ORIGINAL: Dave Wilshere
Tassos
No I use a std Powerbox. I have a H 9 meter and also the Graupner Amp Clamp. But I do it by ear and total battery consumption. I charge new models batteries before setting up the model, set it up which usually takes me not much more than 10min inc mixes etc...so about a flight time, plus any other testing on gear etc.
Before I test fly I charge the batteries again and always note mAh used..as during the life of the model this tells you so much. I have an expected consumption. So if I was doing your Lightning and I guessed 20min total on time I would expect on 5-600mAh use from each battery.
I then fly it and monitor battery use.
Dave
Ok here's what I've done.....
It looked really strange to me how the Powerbox Royal has been measuring so large batteries consumptions.
I bought the item Lior is mentioning in his post (thank you Lior for the idea)
I connected it in series with one of the batteries to the PB as shown in the first picture.
Then I put my 14MZ to cycle all the servos on the ground without any load for 10mins or so. The results:
- PB displayed consumption of Battery 1 (2nd pic) : 1097mAh
- External power meter reading (3rd pic): 151mAh
This is 7 times less than the PB!!!
In addition last weekend I made 5 flights. After the flights I measured exactly the mAh charged in each battery. And guess what, each took around 1700mAh, which means an average of 340mAh per flight
(under flight load).
Which means I can trust the $25 power meter I bought but I cannot trust the $650 PB Royal I bought to read for me the power consumption amongst other things it does.
I sent an email to PB and they said it may need calibration. This is one H$$L of calibration they need to do.....
I wonder if anyone else out there is having the same setup as I have and is seeing the same measurements as me. Is it just my PB?
Thanks alot everyone for your help.
Regards, Tassos