DJI Inspire 1 Heater Block

thingiverse

I first would like to thank the creator of the GoPro mounting system for the design inspiration. Without it I would have spent far longer on trying to figure out the dimensions. Living in a cold winter climate can often shelve days of flying due to low temperatures. LiPo batteries are suseptible to reduced performance when cold. DJI does offer battery heaters for preflight and insulator pads. I thought there must be a way to add active heat to create a blanket of sorts for the DJI Inspire 1. The idea was to use glove warmers which are inexpensive and not environmentally harmful or a fire hazard. The system locks in place over the battery and radiates heat to help improve performance on cold weather days. The glove warmers will radiate maximum heat for 1-2 hours and will keep producing heat for up to 10 hours. All for $1 or less. A 2mm hole was included in the design to allow for the placement of locking pins if required. I will plan some test flight video and results. UPDATE: Ran the first flight. Outside temperature is -6 with a windchill of -13. So a bit warm for this sort of test. However results seemed positive. No adverse effects on the flight. Ran the battery from 95% to 47% in gusty winds. Battery temperature hit 38.2C before my hands were icicles. I know the operating temperatures listed by DJI is max 40C however I'm not convinced the battery was at that temperature. Rather the block heaters were close enough to the temperature sensor to throw it off. The surface temperature of the battery was still just mildly warm. Not near the 38.2C I recorded. UPDATE 2: Another thought for this design is to place some sort of an insulation (i.e. foam) into the cavities and fly without active heating. insulating a pre warmed battery should be sufficient in most cases. I'll be testing this idea out soon. UPDATE 3: I've used this heater now on 3 separate flights without having issues. The battery temperature during my tests at windchills as low as -21C was between 22C and 38.2C. Print Settings Printer: CTC Rafts: No Supports: Yes Resolution: 0.2 Infill: 20% Notes: Infill at 20% for all parts should work. Support is only needed for the left and right plates. You will require epoxy to glue the halves together once printed. I would suggest 3 top/bottom layers. Post-Printing Mounted on the Inspire Left, Right Pad and Lock