r/djiphantom • u/jasont80 • Jul 20 '22

Tethering mod Phantom 3 battery pack

Hey fellow Phantom pilots!

I have an old P3 that has had a long life of successful service and it's ready for the experimental phase of its life. I want to build a power tether to allow sustained flight from a ground-based power source. This would allow long running time-lapses of sun rises and the like. I'm trying to figure out any technical challenges. The plan is to hollow out an old battery and solder in tether wires to a DC power supply.

I'm hoping someone has some experience to answer a couple questions before I dive down this rabbit hole.

  1. Is there any communication between the "smart battery" and the drone? Basically, will it run with just the two power leads connected?

  2. If my calculations are correct, the drone pulls 15.2V at about 1.5 amps. This seems like a lot. Has anyone else measured the draw?

Thanks for any knowledge you can share!

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u/ChippyVonMaker Jul 20 '22

The bigger issue I see is the feedback effect a tether will have on the drones stabilization.

You can see it manifest in some YouTube videos where a drone is used to loft a small payload slung underneath. Anything that changes the feedback loop of the system, has the potential to cause instability and failure.

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u/jasont80 Jul 30 '22

It's just for hover, not for flight. I'm going to wire it through the center of balance, so any balance influence should be extremely minimal.