Battery securing device, strap, hasp... anything?

[higherperspective]

There are hundreds of thousands of these things flying.
That's a huge sample size so you would expect to see plenty of reports if this was an issue.

This issue (my word not DJI's) seems confined to the P4 or P4P battery bays and I doubt (though I could be wrong) that there are hundreds of thousands of these out there. Also, I would have to venture that its a small fraction of P4 owners that are active members here. So what we really have is a number of posts on one forum about a potentially devastating problem from a small sampling of owners. I think that makes the potentially affected number of products much greater, like possibly in the bazillions.

 

[Meta4]

There are several birds falling out of the sky of late though Meta 4! What's up with that if it's not battery related?

Electronic issues - hardware systems failures would cause a Phantom to fall as well as burnt out battery contacts, undercharged batteries and other things.

 

[The Famous]

When I first flew my P4, a friend, who had flown for a year, was with me. Excited to fly I put the battery in, and with my thumb pushed hard on the top of the battery and SNAP! Battery in! Smiling I said, "there!" He said , it is not in! Push on the bottom!" It looked fine to me, so I pushed on the bottom and to my surprise, "SNAP!" Make sure to push top & bottom! Never had a battery come loose!

 

[KevMo Photog]

Electronic issues - hardware systems failures would cause a Phantom to fall as well as burnt out battery contacts, undercharged batteries and other things.

Just seems kinda weird that it's happening quite a bit just here recently though.

 

[Top_Speed1]

As I started this thread, it was my friend who swears it was a battery being disconnected from the interface that made his immediate signal loss and drop into Seneca Lake. Unfortunately this central NY Finger Lake is the deepest fresh water lake east of the Mississippi.... and I don’t think he will ever recover it to show this theory as “proof”.

I was just wondering about this if anyone had any experiences and what fixes that came up with. It was comforting to hear from others that it could of been an anomaly.

Now maybe more just rare than an anomaly, which is still not bad I guess, but it does make me wonder a little. So far for me, no “paranoia” Velcro strap, of course this is not preventative maintainece mentality now is it? Lol

 

[PhantomHero]

Has anyone checked the battery compartment and battery sizes with a caliper? Check before and after flights. Just a theory here, but it may be a geographical issue, as the body of the bird heats up the plastic may expand, if the battery is still cold(say coming from an A/C house or car) it may be causing the battery to become loose. At least until the battery itself heats up and matches up with the size of the body.
Again. JUST a theory.

 

[PhantomWetSuits]

We have seen quite a few of these incidents talked about on this forum and others such as DJI official forum .
Much of this is do to user error that happens by mistake rather easily as you can see by the video we have posted below. That phantom Rain Wet Suit offers many advantages and sealing the battery is just one of them.

This video share some light on the subject at hand.

 

[Timinator]

What if we are looking at this all wrong? We're assuming that the battery is moving but what if it isn't? What if it is a firmware or battery problem itself? If that is true there is no way to prevent that. This thought occurred to me yesterday after I watched a video from an experienced flyer cruising at low forward speed just three metres off the ground when the aircraft suffered a power loss.

 

[Timinator]

As I started this thread, it was my friend who swears it was a battery being disconnected from the interface that made his immediate signal loss and drop into Seneca Lake. Unfortunately this central NY Finger Lake is the deepest fresh water lake east of the Mississippi.... and I don’t think he will ever recover it to show this theory as “proof”.

This makes me nervous since I do a lot of flying over Lake Ontario simply because of NFZs in my area. I don't want to be in the situation where the aircraft loses power, falls out of the sky, and ends up in an unrecoverable location.

I'm wondering if maybe there is a perfect storm of the right aircraft firmware, the right battery firmware, the right battery lot #, and the whole thing falls from the sky.

 

[Top_Speed1]

Some good thoughts here, and hopefully one's that will be either proven as a factor or not. It's clearly not a wide-spread issue, otherwise we would of had more chiming in on this.

....So that's a good feeling at least!

 

[WayneMHK]

If it were a problem, you can bet there'd be a solution. People sell crap for these things that are completely unnecessary, and we still buy them.

 

[John Locke]

I think this issue isn't valid until there is proof of the cause. Humans make mistakes, it's inevitable and the adrenaline of the anticipation of flying adds to the problem. I was surprised in Hawaii when I was pumped about flying a certain area and I had a brain fart myself. When I started the motors one of the props flew off. WHAT? How could I have been so inattentive to not clip the prop on? I've installed DJI clip on props hundreds of times, and this time I messed up. $#it happens. I'm sure it's possible for someone to "think" they installed the battery firm enough, but got in a hurry and didn't. Did they pull at the battery after installation? That's part of my routine, I give it a good tug to make sure.
Another inspection routine to add to your list is to inspect all battery clips to insure the plastic lip isn't worn on each of the two battery clips. Also, check the lip of the craft battery compartment to insure it's not wearing out. If these surfaces are all OK, and you are diligent about securing the battery, and tugging it to make sure, you shouldn't have a problem.

I think many of the power loss scenarios are from ESC's that fail, bird strikes, or other reasons unrelated to a dislodged battery. I'm not saying the battery coming out can't happen, but it is rare IMO, considering the number of P4 craft flying every day around the world. This should be part of the P4P validation steps of new craft purchased, inspecting the battery compartment for integrity and sloppiness.

 

[Andy9]

As I remember somebody have said that the batteries at P3 are more reliable fixed in the compartment as those at P4 models. It also seems to me as I have both.
But I have one incident when P3 hit the tree with imaginable consequences and the battery was a few m away from the drone when I found it.
I could also developed the theory that the battery isn't fixed enough at P3. But the drone had been rolling down the rocks around 100 m and anything might fall apart in such situation. The best thing was, that the drone was flyable completely after that. Even with the same battery.