BATTERY ISSUES (Early Autoland)??? POST HERE

[towe]

I just bought my Phantom 2 Vision+ with an extra battery.

One of my batteries already has this issue after just 2-3 cycles; when at about 50% sound alerts and all leds flashing red, auto decline kicks in. The other battery however is still working as expected.

That is disappointing but does sound more like a manufacturing defect rather than disturbingly short lived one.
Maybe it got a bang in transit.
Do you know if that was the 'additional' one - and was it packed in the card box with foam lining a new battery comes with?

Unfortunately I mixed them up and can't figure out which it is. The additional battery was packed as you describe and looks unused and undamaged, no deformations or bulging. The box looks legit, can't remember if it was sealed in any way.

I'll return it and get a replacement. Then I will keep a close aye on this thread and see what happens with this issue.

It is rather disturbing that one can not depend on the battery meter or the leds on the battery itself. Regardless if the battery has a manufacturing defect, if the life time is crap or the firmware is buggy it should not jump from looking very good to sounding the dive alarm and start declining in an instant. This behavior is bound to put my phantom in the Baltic Sea sooner rather than later... :shock:

 

[RaleighVision+]

benski,

I am not sure of the percent reading on the batterys. That is to say is 5% mean its 5% left to the min allowable voltage before the battery will be damaged? With LIPO batteries, YES, if you discharge them too far down you will ruin them and they will normally bloat.

Tom

Tom - are you saying that you shouldn't discharge your smart battery under 5%? Also, what are the best practices for these batteries?

I've had problems with two OEM batteries and like many others in these forums I am getting seriously concerned because they are expensive batteries to only cycle 15 - 20 times before beginning to swell and malfunction while being carried by a $1,300 vehicle!

 

[erico]

Well after a 3 month wait and numerous emails to DJI and calls to my Bangkok dealer I have finally got two brand new batteries in my hands today !.... so for all you other people having " Early Autoland " problems don't give up

Btw Thanks Geert for keeping me informed of you progress

The only good thing I started to build myself a bigger quad while I have been waiting for them and its nearly ready so will have both to fly soon .

 

[Geo74]

It happened to me too : The early autoland.
My battery was bought in March, 37 cycles , in excellent condition no swollen - puffy etc and the voltage of the cells pretty balanced.

I started a flight over water and came back for landing, with 50 -54 % charge ,to change a camera setting.
The phanton was powered on , I didnt switch it off.
I took of and flew 400 m in distance , after 2-3 minutes at 38% charge I noticed through my monitor that I was loosing altitude . Took a look at the battery where the icon was flashing. Voltage 10.9 .
I needed to keep the throttle way up and returned very fast in time to land at the home point.

All is well but this bug needs to be shorted out.
I am conviced that this a software bug after 3.06 firmware update.

Before that ,battery issues didn't occupied the forums except within the acceptable statisctical error range of manufacturing problems or user bad baattery treatment.

And suddenly after 3.06 update battery problems started to appear massively in the forums.
That leads me to believe this is a software bug.

 

[Geo74]

It happened to me too : The early autoland.
My battery was bought in March, 37 cycles , in excellent condition no swollen - puffy etc and the voltage of the cells pretty balanced.

I started a flight over water and came back for landing, with 50 -54 % charge ,to change a camera setting.
The phanton was powered on , I didnt switch it off.
I took of and flew 400 m in distance , after 2-3 minutes at 38% charge I noticed through my monitor that I was loosing altitude . Took a look at the battery where the icon was flashing. Voltage 10.9 .
I needed to keep the throttle way up and returned very fast in time to land at the home point.

All is well but this bug needs to be shorted out.
I am conviced that this a software bug after 3.06 firmware update.

Before that ,battery issues didn't occupied the forums except within the acceptable statisctical error range of manufacturing problems or user bad baattery treatment.

And suddenly after 3.06 update battery problems started to appear massively in the forums.
That leads me to believe this is a software bug.

Update:

Finally it is a faulty battery : Tried to recharged it ( has been left with 24% load) and went to 100% in fewer than 50 minutes . That was not a good sign as I thought. Usally it takes about 1 1/2 - 2 hours to fully charge.

Did a test flight just hovering 2-3 meters from ground and there were a mismatch between voltage and percentage indications ( at 80% only 11 -10.9 v) . Then suddendly dropped to 30 -40% ,then to 20 % and finally at 6% . Until then the phantom had landed.

Now the software shows a bit of mismacth in cells voltage.

I am very angry about these #$#^ batteries .
As it seems they are of the worst quality given the money they demand .
I have used very cheap lipos for years wihtout problems and many times I treated them bad.
I had treated the phantom batery better than my girlfriend ! I can say and it just failed.
As it is 6 month old I did not hope to have it been replaced .

 

[4wd]

If they were closer to $50 it would still be a lot considering this sudden propensity for failing with practically no warning - but at least at a more realistic price it would be less painful if we are going to be changing them every six months.
That is starting to seem a distinct possibility, and prospective owners should be aware of this considerable emerging running cost.

It's downright scary if you start to calculate cost per flight on batteries which need to be replaced often with far less than 50 charges!

 

[Geo74]

If they were closer to $50 it would still be a lot considering this sudden propensity for failing with practically no warning - but at least at a more realistic price it would be less painful if we are going to be changing them every six months.
That is starting to seem a distinct possibility, and prospective owners should be aware of this considerable emerging running cost.

It's downright scary if you start to calculate cost per flight on batteries which need to be replaced often with far less than 50 charges!

It cost me back then 150 euros . With a quick calculation it is about 6$ per flight.
I think that some kind of protest has to be taken place here in the forums and possibly other legal actions.
Dji can't claim that its product has duration of about 300 cycles and suddenly fails at only 10% of its use.
Let aside the posibilty of a dangerous accident on people or property and the loss of a 1500 e equipment.
Dji must raise the product quality and finally make use of materials worthy of our 150 euros or start to offer the batteries for 20-30 e admitting their crap quality

 

[Deadmeat]

Geo 74.
Your right mate, you can`t claim some value in your sales pitch and then not stand over it.They should be held to account. The battery technology is probably there when you look at how cordless drills have progressed in recent years so they should either provide a battery capable of claimed performance or be honest :lol: and make it plain you`ll be spending money on lots of very expensive batteries if you decide to buy their product.

 

[HarryT]

It cost me back then 150 euros . With a quick calculation it is about 6$ per flight.
I think that some kind of protest has to be taken place here in the forums and possibly other legal actions.
Dji can't claim that its product has duration of about 300 cycles and suddenly fails at only 10% of its use.

I'm not aware of DJI ever refusing to replace a genuinely faulty battery. The number of reported faults is almost certainly a tiny proportion of the number of batteries out there, and with the best will in the world some batteries will always be faulty.

 

[benski]

I have attached photos of my batteries just so people can get a feel for how much is too much bloat. The photo below shows 3 batteries with 3 stages of bloat. The most bloated has been discharged 16 times, the next worst 12 times and the one just starting show bloat 5 times..



The batteries are lined up with the worst bloating on the left and the least on the right. The most bloated has been discharged 16 times. This battery goes into autoland at 46%

The next photo shows how much the battery has puffed out on the sides.


This is the details for most bloated battery. Note I haven't recharged this one. This is the state it was in when app said it was at 47% (then crashed to 12% within seconds)


This is the second worst


This is the 3rd battery that has already started bloating at 5 cycles.


I am only discharging these batteries to no less than 15% in worst case scenario (12 on the one that crashed from 46 to 12) and they have been stored at full charge for a week between flights. I have now read on here that it isn't good to leave them fully charged but I can't imagine this would cause bloating after less than 5 cycles.

These batteries should not be starting to show signs of bloat by 5 cycles and they definitely shouldn't be end of life by 16 cycles.

I am sure there are plenty of good stories out there as well with batteries making more than 100 cycles bloat free but this isn't one of them. 3 from 3 is more than bad luck. All these batteries are more than 3 months old and the good people at DJI China have told me that they only have the 5 minute 5 mile rule, which is what dodgy used car salesman have, just their's is the 3 month 3 cycle rule.....

 

[jimcking]

Interesting that you mention the 100 cycles thing.

I have asked on this and on the RCGroups Phantom 2 forum if anyone had gotten 100 or more cycles. No one answered, so I suspect that no one has actually gotten 100 cycles out of a P2 battery. The best I have gotten so far is 43 cycles.

Jim K.

 

[benski]

See below from DJI Support, they responded within one day and although they still standby their 3 month battery replacement seems they are aware there may be a little issue

Regarding to the early autoland issue, we can try to update a beta firmware of the battery.
However, the bloting batteries, we are afraid that the only way is to get a new one, but I am sorry to say that according to our warranty policy, we could only provide a 3-month warranty of battery.

Heres hoping they can release a firmware to stop the autoland issue..

 

[nammac]

I was just directed to this topic and was unaware of battery issues until my 2 batteries began to do the early landing a week ago. First one battery and then a couple of flights later the other. Both were purchased the end of April this year so I am past the 3 months which I just learned about. One battery has 24 discharges while the other is 31 discharges. Now landings occur between 4 and 6 minutes while one is showing 10.9 volts and the other begins flashing red at 11.2 volts. I had not done the latest upgrade until after the battery problems began so I don't think the upgrade is at fault. I was getting 16-17 minutes on the P2 with gimbal and GoPro and was shocked while over water and less than 5 minutes the Phantom began to descend. Although it did not want to ascend it seemed to have ample power to return to the landing zone which was about 400 feet from the water. I did not know what the "swelling" looked like until I saw the pictures in this post. I do have some swelling with my 2 batteries causing problems and I can see the difference between them and the new battery I just received. I did call DJI and was told I was over the 3 months, sorry, good by. I calculated these 2 batteries cost me about $4.50 per day while they were usable, and I wasn't flying everyday. My confidence in these batteries as being reliable when flying over water, my pond, and over people, cars ect is now pretty low. The tech I spoke with did admit they were aware of battery issues cropping up.

 

[adanac]

I don't know what the OP means by starting his post by "so" because it was the first post in the thread, not a continuation of a previous conversation (at least not that I could see ) but I do have a problem in that the Assistant is telling me that my DJI battery is non-DJI.

 

[DKDarkness]

I have been flying version 2.0 for a while with no issue (because of the 7th channel feature) the other day I plugged my P2V into the computer and fired up the assistant, only to check my yaw settings. Had to re- register with DJI for some reason. Did not change any of my settings, but did write settings to my P2V. Next time I flew, I had auto landings at 40% on both my batteries (both less than 30 flights).

I believe this is a software issue, not a hardware issue.

 

[DKDarkness]

Tomorrow we pass the one month mark of DJI saying: "In the next firmware upgrade there will be support for 7th channel"... I don't foresee a solution any time soon. Maybe Simon Newton brings the issue up on his next Q&A session with DJI?

 

[Almmohd]

I'm seeing fast discharge and early auto land on one of my batteries at about 50%.

 

[Flowfeelfilms]

Both my batteries came fully charged and then flew one flight fine. Now neither of them charges fully. Light blinks green on charger, never gets to solid green. No beeping startup noise on the Phantom when I plug a battery in.

 

[Almmohd]

I spoke to B&H photo about my batteries yesterday. The batteries are also slightly puffed so BH told me that the batteries are defective and that I should contact DJI.

I need to check the dji assistant to see how many cycles I've gone through but I don't think it was that many. I have four batteries.

 

[Almmohd]

Battery issues so DJI says send the unit back I hope they mean the battery alone as their send back request was ambiguous. I'd be really annoyed if they want the quadcopter too cause I told them I have 4 batteries and I'm having auto land issues with 2 batteries.