Great test Robin! I did E-mail Potensic and their response was as you noted that they will discharge themselves over a week. I did approximately the same test and none of mine discharged to below 90% after 6 days. I have used Lipo batteries for a very long time on my other fixed wing and multirotor aircraft and have always discharged them to 50 or 55% when they are not going to be used for an extended period. This has always worked for me. I have a pair of 3200 Mah Lipo batteries that I use on my 450mm DJI Flamewheel multirotor that are over 7 years old and are still working perfectly with full capacity available. When I'm not going to fly for an extended period, I have been doing just what you recommended for the Atom by flying the drone until the batteries are down to 50 to 55%. I definitely feel that the batteries will last much longer. Thanks for another great video!
I wish these chargers have a storage function to charge them up to a safe storage charge. I have an RC lipo charger for my RC Cars and Trucks and they have a storage charge mode. I have a DJI Mavic Air with a dead battery cause it sat too long. Replacement batteries for this thing is expensive like 95-100 per battery. Just bought a Potensic Atom today hope to have lots of use for that. Had lots of issues with DJI flying due to the geofencing restrictions. That’s why I didn’t go back to the DJI branded drones because of that.
Thanks. I have been reading the manual to see how to take care of the batteries but you actually did a test. A lot of owners of the drone need to see your helpful video. Thanks again
Robin, I would like to point out a few things. 1. They begin to discharge after 5 days so you only gave them 2 days to start discharging. 2. They seem to continue to discharge at a fixed rate over time. 3. I have left mine unplugged from both the drone and the charger for over three weeks and the discharged to about 60%. I think it is more like a slow continuous discharge over time which does not simulate actual use but does cycle the battery.
Awesome test Robin. I should have thought of that test after receiving storage directions from Potensic. Goes to show even "qualified" information from the "manufacturer" may not be right.👍🏾
Unless I've read the info wrong, it could mean that they start to discharge "after" 5 days. I re-read the info again after getting a comment from someone who interpreted it in this way 🤔 I'm just going to discharge mine myself now manually to around 60% 👍
I had the same question. It seems that with the dji you can use the hub as a power bank. Unfortunately that does not work with the Potensic, making the winter a bit more challenging.
I've got an Imax charge/Discharger , but not the lead to connect to the Atom battery . I guess one method to discharge would be to actually fly the drone in hover mode until the power level is about 50%. Then store. A bit tedious because this will take about 15 mins per battery . Thanks for the info.
Yes, that's what I did after filming the video. I let all 3 batteries hover inside to around 65% As I won't be flying until next weekend-if the weather is OK, that is!
Excellent video! I last used my Atom on the 18th January and left the 3 fully charged batteries in the hub in the bag. It's late now, but tomorrow I'll check to see how much they discharged.
All batteries were fully charged when I put them in the hub in the carry bag on the 18th January and stored in a cool room in the house. 5 weeks later I checked them today, here's the result. Battery number one was 46%, but I had to do a firmware upgrade before I could read the percentage. After the upgrade I put in battery 2, which was at 52%. Battery 3 was 51%. Hope that helps. - Deb
So if you kept the batteries in the hub and the power on, they should discharge quicker. I Have had a few drones and the best practice is to fly your batteries to 30 percent and leave them at that level only once a month charge and fly if you are not using the drone
Thanks for your great videos, Robin! I have a question, please. Yesterday I received my Atom drone (fly more combo) and charged the 3 batteries to 100% in the hub - as advised in the manual. I flew the drone about 20 minutes and the battery used has one led lighted after use (I guess 25%). Is it correct that I should charge to 50-60% and store? I now fully charged it again. Plan to fly again next weekend. The other 2 batteries are in the bag and fully charged. Should I put them in the drone and use until half empty or is that only for long periods of storage? Thanks for your kind advice!
Vidéo et tests très intéressants. Du coup si j’ai bien compris vaut mieux les stocker dans le hub de recharge comme c'est le cas chez DJI. Bonne continuation.
