.
When I write a “Forced Landing” I do not mean it motors will die and the drone will fall to the ground, I do not know about your App, but my DJI Fly App, tells me the battery is low ( be sure the device you are using, phone or tablet, has the volume turned up as my app also tells me in audio as well as with a message…) and if the drone is more than 20-meters from the Home Point, the App puts the drone into Return to Home Mode. Not necessarily a good thing, depending on where the drone if located (like under a tree…), the automatic RTH can be disabled with just a touch of the screen or movement of the stick.
But a forced landing is a controlled reducing of the throttle and the drone settles gently on the ground, also not necessarily a good thing, especially if it’s over the flower bed…
I suggest you charge the battery to full charge, and take it out side and just fly it around and around in a circle, high enough so it does not bump into something and after the warning, keep flying until the drone just cannot fly anymore and just settles to the ground.
But right before you start your motors and take off, set you smart phone to “Stop watch” abd start tge app to keep track of actually how long it flies before you hit the 20% and exactly how long it continues to fly…