If you want to get the most out of your drone, you’ll need to find the perfect lipo battery for it. If you’re unsure about how to choose a lipo battery properly, I’ll show you how.
Here I’ll explain where to get a lipo battery, how to make sure it’s the right size, and what features to look for when you’re upgrading. Let’s explore!
What Is A Lipo Battery?
A lipo battery or lithium polymer battery is any battery that is built out of lithium polymer. Lithium polymer batteries are made up of many tiny pieces that are put together to make a battery pack or cell. Wow, that’s a lot! When you put these chemical and microscopic pieces together they form an electric current between the anode and cathode of the cell. Lithium polymer batteries can be found in numerous shapes and sizes.
These batteries are commonly used with hobby drones by simply using lipo battery connectors.
How To Choose A Drone LiPo Battery
You have a drone and you know that you need a lipo battery, but which one? There are a number of different features that you should look for when you’re looking for a lipo for your drone.
In order to understand how to choose the right battery, you first need to know how to read the numbers on your battery:
Voltage
The voltage is basically the electrical current strength between your positive and negative poles. The higher the voltage, the larger the drone it can power.
Since all drones require a certain electrical current strength to fly, you need to select the correct voltage for our drone. Too much voltage can cause burning out your drone components and too low voltage will just cause the drone not to work.
You should be able to find out the correct voltage by looking at your drone ‘s manual.
Cell Count
Cell count is how many cells are inside your battery. The higher the number of cells, the more voltage is produced.
Most small drones typically use 2S batteries with 2 cells and larger drones use 4S or 4 cell batteries. Luckily, most drones will come with instructions telling you what cell count is best to use.
A lot of drones can also function on different cell count batteries but are optimized to work for a specific one.
Capacity
The capacity indicates how much energy your battery can hold. The higher the capacity, the longer your drone can stay up in the air before needing to recharge. However, the higher capacity batteries have a higher weight. So you’re tradeoff between long flight times and light batteries.
Discharge Rate
Discharge rate (also sometimes called C rating) is a rating that tells you how much current you can safely run into your drone without damaging the battery.
This means that if you fly your drones in a fast and acrobatic manor, a battery with a lower C rating may dimish faster. In other words, if you enjoy really tearing up your drone, I recommend looking for a battery with a higher disharge rate.
There is also a burst discharge rate. This is just another higher C rating that the battery can handle for a limited time of 10 seconds.
Important note about advertised discharge rates on some batteries – sometimes they are wrong or exaggerated! So I would recommend checking reviews before buying a new lipo battery to see if anyone has had any issues.
Lithium Polymer Battery Size Chart
| Quad Size | Cell Count | Cell Capacity | Discharge rate (C) |
| 120-150 | 3-4S | 450-850mah | 45-65C |
| 180 | 3-4S | 850-1300mah | 30-65C |
| 210-250 | 3-4S | 1300-1800mah | 40-65C |
| 5” props | 3-5S | 1000-1500mah | 75+C |
| 300 GT | 3-5S | 1800-3000mah | 40-65C |
| 400+ | 3-8S | 2200-8000mah | 20-65C |
Conclusion
Now you know everything there is to know about drone lipo batteries and which you should choose for your drone. Once you understand just these four things, the rest just comes together.