The fact tjat the batteries discharge automatically is better than nothing, and this being slow is not concernimg a lot. What is more important in my eyes is what really happens during winter, when not using the drone. If they keep discjarging at that rate, that would be really bad. In case you don't use the Atom (or some of it's batteries), please check them monthly or so and let us know 😊
Thanks for video. I thought you were supposed to discharge down to 30% to store. Havnt flown my drone in a month and have left the batteries in the hub at 30% lol... Hopefully they're ok haha
I'm no battery expert, but I'd stick to potensics recommendation of 50-70%. Dji recommends storage at 65% 30% is probably OK, but I'm thinking as it's closer to zero, it could get down to 10% in a month or so, then that's in over discharging territory. From now on I'm storing mine at around 60%, so in a month or so, it might be in the sweet spot of 50% But I'm just guessing 🤷 these discharge rates
A couple of questions come to mind that you did not cover in your video... how old are the batteries and do all 3 have the same number of charge cycles ?
Good video friend, I want to start with this drone thing and I started watching your videos and it convinced me to buy the potensic atom, you are great at explaining, now I want to ask if there are ND filters for the ATOM. Pura vida From Costa Rica.
Your videos are very helpful! One question: I tried hovering the potensic indoors, and it got crazy and crashed on the wall. Thank God, nothing is broken. Any ideas?
That happened to me. I was draining one of my battery's indoors, and it was fine until it locked onto a few satellites, then it flew into my wall 🫣 My guess is when it finds a couple of satellites, it switches into gps mode. However, it needs to lock onto around 14 to hover in the same spot so if only connected to say 3 it suddenly thinks it's a few metres away from where it should be! I hope this makes sense 👍
@RobinDrones Thank you Robin. I will avoid doing that if I see there are not enough satelites found. By the way, I am a beginner, and your videos were one of the reasons that I got the Potensic. Am still in ˆtraining moodˆ and very happy with the choice. It is a great little drone!
There appears to be a conflict! Potensic suggest as in the other viddy not to store them in the charger, however they put the batteries in the charger! Who is to say they then sit on a shelf for month, 2 months or longer, surely if the charger has the potential of damaging the batteries they would wrap them separately. Thanks for the viddy most useful.
I wouldn't recommend storing the batteries in the charging station. In my experience (and that of a friend with the same model), the station will drain the batteries completely over time. Last time, the batteries I had left in were so drained after about 8 weeks that I wouldn't even get a flash out of the battery level leds.
Is there a guide to maintenance of ATOM (not SE) batteries. I only ask this because the diagram of the battery screen and info in the SE battery guide is not the same as the equivalent screen of the ATOM.
Unfortunately, no, I could only find the se one. I'm sure it will be the same as the se, even though the batteries are lion and the Atom 3 axis gimbal are lipos
When I drain these Potensic ATOM and SE batteries I just use them to charge my phone and my Bluetooth speaker and headphones since they are all Type C.
Question - if you put your battery on the charging hub (no plug) it will charging your battery? or it will only charging if you plug in the cable? thank you
I wish the charger had a storage function. I also run RC Cars and Trucks and my charger for those have a storage mode. I just got my Potensic Drone over the weekend. I only fly recreationally so here lately to just store I fly till battery shows around 60-70% then take it out. I didn’t do that before on my DJI spark drone and it sat for months, now it’s battery is dead dead ☠️
£80 cheaper than brand new seems a fair price. I bought a refurbished Avata from dji, and it was like brand new! I'm guessing the ones on Ebay are Amazon returns, so most will be like new, but a few might have problems. But as long as the seller accepts returns, it should be fine 🙂 👍
@@RobinDrones seems to me that not all will connect due to compatibility issues. Potensic said they’d only tested with mobile phones and couldn’t help. I’ve tried Blackview but no good, will try Samsung next. There are tablets that’ll connect but I’m looking for a budget one that’ll do the job.
Hi, I have an atom and I need to fly it indoors or rather inside a building that has weak GPS, so I am finding I can fly it manually but then the drone finds GPS and it goes out of control. So is there a way that I can switch off GPS so I can safely fly whilst in full manual control. Thanks.
Unfortunately, I don't think you can. I had the same issue. I was letting my Atom hover indoors to drain the battery, checked that no satellites were connected, and it was stable, so I looked away. Suddenly, it started to fly forward and hit my wall. I looked on the remote, and it was connected to 3 satellites, and I guess that isn't enough to maintain horizontal position.
Oh I'm not sure 🤔. Best thing to do is to put then in the drone and fly until 20% left, then fully charge them. Let me know how they are as I'm interested...
@@RobinDrones yeah i tried that and they wouldnt turn on, so i did a little research and i think they put themselves into sleep mode. So i charged them and the seem to be working like new thank god. I thought i was gonna have to buy new batteries.
Great news! So from now on its best to leave them off the charger and to fully charge them every 2 months and then let them self discharge on there own.
Avrei un informazione da chiedere. Ho dovuto cambiare tre volte hub perché ogni volta che caricavo batterie ok alla seconda ricarica inserisco batterie e non funziona piu come se fa corto circuito nin lo so e non funziona piu hub qualcuno ha lo stesso mio problema.? no perché
What's more concerning to me is that it would appear that potensic's advice on its own battery would appear to be in error, as clearly the battery in the hub discharged most which they said it could interfere with the self discharge, and on the 5 day point, I'd take it that they will only start to discharge after 5 days not during the 5 days, that might explain the small amount of loss 👍🏻
Oh yeh, I read it again, and you could be right ✅️ 😏. It's a bit misleading as it also says that if you're not going to use them for 5 days, discharge them yourself! I think I'm going to keep mine at 60% then charge them the same day of flying. 👍
Good info mate I’ve been wondering about this with budget drones Although typical Chinese Tell you what you want to here in the info and the reality gets lost in translation I’m quickly turning into one of those ‘just get a DJI drone’ person that I used to dislike Fact is most budget drones are very good for the most part but they are all lacking compared to DJI
I think that they do discharge, but they only start to discharge after 5 days. I've read comments saying that after a month, they drop to around 50-60% But I'm thinking that's too long 😕
Great test Robin! I did E-mail Potensic and their response was as you noted that they will discharge themselves over a week. I did approximately the same test and none of mine discharged to below 90% after 6 days. I have used Lipo batteries for a very long time on my other fixed wing and multirotor aircraft and have always discharged them to 50 or 55% when they are not going to be used for an extended period. This has always worked for me. I have a pair of 3200 Mah Lipo batteries that I use on my 450mm DJI Flamewheel multirotor that are over 7 years old and are still working perfectly with full capacity available. When I'm not going to fly for an extended period, I have been doing just what you recommended for the Atom by flying the drone until the batteries are down to 50 to 55%. I definitely feel that the batteries will last much longer. Thanks for another great video!
Yep, I agree. Store at around 50%, and our batteries should last a long time 😀
I wish these chargers have a storage function to charge them up to a safe storage charge. I have an RC lipo charger for my RC Cars and Trucks and they have a storage charge mode. I have a DJI Mavic Air with a dead battery cause it sat too long. Replacement batteries for this thing is expensive like 95-100 per battery. Just bought a Potensic Atom today hope to have lots of use for that. Had lots of issues with DJI flying due to the geofencing restrictions. That’s why I didn’t go back to the DJI branded drones because of that.
It's tests like this that make all the difference...Great video
Thank you! 😀
As a newbie to the drone family, picking these wee tips up helps people like myself a lot.
Glad to help
Thanks. I have been reading the manual to see how to take care of the batteries but you actually did a test. A lot of owners of the drone need to see your helpful video. Thanks again
Yes i agree, i hope many people who own the Atom will watch this video so that they have the info needed to keep the battery's in good condition.
Robin, I would like to point out a few things. 1. They begin to discharge after 5 days so you only gave them 2 days to start discharging. 2. They seem to continue to discharge at a fixed rate over time. 3. I have left mine unplugged from both the drone and the charger for over three weeks and the discharged to about 60%. I think it is more like a slow continuous discharge over time which does not simulate actual use but does cycle the battery.
