[stuntman]

I am just starting to use a 5 cell Ni-MH onboard battery. What is the lowest safe voltage that I should allow the battery to discharge to during a flying session before recharging it and flying again.

[moo]

That would depend on the brown-out voltage of your receiver. Some 4.8V, some 3.0V.
Your servos will be moving slowly before it gets there.
If you recharge it right away it won't hurt the pack to go lower than that.

Bear in mind that a five cell pack will discharge faster than a four cell pack of the same ampacity.

[stuntman]

Not concerned with damaging the pack. Don't want to crash due to low pack voltage. So what is the lowest safe minimum voltage.

[VA6WGO]

I wouldn't go with raw voltage, you should check your battery pack under load, let's say 1 amp.

I personally wouldn't go lower than 5.9 Volts under load. But every person have their own preference.

What is the capacity of your battery and what servos and how many are you running?.

Cheers,

Will

[moo]

Fly it one or two flights, recharge with a digital charger and figure out your average usage from that.
Current draw will vary with speed, control surface size, type and number of servos, minimum voltage required by the receiver...

[stuntman]

Thanks,

I won't fly below 6 volts as per my voltmeter measured under load.

[kip51035]

5.5V is the drop dead, I mean the drop off point. It will run at 6V for most of it's discharge cycle. Like the man said when it is below 6V just a little tiny bit you know, it does not have much capacity left.

[Cougar429]

The trip point on my 5Cell warning is 5.94V.