Ah man I think I screwed my battery…
Been having so much fun with her that I probably well….I knew I flew a few times and pushed my flight times longer than I should’ve…One time I even emptied the tank
….I know….that’s a no no….

So now Im just getting over 3 min flights….dayum.
What sweet bird to fly…
Time to hunt for stock battery replacements…

GB,
I'm in the same boat as you. I just ordered a couple of these. They're a tad longer and heaver but I'm going to give them a go. I'll report as soon as I get them. Keep a good thought!

Oh noes, GB! Looks like you funned your battery to death.

I've been flying with a timer for a few months now--either built into my TX or with a stopwatch app. I keep times around 4 minutes for most helis these days.

@ Big_Kid - Thanks for the battery info and please post how it works out.

@ Robo - Yup, I've been funned Your right with the timmer. And you know... normally I've been using my stopwatch app on my phone at 4 mins, but I guess at some point it went out the window
But all in all....lesson learned at having fun

Thank guys

-Rick

I posted this on the other Discussion, but figured I'd post it here too:

Does anyone know what protocol the S34, 2.4g Tx-Rx is? Spectrum, FlySky, something else? Inquiring minds want to know.............Thanks.

Rick, Robo, no disrespect to the timer theory. I know that a lot of people believe it and live by it. Personally, I don't.

I don't own an S022, only a couple of S026. Thanks, Robo for twisting my arms into getting them. But if the S022 is like any other Syma that I've worked with, it has an LVC built into the board. The bird should not operate at voltages lower than the LVC, typically at 3.4v or so. That's flying or funning it to death.

Even at that voltage, the Lipo is good to come back fully. I have done worse, much worse, and have not killed the Lipo. So, I don't believe that flying it to LVC is gonna hurt anything. Storing it at lower than LVC is a different matter.... however.

Lipos do go bad. They are cheap and replaceable. Don't sweat it. If you want to practice shorter flights, by all means. But unless the batteries is swappable, I like to fun it to death and get the most out of it. LOL

Originally Posted by Heli Pad

Rick, Robo, no disrespect to the timer theory. I know that a lot of people believe it and live by it. Personally, I don't.

I don't own an S022, only a couple of S026. Thanks, Robo for twisting my arms into getting them. But if the S022 is like any other Syma that I've worked with, it has an LVC built into the board. The bird should not operate at voltages lower than the LVC, typically at 3.4v or so. That's flying or funning it to death.

Even at that voltage, the Lipo is good to come back fully. I have done worse, much worse, and have not killed the Lipo. So, I don't believe that flying it to LVC is gonna hurt anything. Storing it at lower than LVC is a different matter.... however.

Lipos do go bad. They are cheap and replaceable. Don't sweat it. If you want to practice shorter flights, by all means. But unless the batteries is swappable, I like to fun it to death and get the most out of it. LOL

HP..man you always keep me thinking (thank you for that) It would be cool if the battery came back but at this point, I think its dying....she still flys strong but only for a good 3 mins or so, then its time to bring her in.

Thanks HP for your input.

-Rick

Like I said, Rick. All rechargeable batteries go bad at some point. Lipos are not known for their longevity, but for their lightness, size, and discharge rate. So, if you consistently gets 3 minutes out of it, its internal resistance has risen to that level that it couldn't hold more capacity.

What I'm saying though, is when you do replace the battery with a new one, you could choose to be conservative and keep your flying time to 3-4 minutes, or you could push it hard. With aircraft that supports swappable batteries, short flight time is fine, cause you could put in another battery and go again. But with internal batteries, do I really want to fly 3-4 minutes, stop and go charge for another 45 minutes just to get another 3-4 minutes? Or, do I push this thing to 6 minutes or whatever I could get out of it? That's your choice.

Originally Posted by Heli Pad

Against Helicopter Cruelty . . .

. . . But unless the batteries is swappable, I like to fun it to death . . .

Yup! It's all down to how you like to fly and what works for you.

When flying with my son, we go to LVC on the symas. That's mainly because we're landing, taking off, crashing, waiting for one guy to do a maneuver, etc... However after he goes to bed, I charge them up again and fly them continuously for 4min so that the batteries are near "storage charge" (e.g. best estimate).

I used to keep all my Symas fully charged and keep them on the shelf. However, as I got more into FP helis I noticed the Symas would go longer without being flown and I wondered if my batteries were going faster than they should be. I had two batteries seemingly go bad on me when I only had 10-15 flights on the heli.

So.... now I'm going to try the "storage charge" thing for a few months and see how that works for me. It's mostly an experiment for me given that I kept them fully charged all the time before. In a few months, I might decide to try something else but I'll report on what seemed to work (or not work).

The 4min flight also started as an attempt to try to increase the life of the motors in my MSR and MSRx. I'd prefer not to have to replace them very often so I'm going to see how that works over the next 6 months. Also after 4 min of indoor flying, my batteries are typically at storage charge at that point anyway (according to my Thunderpower AC6 charger).

Also, when flying FP helis OUTDOORS with Turnigy 160s , I keep them to 4 minutes because I'm riding the throttle a lot more and I want to make sure I can get them back to me with power to spare. The last time I was out with my MSRXs in the wind, I hit the LVC at around 3:30 on a couple of batteries, so when it's windy on THAT heli, I'll bring it back even further.

So, bottom line, my 4min flight choice is based on some observations, some concern (mainly for motors), and a desire to do some experimentation. I encourage everyone to NOT take what other people do as gospel and instead test it for yourself to decide what to do. As HP says, batteries will often die young (I had a "new" Nanotech 160 puff after 10 flights) but they're cheap to replace and you learn something!

Originally Posted by Heli Pad

What I'm saying though, is when you do replace the battery with a new one, you could choose to be conservative and keep your flying time to 3-4 minutes, or you could push it hard. With aircraft that supports swappable batteries, short flight time is fine, cause you could put in another battery and go again. But with internal batteries, do I really want to fly 3-4 minutes, stop and go charge for another 45 minutes just to get another 3-4 minutes? Or, do I push this thing to 6 minutes or whatever I could get out of it? That's your choice.

I solve that with swappable helicopters. I've got something like 10 3 channels.

As I said, with the swappables, I usually fly to LVC when I'm with my kid but when it's going back on the shelf, I'll fly that last flight to 4min and then stop.

Oh, Gord, you got me. Funny. But I didn't say anything about battery cruelty, did I? HAHAHA

Originally Posted by Getto Bird

HP..man you always keep me thinking (thank you for that) It would be cool if the battery came back but at this point, I think its dying....she still flys strong but only for a good 3 mins or so, then its time to bring her in.

Thanks HP for your input.

-Rick

I'm just throwing this out there... maybe the motors are wearing own too?
I find the stock syma batteries are quite poor. I've had many fail...

I think what played into this to was my Chinny battery is still new and I maybe pushed to soon cause I was starting to go from 4 to 5 strong mins at half throttle....
Now with my Golden Scorpion YD-811, at first I flew for 3-4 mins for a good while, now I do 7-8 strong half trottle mins easy. Dont know if its the same case with bigger battery in all, but using the same rule of thumb.

Originally Posted by rexless

I'm just throwing this out there... maybe the motors are wearing own too?
I find the stock syma batteries are quite poor. I've had many fail...

Motor wear? Dont say that!! lol
humm...poor stock battery!! could be maybe...

Now I'm leaning toward a stock replacement however "BIG_KID" posted on this tread a slightly bigger battery that he's gonna try.
He said he'd post the results soon.