Thanks for letting me know. I misinterpreted it as it said after 5 days battery should discharge to 60%
Awesome test Robin. I should have thought of that test after receiving storage directions from Potensic. Goes to show even "qualified" information from the "manufacturer" may not be right.👍🏾
Unless I've read the info wrong, it could mean that they start to discharge "after" 5 days. I re-read the info again after getting a comment from someone who interpreted it in this way 🤔
I'm just going to discharge mine myself now manually to around 60% 👍
I had no idea! Thanks for taking the time to do this testing.
Glad you found the video useful 👍
How do you discharge the battery without flying the drone ? I enjoy watching your videos thanks for your help.
You can't. I tried to use the charging hub as a power bank, but it wouldn't charge anything.
I had the same question. It seems that with the dji you can use the hub as a power bank. Unfortunately that does not work with the Potensic, making the winter a bit more challenging.
Very interesting Robin a nice in depth analysis and review.
Thanks, better for the battery health to manually keep these at 50-60% 👍
Thanks for showing us that. Glad I haven't been trusting the batteries to discharge themselves.
Yes, best not to store at 100% on these lipos
Great test mate, useful information to know , well done 👍
Thanks 👍
I've got an Imax charge/Discharger , but not the lead to connect to the Atom battery . I guess one method to discharge would be to actually fly the drone in hover mode until the power level is about 50%. Then store. A bit tedious because this will take about 15 mins per battery . Thanks for the info.
Yes, that's what I did after filming the video. I let all 3 batteries hover inside to around 65%
As I won't be flying until next weekend-if the weather is OK, that is!
Excellent video! I last used my Atom on the 18th January and left the 3 fully charged batteries in the hub in the bag. It's late now, but tomorrow I'll check to see how much they discharged.
Oh yeh, I would love to know how much they have self discharged in over a month. 😀
All batteries were fully charged when I put them in the hub in the carry bag on the 18th January and stored in a cool room in the house. 5 weeks later I checked them today, here's the result. Battery number one was 46%, but I had to do a firmware upgrade before I could read the percentage. After the upgrade I put in battery 2, which was at 52%. Battery 3 was 51%. Hope that helps. - Deb
Oh, perfect, then they do self discharge thanks for letting me know 😀
@rones It'll be interesting to see if they self discharge to 50% then stop. I wouldn't want then to discharge fully.
@debbie62140 Yes, that would be interesting to know if they do discharge anymore.
So if you kept the batteries in the hub and the power on, they should discharge quicker. I Have had a few drones and the best practice is to fly your batteries to 30 percent and leave them at that level only once a month charge and fly if you are not using the drone
That's good advice 👍
It would be difficult to keep the hub on, though, and unfortunately, it doesn't work as a powerbank
Thanks for your great videos, Robin! I have a question, please.
Yesterday I received my Atom drone (fly more combo) and charged the 3 batteries to 100% in the hub - as advised in the manual. I flew the drone about 20 minutes and the battery used has one led lighted after use (I guess 25%).
Is it correct that I should charge to 50-60% and store? I now fully charged it again. Plan to fly again next weekend. The other 2 batteries are in the bag and fully charged. Should I put them in the drone and use until half empty or is that only for long periods of storage?
Thanks for your kind advice!
Um ótimo drone amigo, vídeo muito bom 👍 like garantido.
Thanks 😀
Vidéo et tests très intéressants. Du coup si j’ai bien compris vaut mieux les stocker dans le hub de recharge comme c'est le cas chez DJI. Bonne continuation.
Yep I think so. That's what I will be doing and I will try never to store them at 100%
Useful info thanks for sharing 👍
Thanks, i had to do the test to let people know that they currently don't self discharge as they should.
Very useful information. Thank u!
Glad it was helpful!
The fact tjat the batteries discharge automatically is better than nothing, and this being slow is not concernimg a lot. What is more important in my eyes is what really happens during winter, when not using the drone. If they keep discjarging at that rate, that would be really bad. In case you don't use the Atom (or some of it's batteries), please check them monthly or so and let us know 😊
Yep, that sounds like a good plan to check them monthly, I'll do it on the 1st of each month 👍
Thanks for this video.What abaout of New version V5.6.0?
I couldn't see anything added to the drone on that update 😒
Thanks for video. I thought you were supposed to discharge down to 30% to store. Havnt flown my drone in a month and have left the batteries in the hub at 30% lol... Hopefully they're ok haha
I'm no battery expert, but I'd stick to potensics recommendation of 50-70%. Dji recommends storage at 65%
30% is probably OK, but I'm thinking as it's closer to zero, it could get down to 10% in a month or so, then that's in over discharging territory. From now on I'm storing mine at around 60%, so in a month or so, it might be in the sweet spot of 50%
But I'm just guessing 🤷 these discharge rates
A couple of questions come to mind that you did not cover in your video... how old are the batteries and do all 3 have the same number of charge cycles ?
The batteries were new as of Dec 23.
I think the charge cycles are at 8,5, and 3
Good video friend, I want to start with this drone thing and I started watching your videos and it convinced me to buy the potensic atom, you are great at explaining, now I want to ask if there are ND filters for the ATOM. Pura vida From Costa Rica.
Thanks, unfortunately, there are no nd filters available for the Atom yet, not that I know of anyway.
@@RobinDrones thanks My friend mmm that's sounds bad, but anyway the potensic atom have a nice cam, thanks for all your videos I learning a lot
No problem :)
Your videos are very helpful! One question: I tried hovering the potensic indoors, and it got crazy and crashed on the wall. Thank God, nothing is broken. Any ideas?
That happened to me. I was draining one of my battery's indoors, and it was fine until it locked onto a few satellites, then it flew into my wall 🫣
My guess is when it finds a couple of satellites, it switches into gps mode. However, it needs to lock onto around 14 to hover in the same spot so if only connected to say 3 it suddenly thinks it's a few metres away from where it should be! I hope this makes sense 👍
@RobinDrones Thank you Robin. I will avoid doing that if I see there are not enough satelites found. By the way, I am a beginner, and your videos were one of the reasons that I got the Potensic. Am still in ˆtraining moodˆ and very happy with the choice. It is a great little drone!
Glad to help by giving you the info needed to choose the drone 👍
There appears to be a conflict! Potensic suggest as in the other viddy not to store them in the charger, however they put the batteries in the charger! Who is to say they then sit on a shelf for month, 2 months or longer, surely if the charger has the potential of damaging the batteries they would wrap them separately.
Thanks for the viddy most useful.
I just store mine in the charger now. But mine still don't discharge as they should. So I try to store them at around 60%
I wouldn't recommend storing the batteries in the charging station. In my experience (and that of a friend with the same model), the station will drain the batteries completely over time. Last time, the batteries I had left in were so drained after about 8 weeks that I wouldn't even get a flash out of the battery level leds.
Thanks for the advice I'll remember that for long term storage 👍
Same 👍
Is there a guide to maintenance of ATOM (not SE) batteries. I only ask this because the diagram of the battery screen and info in the SE battery guide is not the same as the equivalent screen of the ATOM.
Unfortunately, no, I could only find the se one. I'm sure it will be the same as the se, even though the batteries are lion and the Atom 3 axis gimbal are lipos
These lipo batteries not behaving the way they should. 🤔
So what do you do to discharge them??
I just let my drone hover inside until 60% and I will charge them to full on the day of flying 👍
When I drain these Potensic ATOM and SE batteries I just use them to charge my phone and my Bluetooth speaker and headphones since they are all Type C.
Yeh, I've heard others say that, but i have tried different cables with different devices and nothing charges apart from the Atom controller for me. 🤔
So..... Where is the best place to store them?? The hub???
Yes. My fully charged batteries discharged to almost 50% in 5 weeks stored in the hub.
Yep it seems safe to store them in the hub 👍
thank you!! @@RobinDrones
Pregunta ...se pueden intercambiar las baterías entre el el átom se y el atom? , estube probando y si se puede intercambiar
Yes, they will work but will put the drone over 250g
Question - if you put your battery on the charging hub (no plug) it will charging your battery? or it will only charging if you plug in the cable? thank you
No it will only charge if plugged into the wall- so there is no battery in the actual hub 👍
Omg!!! Yeah that way people would not need to pay electricity! What a moron!!!!
