Cell Broken Warning?

[DarkDrone 1]

So yesterday I got this warning (Cell Broken) 17 seconds into the flight, so I quickly returned to home and tried to power off the battery.

The battery would not power off right away and the 4 LED's would scan as if being on the charger. After about 10 seconds or so of blinking, the battery shutdown.

So I removed the battery, blew into the contacts thinking perhaps some debris may be interfering, and reinstalled.

Powered back up and took back off after all systems were go.

Flew for roughly 13 minutes and did not get that warning again.

Now tonight I just fully charged that battery to check things out and I see that my 4th cell is only at 4.21V while the other 3 cells are at 4.29V.

Should this be of concern? This battery has only 7 flights on it.

And oddly enough later in the day the same thing happened to a different battery so I did the same thing (power down,uninstall,reinstall, etc.), and flew for roughly 14 minutes with no further warnings.

That battery has 8 flights. I have yet to check it's cell balance.

Anyone know whats going on here?

 

[DarkDrone 1]

Whole new problem.

Just opened a brand new battery purchased from Best Buy and it is DOA!

No lights, can't charge, nothing!!

Finding out via google that many others have experienced this problem.

I've had R/C trucks/racers for years and haven't had such issues with the many lipos used on them.

Losing my love for this hobby real quick now...

 

[GMack]

Fun huh?

Take back the bum DOA one to BB and see if they will exchange it - and do it pronto! Someone else mentioned BB is no longer taking back DOA DJI batteries ("Send them to DJI.") but remains to be verified. Someone mention Cabella's is doing the same since DJI QC is so iffy and too much goes back to them. My local hobby shop takes nothing back and stamps the receipt with a "Take it up with the manufacturer if defective" in red ink (I don't buy much from them either.).

Was the dead cell one less than 6 months old? If so, with the low number of charges, DJI should replace it - hopefully. Just make certain you charge it at least once a month to keep it from going so low the charger won't charge it again.

And yeah, DJI quality control is pretty sad and I'm not fond of their giving you a refurb for one you send in to fix. I often wonder if they just send out someone else's unit that got a quick eye over and maybe passed on fixing if it meets their minimum tolerance QC rather than fixing it and saving the good ones coming in to sale themselves later as refurbs. Really is a shoddy repair method, imho. I could imagine a car dealership using their methods.

Good luck with the battery mess. Fingers crossed.

 

[DarkDrone 1]

Fun huh?

Take back the bum DOA one to BB and see if they will exchange it - and do it pronto! Someone else mentioned BB is no longer taking back DOA DJI batteries ("Send them to DJI.") but remains to be verified. Someone mention Cabella's is doing the same since DJI QC is so iffy and too much goes back to them. My local hobby shop takes nothing back and stamps the receipt with a "Take it up with the manufacturer if defective" in red ink (I don't buy much from them either.).

Was the dead cell one less than 6 months old? If so, with the low number of charges, DJI should replace it - hopefully. Just make certain you charge it at least once a month to keep it from going so low the charger won't charge it again.

And yeah, DJI quality control is pretty sad and I'm not fond of their giving you a refurb for one you send in to fix. I often wonder if they just send out someone else's unit that got a quick eye over and maybe passed on fixing if it meets their minimum tolerance QC rather than fixing it and saving the good ones coming in to sale themselves later as refurbs. Really is a shoddy repair method, imho. I could imagine a car dealership using their methods.

Good luck with the battery mess. Fingers crossed.

I just got off the phone from a DJI rep (which I could barely understand as usual), and have a case started with the broken cell battery.

As far as the DOA one that I just opened which I purchased at BB 2 weeks ago when they were on sale, I'm going there in about an hour to request an exchange.

If they give me the return to DJI B.S, I'll go to plan B.

Is there any QC anymore? And for frick sakes have people that can speak fluent English when working the phones in the US!!

 

[GMack]

Hope you are under the BB 14-15 day exchange window.

I'm wanting an Inspire 2 but given DJI's poor QC I'll wait until BB sells them so I can take it back the same day for another should it not work, or take all the required firmware and software updates without puking. If the initial firmware update takes, I'll probably leave it alone for fear of them breaking it later. I'm not crazy about buying online with DJI products with their poor product control and the possible need to re-ship it somewhere to get addressed or exchanged.

I took two P4's back to BB due to bad QC issues and they gleefully exchanged them for another new one. They just mark it as "Defective" and I'm afraid that they probable get resold by DJI as new or refurbs if they can't find what I did (Slanted sensor where left was fuzzy and right was sharp, and I doubt if they re-test for that.). One really has to go over their stuff with a fine-toothed comb. I've bought refurbs before from a well known camera company to later find out why they likely went in - and never fixed for the issue. Company soon dropped that model and moved on to another which addressed the refurb matter, and I got two bum units still.

I don't know if DJI Service in Carson, CA uses the same phones for service there, or if they go overseas to a call center and maybe need secondary input from DJI China to do a repair. Really is a shoddy and slow setup. But given all their crummy software and firmware updates, service is probably buried in work too. If they'd clean up their sloppy software/firmware matters it might relieve 70% of the service end.

Good luck!

 

[DarkDrone 1]

I actually have 30 days being that I'm what BB calls an elite member.

I certainly don't feel like that right now....

 

[DarkDrone 1]

Well I'm happy to report that BB exchanged my DOA battery with no problem.

They had two of the black versions in stock however now they have none.

The first one I unboxed at the store was dead as well..

This isn't a good sign DJI..

Maybe it's time to hire different robots...