BetaFPV Lava Batteries Review
• Chris
BetaFPV has released a new line of LiPos with BT2.0 connectors - the Lava line up. The name is hilarious and my first thought was: Holy shit, those being BetaFPV batteries, I hope the name does no say it all. Don’t get me wrong: I am a big fanboy of everything BetaFPV, really like their RTFs - generally most of their products have been decent. If not, they usually try to do the right thing. But their batteries have always been atrocious.
I have had a couple of their 550maH batteries for the BetaFPV Meteor 75 Pro but have not been flying it lately since the batteries only hold for about a minute or so and basically start to sag from the getgo - at least when flying outdoors. I have been looking into alternatives but could not find anything nice that had a BT2.0 plug and would fit into the battery mount without modifications.
So when I thought the new line up I had mixed feelings, on the one hand I thought: Cool, finally I can buy some more batteries for my Meteor 75. On the other hand I thought, but will it be worth it? After the third cycle they will be toast anyway. But then I read “z folding technology” - the same technology that all the other decent batteries Like Tatuu, webleed and newbedrone use. As far as I know, those are all white-labeld GrePow batteries, so they should probably be quite decent.
Capacity
The Lava batteries come in different sizes and capacities:
They are all rated with a 75C discharge rate. I assume that this is some peak rating and not a custom rating. In my tests the batteries got pretty warm at “only” 13C. I ordered a pack of 1S 550mAh batteries directly off of Amazon since I was curious to test them as soon as possible.
They are quite a bit cheaper on the BetaFPV site directly, considering import taxes it might still be a better deal to order from their website directly.
Dimensions
the Lava batteries are slightly lighter, shorter and thicker than the original blue and white ones, comparison is based on the 550mAh variant (I assume the other versions are relatively similar). The measurements are taken from the cell itself, not the plastic top:
| Model | Weight | Length (including plug) | Width | Thickness |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blue and white | 14.19 | 74.0mm | 16.0mm | 6.7mm |
| Lava | 14.06g | 72.0mm | 15.5mm | 6.8mm |
Generally speaking the Lava batteries should fit in all Beta Quads where the Blue and white ones fit. For 3D printed stuff that might not be the case - at least they don’t fit in the slots of my battery case which was made for the blue and white ones.
Testing and comparison
The comparison part is a bit tricky since I can only compare against an older set of their original blue and white 550mAh cells.
To establish a baseline I checked the new batteries beforehand and then after 5 cycles. The values stayed pretty much the same. I first charged them to 4.35V, then discharged them with a constant load until they reached 3.5V. I then read the mAh discharged and checked to which voltage the battery would recover after this continuous load.
| Load | Discharged | Recovered |
|---|---|---|
| 1.0A | 580mAh | 3.50V |
| 5.0A | 500mAh | 3.66V |
| 7.5A | 400mAh | 3.74V |
So the actual capacity is a bit higher than the rated capacity with 580mAh instead of the specified 550mAh obviously it is hard to tell how they were rated initially, maybe they did not charge them to 4.35V but to 4.2V instead - in any case, I am happy with that value.
I tend to fly my whoops until the OSD consistently shows 3.5V, they then tend to recover to around 3.7V - this should guarantee a long life span of the battery. I know other pilots like to fly them down to 3.2V or 3.5V resting.
In real life, this gives me a flight time of around 5:15 minutes indoors on my Meteor 75 Pro. Outdoors the times are closer to three minutes. The sag is not too bad, but it could still be better for outdoor bashing, I am not going to complain though.
In comparison my “old” blue and white batteries perform like this with the same parameters as above:
| Load | Discharged | Recovered |
|---|---|---|
| 1.0A | 492mAh | 3.50V |
| 5.0A | 340mAh | 3.74V |
| 7.5A | 240mAh | 3.82V |
The low discharge amount and relative high recovery voltage show that those batteries start sagging quite early and cannot deliver the power needed. We can also see that the initial discharge at 1A is almost 1/6th less than with the Lava batteries.
In flight I get an effective flight time of around 3 minute indoors. Outdoors the battery basically sags from the get go, when I can get more than 1:30 out of them, I am surprised. But again, outdoors the sag is the real issue for me.
This test obviously needs some re-visiting after I’ve put a decent amount of cycles through those batteries, for the time being the batteries seem to be decent though.
Conclusion
$25 for a pack of four 1S 550mAh batteries is fair, especially since those are actually decent. I still can’t believe it: a decent set of batteries from BetaFPV. My recommendation still stands: Don’t buy the Blue and white BetaFPV batteries. The Lava batteries really seem like a big step up and I hope that BetaFPV will fade out the old line of batteries and continue selling the Lava series only.
If you are going for BetaFPV batteries, definitely don’t bother with the blue and white ones and go with the Lava series instead.
Chris is a Vienna based software developer. In his spare time he enjoys reviewing tech gear, ripping quads of all sizes and making stuff.
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