The Ultimate Battery Selection Guide for UAVs

How to Choose the Best LiPo Battery for Your Drone

Max Wales

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

Battery is the most essential part of a drone and one of the highest performance type R/C batteries available in market are LiPo batteries. You will be glad to know that these standard batteries can be easily used for multi rotors, helis, planes, boats and R/C cars. If you are searching for a good quality battery for your drone then the guide below can assist you to follow right directions for selection. There are so many specifications and features related to LiPo batteries that you need to consider while buying a new one.

• Part 1: How to choose the best LiPo battery
• Part 2: Best Battery Brands For UAV to Consider

Tips on How to Choose the Best LiPo Battery for Your Drone

1. Battery Size

Battery size is an important parameter for great flight experience. Prefer to pick a larger one in terms of capacity so that it can serve your drone for longer duration. Ability of a battery to allow maximum flight time in air also depends upon overall weight of the drone as with larger physical size, even a highly powerful battery will face some reduction in flight time. Physical size of battery will be considered on the basis of drone type and its battery cabinet. Before buying a new battery for your camera, prefer to check your drone specifications.

2. Battery Voltage

Battery voltage is also termed as cell count and it is an important parameter for your investment. If you have batteries with higher voltage rating then it will naturally help your drone motors to produce higher power. But at the same time high voltage batteries use to have more weight hence it will directly increase overall weight of your drone.

Actually you need not to follow any golden rule for battery voltage selection but you can make decisions via comparing data tables as well as efficiency. Most of you might have observed that drone motors usually become much powerful and efficient when they are powered by higher voltage. But the disadvantage for which you have to make proper adjustments is the problem with cost and weight of battery. If you are able to make decision about how much motors your device will be using then you can also decide about required current set up.

Here is an important thing to note that if you are going to buy new batteries then always prefer to get a product whose specifications are suitable with need of specific voltage or current rating. There are few motors that follow very specific rating for voltage and current of LiPo batteries, hence you need to make proper decision for your investment.

3. Connectors

Connectors are important part of your drone batteries; they not only provide you easy way to connect or disconnect batteries form devices rather they also help users to create new drones in future. You can easily find so many varieties of connectors in market but one needs to pay more attention while making selection for any of these as they must be compatible enough with your drone type. However, buyers can often pick a connector of their choice and stick to it till for better performance. Some of the most common connector products use Deans/Tplugs, EC3 and XT60 connectors with unique specifications. Collect some information about your device compatibility and get a suitable product with right specifications.

4. Discharge Rate

What is it:

Discharge rate of a battery is well known as it C rating. This rating helps users to know about the maximum current that a battery can discharge but without damaging itself. Although, these figures often use to be unrealistic but still they are considered good for quality measurement. For example, if you are going to buy new batteries and any brand offers them with 45C and 65C rating then you must prefer to pick 65C model as it has ability to handle much higher discharge rate as compared to the 45C model.

How does it affect?

Many people are unaware of the fact that overall performance of a drone is highly dependent on its Discharge C rating. Professionals always prefer to pick their batteries after checking this specific rating. 9 out of 10 experts suggest choosing those batteries that have maximum C discharge rating.

Here you need to know one thing that if you install a battery that has higher discharge rate then your drone will definitely become much heavier as much weight of battery unit will be added up. Ultimately, the overall flight time of your drone gets reduced.

It could appear difficult task to most of drone users and they may need professional assistance for selection of right batteries. While buying a new battery unit, first if all prefer to check the specifications of your motors and also check their maximum current rating. Here is a simple law that can help you to perform right calculation: Generally:

Maximum Continuous Amp Draw = Battery Capacity X Discharge Rate.

5. Battery Capacity

What is it

This number helps users to know about how long a battery can supply power to certain device. It is indicated by mAh rating that stands for “milli amp hours”- that means how much milli amps this battery can supply you for one hour. If you want to know about the time for which your drone can fly in air with a particular batter unit then simply device its mAh rating with average current that is drown in amps rating and finally divide its answer by 1000. This calculation will help users to make a approximate idea about how long their drone can stay in air or how long your battery can supply power to connected drone unit. But to complete this calculation you must know the current rating of your miniquad. Prefer to check its specification list to collect information about current rating of device.

If you have a mini-quad then you might have noticed that its battery often range somewhere between 1000 mAh and 1800 mAh and 1300 mAh use to be the most preferable size. It offers impressive balance between weight and power capability. Here is one more interesting thing to know that capacity of battery also helps to know about its ability to produce Amps and it also indicate the maximum time for which batter can serve without getting completely discharged.

How to select?

Professionals suggest that one must buy a battery with highest capacity as it can ensure longer flight time. But while making selection for a new battery for your drone always prefer to pick a size as per specification of your device. Its weight should not exceed from the range that your drone cannot lift. Pick a trustworthy manufacturer that ensures right specifications and standard design.

Best Battery Brands for UAV to consider

• Hobbyking :
  Hobbyking is rated as one of the most useful source of high quality batteries and you can buy in large stock from this company. They often release innovative designs of batteries to fit users needs and stay ahead of all other competing brands. Hobbyking have so many LiPo batteries to offer where some of the highly rated ones are: Bolt, Multistar, Graphene and NanoTech.
• Tattu:
  Another great brand for drone community that offer batteries with large discharge time and great stability! You will definitely love to organise long hour flights with these batteries.
• Infinity:
  This company is well known as a battery service provider for Banggood. Most of the batteries on their site are of very low price but they have very good performance. If you are looking for a cheap solution then it is good to pick your battery from this brand.
• Revolectix:
  Here is a great brand for batteries that use to provide services out of Singapore with a great quality reputation. Although this company is well recognised for RC helicopter models but they are also the only retailers who manufacture LiPo cells by themselves.

Max Wales

Max Wales is a writer and a lover of all things video.

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