Battery upgrade for 3DR X8 RTF

Archive
1

Hi, I have a 3DR X8 RTF and I plan to use the RC timer 2-axis gimbal carrying the SONY NEX-6. The camera+gimbal+extended landing gear are about 1100g, which is beyond the suggested X8 payload limit 880g.
I don’t plan to change the propeller / motor / ESC as I am a newbie to UAV…
Would you please help me to find a better battery upgrade idea for the X8 RTF to be able to lift such payload and accomplish about 8 min flying time?
To open the discussion, I have selected a few candidates from maxamps.com and I would like to hear your comments. Please also let me know if you have better choice.

  1. LiPo 9000XL 4-cell 14.8v Battery Pack 100C rating 862g
  2. LiPo 6500 4-cell 14.8v Dual Core Battery Pack 150C rating 639g
  3. LiPo 6000XL 4-cell 14.8v Battery Pack 100C rating 570g

Thanks for your attention and I truly appreciate your help!

Neil

2

I was interested in this also as I seem to be getting only 8 to 10 minutes of fly time at the most given the fact I’m usually tweaking things via Mission Planner for a few minutes before arming and taking off.

Right now, all the extra equipment (gimbal, ccd camera, fpv transmitter, minimosd) are running off of the flight pack as well. I was thinking about either just beefing up the flight pack or maybe trying to split off some of the extra equipment to a secondary battery.

OP mentioned a few different choices. Is there an upper end for mAh? Any reason not to consider a 10k or even 16k?

3

Ping, any official word on higher capacity batteries for 3dr drones?

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

4

Hi deinspanjer,

I’m sorry, at the moment the only official battery is the one we are currently shipping with the X8 and Y6: store.3drobotics.com/products/4s6000-lipo-power

5

Upgrading the battery will increase flight time, but won’t solve other issues related to carrying too much weight, such as overheating the motors or decreasing the systems responsiveness and stability.

6

Understood. I think I’m still pretty good as far as payload and power output. It is easy to keep the X8 hovering with 50% throttle.

I recently saw an interesting battery on the HobbyKing website (not sure if links are discouraged so I’m leaving that out). It was a 4S 6600mAh which weighs 73g less than the X8 stock battery. The big trade-off is C output. it is only 10C constant and 20C peak. The stock battery is rated at 35C, but I haven’t tried to dig into my flight logs to see how much I’m actually pulling down. Since I always get a minimum of 12 minutes flight time, I suspect I’m probably pulling about 26A [ (6000 - 20%)mAh / 12 minutes ] which should be well under the 10C rating of the 6600 mAh battery.

It seems that even if those numbers are all correct though, it would likely only give me 1 to 2 minutes more flight time. :confused:

They talk about the tyranny of rockets, but I think it applies well to LiPos too. :slight_smile: