Battery warning starting at 56% why ?

[RCRookie]

Low Battery claxton sounds off at 44%?

Took a couple of batteries out to fly them below 50% for storage purposes, flew the first one from 97% down to 38% no problem.
2nd battery from 75% down to 44% and the claxton sounded off... No errors on the screen. It went off twice, so kept it low and close, it never failed, but am concerned that its not reading properly.
I keep my data pins and contacts cleaned with deOxit regularly. The batteries 3 cells are within 5 mv of each other. All warnings are set at default.
Discharge cycled only 10 and 11 times.
Batteries all are never style data pins.
I have not recharged it to test yet. I wanted to hear some opinions on the matter first.

Revision is 3.05
app is 1.0.50

Does the claxton sound off for other errors besides battery?

 

[Zinnware]

Re: Low Battery claxton sounds off at 44%?

What was your on-screen voltage readings while flying when the warning flashed? i'm not referring to percentages, but the actual voltage readings. If it goes below 10.7v, then this may trigger the low battery warning. I have personally seen low battery warnings with over 70% and 90%. In my cases it was two faulty batteries. You may also want to discharge the battery to less than 8% and then fully charge. DJI recommends this every 20 discharges, but I have read from user: DBS that he does it every 10 or so.

 

[RCRookie]

Re: Low Battery claxton sounds off at 44%?

What was your on-screen voltage readings while flying when the warning flashed? i'm not referring to percentages, but the actual voltage readings. If it goes below 10.7v, then this may trigger the low battery warning. I have personally seen low battery warnings with over 70% and 90%. In my cases it was two faulty batteries. You may also want to discharge the battery to less than 8% and then fully charge. DJI recommends this every 20 discharges, but I have read from user: DBS that he does it every 10 or so.

What app displays actual output voltage while flying? The battery percentage on the android app 1.0.50
was 44% when i got the claxton (no onscreen errors).

Let me know how to check actual "cell output" WHILE in the air. I wasn't aware that data was available.

 

[isopro]

Re: Low Battery claxton sounds off at 44%?

Here is a print screen.

Geert./.

Have you tryed cycling the battery to 8%, and charging it again, without using the motors to discharge it, staticaly discharging it overnight on the drone without the props installed and without using the motors ?
The thing i find bad about DJI battery is that they are balanced, monitored, and charged as 3s cells. When they in fact are 6s cells, witch on the long run 3/6 cells dont get balanced, and this can damage the battery over time. This looks like planned obsolescence by DJI to generate more battery sales.

 

[bizrank]

Re: Low Battery claxton sounds off at 44%?

Hello isopro,
I am having the same warning-claxon issue at around 43-44% with one of my batteries (not both), for the past 4-5 flights. Today was a hot, dry scorcher here in Denver and the battery itself also felt hot.
I have not tried what you have asked about, which is letting the battery statically discharge overnight. Could I ask you to clarify? In other words, just leave a fully-charged battery in, with the drone on, till the battery goes dead? Or start from scratch with a flight, then from about 8% let it discharge in the drone? Or does it matter?

Most important question: I take it you recommend this, and that maybe you have tried it with good results? Battery refreshed?

Thanks.

 

[Jay]

Hi all
Recently i upgraded the data pins on my p2v as i was getting a battery communication error.That has gone now but now I'm getting low battery warning starting at 56% then a few times after that as well.Does anyone know what is causing this problem ? it does the same on both my battery's one is new the other a bit older

 

[LuvMyTJ]

Not sure why this would happen. What did you do to upgrade the pins and did it start immediately after that?

 

[harbourside]

The battery warning is "intelligent" so if you are say 300m out it will warn you as it calculates how much power Is needed to return to home safely.
If you are close to the Phantom it will not warn you until it is at a much lower percentage.

Well that's my take on it from reading the manual, but I could be wrong.....

 

[Jay]

Not sure why this would happen. What did you do to upgrade the pins and did it start immediately after that?

Hi i ordered a new internal power plug with the new style pins and fitted it.It didn't do this before the new pins but had battery communication error before but now that's gone.

 

[Jay]

The battery warning is "intelligent" so if you are say 300m out it will warn you as it calculates how much power Is needed to return to home safely.
If you are close to the Phantom it will not warn you until it is at a much lower percentage.

Well that's my take on it from reading the manual, but I could be wrong.....

I thought that warning was just a message that pops up not the claxton sound.It never happened before with this new update it used to only sound when at 20%

 

[enterprise1]

Another bad battery post. Seems way to common lately. I had 2 batteries out of my 3 go bad yesterday. The bad ones are the originals bought with the Vision back in Febuary. Both packs gave a low battery alarm at 50% and a auto-land initiated about 20 sec later. Had to give full throttle to keep it from landing. Have 37 and 38 cycles on each. My newest battery with 12 cycles was good, alarmed at 29%.

I thought it was strange having 2 batteries crap out on the same day. After discharging to 8% and cleaning all battery posts the 2 bad batteries did the same thing today. Good battery performed as normal.

After charging all 3 batteries I checked stats with the assistant. Cell voltages and mah of all 3 batteries were very similar. Check stats again after flight and bad batteries were discharged to 46% to 47%. Good battery discharged to 25%. Cell voltages again were consistent. No stand out low cell voltage.

My 2 bad batteries are a little puffy. I did not notice any additional heat buildup. I have had a lot of experience with nicad batteries but not so much with lipos. When I had a bad nicad most always the cell voltages would identify the bad cell. IMO I've got a electrical circuit problem not necessarily a bad cell problem.

I'am with a lot of other people that have this battery issue, I can't afford this hobby if I have to buy new batteries every 35 to 40 cycles. With only a 3 month battery warranty its not reasonably. Have to make a tough decision.

 

[4wd]

Could these recent battery issues be due to 3.06 firmware?

 

[ProfessorStein]

Could these recent battery issues be due to 3.06 firmware?

Sounds pretty likely. Seems like a lot more are popping up since the update.

I'm pretty sure someone mentioned the update is a lot more strict about non-DJI batteries... so batteries in general were involved somehow.

 

[enterprise1]

I am on firmware 1.08 so in my case it wasn't firmware. On another thread in the forum I read that people were also having similar problems after updating firmware so who knows.

Its really to bad that these problems aren't addressed by DJI promptly. My confidence is now zero with the issue of these batteries. If I would have been flying out at 2000ft just seconds before the batteries malfunctioned I would have been doing a search and rescue mission. This problem has been seen on this forum for months. Personally I won't fly without a locator.

 

[Ozziebattler]

Good these smart batteries hey? I have 4 that i will not fly with anymore and the flights i did with them cost me between 4-5 dollars a flight. DJI were going on that you would get 100s of cycles B...S...

 

[4wd]

Could these recent battery issues be due to 3.06 firmware?

I don't think so.
Problems here started begin of June, that was before version 3.06

Geert./.

Thinking about it more...
3.06 is the first firmware to remove user control over alarm and auto-descend thresholds.

In 3.04 and before, you set the alarm according to percentage remaining, usually between 25% and 30%
Then your second trigger you also set manually at 12%-20% and that initiated auto-descent if you weren't home by then.

With 3.06 the firmware is looking at the voltage and deciding "things look serious let's get down".
So it is highlighting a slight decline in performance which would previously have been overlooked.
A further factor is that the new preset alarm and return behaviour probably encourages users to push the flight time further than before - so the auto descending is more likely to be encountered.

It would be a good test if someone with an early auto-descending battery could revert to 3.04 or earlier, and put in default battery alarms.

 

[Zinnware]

Could these recent battery issues be due to 3.06 firmware?

ZINNWARE writes: I do not think this has anything to do with the 3.06 firmware release. I say this because I had almost an identical experience as enterprise1 (see quote below). I was flying with version 1.08 and had two batteries go bad within a 24 hour period back on July 2. Both were purchased in February 2014 too. I since had them replaced by DJI for free and just received the replacements this week. See my previous post below that includes the video with iOSD info. Even more info can be found on this thread: "Re: BATTERY ISSUES (Early Autoland)??? POST HERE": viewtopic.php?f=19&t=17324&start=140

Another bad battery post. Seems way to common lately. I had 2 batteries out of my 3 go bad yesterday. The bad ones are the originals bought with the Vision back in February. Both packs gave a low battery alarm at 50% and a auto-land initiated about 20 sec later. Had to give full throttle to keep it from landing. Have 37 and 38 cycles on each. My newest battery with 12 cycles was good, alarmed at 29%.

I thought it was strange having 2 batteries crap out on the same day. After discharging to 8% and cleaning all battery posts the 2 bad batteries did the same thing today. Good battery performed as normal.

After charging all 3 batteries I checked stats with the assistant. Cell voltages and mah of all 3 batteries were very similar. Check stats again after flight and bad batteries were discharged to 46% to 47%. Good battery discharged to 25%. Cell voltages again were consistent. No stand out low cell voltage.

My 2 bad batteries are a little puffy. I did not notice any additional heat buildup. I have had a lot of experience with nicad batteries but not so much with lipos. When I had a bad nicad most always the cell voltages would identify the bad cell. IMO I've got a electrical circuit problem not necessarily a bad cell problem.

I'am with a lot of other people that have this battery issue, I can't afford this hobby if I have to buy new batteries every 35 to 40 cycles. With only a 3 month battery warranty its not reasonably. Have to make a tough decision.

ZINNWARE's experience recorded on video back in July 2:

Autoland at 92%
I guess I am the latest victim to a bad battery. Mine will go into autoland just as it reaches 92% or about 1 to 2 minutes of hovering. I have a video that shows the battery level indicator go from full charge to zero from the DJI osd mini.
http://youtu.be/K8YaDtoFVi4

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8YaDtoFVi4[/youtube]

 

[4wd]

Yes it sounds like not related to firmware after all having read that other long thread - you get auto-descend regardless of the percentage set.
It's interesting it's mainly if not exclusively the older type with smaller data pins are showing the fault.

 

[MikeON]

I was having similar problems back in January, which mostly cleared up. I thought maybe the cold weather had something to do with it. I have seen the problem one or twice since, but when the battery got close to the threshold, like 28 or 29%.
Here is the thread about it:
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=6488

 

[enterprise1]

I was having similar problems back in January, which mostly cleared up. I thought maybe the cold weather had something to do with it. I have seen the problem one or twice since, but when the battery got close to the threshold, like 28 or 29%.
Here is the thread about it:
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=6488

As you can see from Mike's post this problem has been around quite awhile now. This is a very unsafe condition. I love watching video pilots have shared with us on this forum. That being said I can picture some very nasty incidents occurring because of Phantoms landing in crowds or on roads due to battery malfunction.

I am going to send messages both by e-mail and phone to DJI about this problem. Probably will get no response or the run around like many pilots in the past. DJI replacing my batteries after 6 months is not going to happen. They need to provide a solution or recall all batteries with the potential of early failure.

If there is any other ideas to solve this problem I'm all ears please respond.