Battery Overheat During Discharge

[CapArt]

I might have missed a bullet today.

During flight I noticed my battery voltage turned red and I received a Critical Battery Warning. I was not flying it hard and no where near full power but it was a bit windy today. I very gingerly flew back and into a hover about 5' above the ground. I brought up the battery page and saw that all the cells were red and barely reading. The battery was varying between 11.2 and 11.4 volts and the battery temp was 50°c with a percent charger of 60%. Within a few minutes of hovering the battery percent of charge fell rapidly to 18% and the temp went to 79°c. At this point I saw a red Battery Overheat During Discharge warning and I landed and shut her down. Total flight time was 12 min with 4 or 5 of that hovering at the end trying to figure out what was going on.

I started the flight with a freshly charged battery at room temp. I did the initial warm up in my house before going outside to fly. The battery had 25 flights (26 now) and still shows 100% battery life. Outside air temp was cold 17°F and the wind was a little gusty at 15 to 20 mph. I have over 150 flts on this P3 and have never experienced anything like this before.

The question I have now is if I should retire this battery? Is there a way to test it? Or was it the fact that even with a warm 20°C plus battery, flying in the cold is risky?

 

[msinger]

Please post your flight log here so we can check it out.

 

[CapArt]

Just checked the battery history and everything shows normal until the last Flt. It shows both Overheating During Discharge and Overcurrent During Discharge.

 

[CapArt]

Here's the flight logs. I didn't remember it until I checked out the files. I landed and shut the Phantom down after I got it back. The charge on the battery was still good so I started it back up and hovered to see what was up. I see now on Healthy Drones that it looks like the battery has a bad cell and is probably done for. Only 26 flights on that one... $6 a flight seems a little expensive.

 

[msinger]

I checked out your logs. Here are a few points of interest:

1) Your logs show no indication that a critical battery warning was displayed mid-flight.
2) Your logs show you flew the battery down below 3.0V, but that's not possible since the battery shuts off at that point.

I have a few questions:

1) Did you ever do an IMU calibration?
2) By "Battery Overheat During Discharge" warning, do you mean the "Propulsions output is limited to ensure the safety of the battery" warning?
3) When this battery is fully charged, are the cells balanced in the DJI GO app?
4) This battery was charged 25+ times. Have you ever cycled it?

And, a few notes:

1) You should warm up your Phantom outdoors.
2) DJI does not recommend flying below 32°F. You can still do it, but you need to take an easy.
3) Wind will make your Phantom work harder.
4) You should land when or before the first battery cell reached 3.4V.

 

[CapArt]

1) I'm not sure what the first warning was exactly. It caught me off guard. The battery indicator turned red and I believe it said some kind of critical battery warning. When I started the descent the battery indicator turned Amber while I flew a gentle descent back.
2) I don't know what's possible or not, just what it did.

1) Yes I do IMU calibrations with every Firmware upgrade and when I travel with it.
2)No, "Battery Overheat During Discharge" was in red displayed in the status window.
3) Yes, the cells were balanced.
4) Yes, I took it down to 8% about 10 flights back.

1) First I heard of that. I couldn't find it written anywhere and had read the opposite on a forum about cold wx flight.
2) I screwed up here. I was going by the -10°c limit in the battery guide. I had completely missed the 0° limit in the aircraft spec.
3) I was aware of the wind and was only using about half stick for horizontal speed.
4) I have never flown with the battery page up. I do have voltage displayed with the percentage but it is total voltage.

 

[msinger]

4) I have never flown with the battery page up. I do have voltage displayed with the percentage but it is total voltage.

See more details here. The DJI GO app will display the voltage of the lowest battery cell.

2)No, "Battery Overheat During Discharge" was in red displayed in the status window.

Perhaps a new message DJI added in firmware 1.6? I've never seen this one.

 

[CapArt]

Thanks for the info and especially forcing me to finally use Healthy Drones. That was a real eye opener for me. I'm not planning any more cold wx flights. I'll just have to sit tight and wait for spring. 26° here today with tomorrow's high forecast at 19°F. Burr

 

[msinger]

You can fly in colder weather if you take a few precautionary measures. DJI has some good cold weather flying tips here and here. Also, like I mentioned above, keep an eye on your battery voltage. That's important to do when flying in any temperature though.