@@gvibes69don't say like that to my bro oNeHanDGuN. He is asking because he thinks that the battery hub is like the earbuds concept.
I wish the charger had a storage function. I also run RC Cars and Trucks and my charger for those have a storage mode. I just got my Potensic Drone over the weekend. I only fly recreationally so here lately to just store I fly till battery shows around 60-70% then take it out. I didn’t do that before on my DJI spark drone and it sat for months, now it’s battery is dead dead ☠️
do you find the controller battery looses power quick
do you think buying a used/refurbished potensic atom from ebay is a good investment?
Yes, but it depends on how much cheaper it is?
@@RobinDrones it’s 250.99 fly more
£80 cheaper than brand new seems a fair price. I bought a refurbished Avata from dji, and it was like brand new! I'm guessing the ones on Ebay are Amazon returns, so most will be like new, but a few might have problems. But as long as the seller accepts returns, it should be fine 🙂 👍
What tablet works with the Atom? I’ve had connectivity issues.
I've not tried using a tablet. Most should work, though, if they have android 7 onwards.
When you connect your tablet does it not connect at all?
@@RobinDrones seems to me that not all will connect due to compatibility issues. Potensic said they’d only tested with mobile phones and couldn’t help. I’ve tried Blackview but no good, will try Samsung next. There are tablets that’ll connect but I’m looking for a budget one that’ll do the job.
@@RobinDrones Samsung Galaxy A9 works
Hi, I have an atom and I need to fly it indoors or rather inside a building that has weak GPS, so I am finding I can fly it manually but then the drone finds GPS and it goes out of control. So is there a way that I can switch off GPS so I can safely fly whilst in full manual control. Thanks.
Unfortunately, I don't think you can.
I had the same issue. I was letting my Atom hover indoors to drain the battery, checked that no satellites were connected, and it was stable, so I looked away. Suddenly, it started to fly forward and hit my wall. I looked on the remote, and it was connected to 3 satellites, and I guess that isn't enough to maintain horizontal position.
im so scared now ive left my batteries in the charger for the last 6 to 8 months during winter are they complete ruined now?
Oh I'm not sure 🤔.
Best thing to do is to put then in the drone and fly until 20% left, then fully charge them. Let me know how they are as I'm interested...
@@RobinDrones yeah i tried that and they wouldnt turn on, so i did a little research and i think they put themselves into sleep mode. So i charged them and the seem to be working like new thank god. I thought i was gonna have to buy new batteries.
Great news! So from now on its best to leave them off the charger and to fully charge them every 2 months and then let them self discharge on there own.
Avrei un informazione da chiedere. Ho dovuto cambiare tre volte hub perché ogni volta che caricavo batterie ok alla seconda ricarica inserisco batterie e non funziona piu come se fa corto circuito nin lo so e non funziona piu hub qualcuno ha lo stesso mio problema.? no perché
I've not heard about this before. Have you contacted Potensic about this issue?
What's more concerning to me is that it would appear that potensic's advice on its own battery would appear to be in error, as clearly the battery in the hub discharged most which they said it could interfere with the self discharge, and on the 5 day point, I'd take it that they will only start to discharge after 5 days not during the 5 days, that might explain the small amount of loss 👍🏻
Oh yeh, I read it again, and you could be right ✅️ 😏.
It's a bit misleading as it also says that if you're not going to use them for 5 days, discharge them yourself! I think I'm going to keep mine at 60% then charge them the same day of flying. 👍
@@RobinDrones sounds like a plan 😉
So how do you discharge? 6:03
Great video thank you I only had one question
About how you discharge
Good info mate I’ve been wondering about this with budget drones
Although typical Chinese
Tell you what you want to here in the info and the reality gets lost in translation
I’m quickly turning into one of those ‘just get a DJI drone’ person that I used to dislike
Fact is most budget drones are very good for the most part but they are all lacking compared to DJI
I think that they do discharge, but they only start to discharge after 5 days. I've read comments saying that after a month, they drop to around 50-60%
But I'm thinking that's too long 😕