Mr. Hatch
Like I said you have to be most conservative flyer ever. However, You are wrong about charging batteries. LiPo batteries, like Karma batteries, should NEVER be stored fully charged. Numerous articles will consistently support this. Here is an excerpt from learningrc.com:
LiPo Battery Life Span
As you use your battery, charging and discharging it, the capacity of it will slowly drop. So if your battery is 1300 mAh out of the box, it might drop to 75% of that (about 1000 mAh) after 200 charge/discharge cycles. A LiPo may last 300 to 500 cycles, depending on how it is cared for.
What should you do to maximize battery life?
There are a number of things you can do.
First, using the proper charge voltage is necessary. Never charge your battery past 4.2 V per cell.
Second, don’t over-discharge your battery.
Third, never store your battery fully charged. The recommend storage voltage is 3.8 V to 3.85 V. Most chargers will allow you to set it to a storage charge.
Fourth, use balance charging.
The Karma setup does not give us much control over actual max. charge level. (I did check and it is very close to 4.2 volts per cell) or how deep actually discharged to. The battery connector and charger indicate by number of connections balanced charging going on. As far as storage level goes I would charge to point the 3rd light just starts flashing and unplug the battery or charger. Checking every so often is fine but a lower level is no where near as bad as storing fully charged. Yes batteries tend to drop level over time and Karma smart package seems to do so worse than just plain LiPo packs. I never have had to add charge to any LiPo pack after long term storage except for Karma batteries.
A few years ago I bought a pair of 120C, 5000 mAh, 6 cell batteries for my 550 Heli and not knowing better kept them fully charged. In a matter of weeks they were puffing up bad and one started leaking a tiny bit and I threw it out on patio where it really started smoking and burst into flames. It and it’s partner went to recycling center in an amo can. I got maybe 10 flights off each battery. These were early version high performance batteries and things are better now, but storing batteries fully charged is really bad for your batteries.
GoPro seems tight lipped about details of battery system, but from engineering standpoint I cannot see how they have mechanism to automatically put at storage level. How would it know when to do that? I charge up in evening, go flying next day and batteries have started to discharge?
Also your telling people to only fly for 10 minutes AND stay close, etc. is really overkill. I watch and start heading home, depending on how far out and if over water or not, with 5 min. left and seriously have never had a problem. Obviously if you fly Karma straight away at Max speed you need equal amount of time to get back. Just takes a little common sense. Enjoy better battery life now.
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