DJI Phantom 2 Vision+ Intelligent Flight Battery Hack

[mohan]

How do you explain when i do the first step in the top, where it as a foto, in my first topic when i connect that way i can see in the mobile phone connected with vision plus that the battery is really recharging, for what i saw it was 87%, them after some minuts 88,89,90%....

Another question, i can not find the translation for "CAP" what is that ?
Im Portuguese.

The CAP is the white housing of the battery where the circuit board is housed.

I can only tell you my findings. If you do not believe my findings that is entirely upto you. You are entitled to your opinion regarding your findings. Maybe you might have better luck than I had to find a way to keep the phantom in the air for longer. If your battery is charging then your plan might work. However before you draw any conclusions see if you can fly your phantom for longer. If you can show that with your setup you flew your phantom in the sky for 40 -45 minutes then please post a link with a video to show this.

 

[Wolfinze]

Where can i get a old DJI intelligent Battery to make some modifications ?
I have two news ones, for the modifications i need a old one....

Each new battery cost in Portugal 124euros.
Anyone has one with cells off to give me ??


Paulo Lobo

 

[DBS]

Sorry I missed this ... now I can add some feedback because I have been there.

The most you will get from this is a couple extra minutes flight... the battery will count down at a normal rate until it reaches 5200mAh used at 8% on the level meter ... at that point it will Poll the battery for actual voltage level and will hang at 8% until the battery drops below the programmed value and then continue the countdown...

the battery drains in 15 minutes... so you will only gain the respective charge time from a 15 minute charge... very little at best... and you will spend the entire extra time at 8% on the meter with alarms going off and fighting the stick to keep the altitude from dropping.

Instead of charging you would be better to add cells in parallel and gain the entire value from the added power... but you will still count down on the meter at a normal rate and spend your last 10 minutes at 8% fighting the auto land and alarms blaring.

I have done this with a 6600mAh battery and have achieved 28 minute flight times... but they are a bummer because the meter doesn't accurately reflect the battery's actual state.

6600mAh battery mod... http://imgur.com/a/OuJik

There have been many before us who have tried and it's a well known fact that the smart battery firmware is the bottleneck... the firmware has been analyzed with a "smart battery" software program that shows all the parameters and settings... Writing new parameters was struggled with for quite a while and the DJI signature or encryption or whatever just won't allow tweaks.

Every time somebody thinks of this it's a great idea that goes nowhere... even if it was difficult at best it would be done already... many aftermarket companies have tried.


One last note... LiPo batteries DO NOT like being charged while in use... the heat generated for these loads to have any benefit is detrimental to the LiPo... and will certainly shorten the lifespan of the battery at best... turn your Phantom into a flying barbecue at worst.

 

[mohan]

Thank you DBS for clearing this up...

I think your reply is comprehensive and covers all the difficulties in trying to get the bird to stay up in the air. I actually tried 10,000am of lipo cells and spent the last 20 minutes fighting the low battery alarms - could just about keep the bird from landing but not able to fly anywhere.

thanks again for the info.

 

[Wolfinze]

I will overcome that problems.
Let me make my tests and let me make my modifications.
99.99% for sure we can solve the problem.

Im going to search for someone that has a old battery and make some modifications in electronic on both side ( drone and dji bat ).
Meanwhile going to make a test with extra battery...

Just one last question, what happens if i get somehow in the Remote Control and in the DRONE a button that while in the air when battery is low i activate a relay that switch's from one battery to other full charged battery, a double relay that connects the power pins and the communication pins... all is done in 0,3 seconds so the drone will never be off....

 

[mmee1992]

I will overcome that problems.
Let me make my tests and let me make my modifications.
99.99% for sure we can solve the problem.

Im going to search for someone that has a old battery and make some modifications in electronic on both side ( drone and dji bat ).
Meanwhile going to make a test with extra battery...

Just one last question, what happens if i get somehow in the Remote Control and in the DRONE a button that while in the air when battery is low i activate a relay that switch's from one battery to other full charged battery, a double relay that connects the power pins and the communication pins... all is done in 0,3 seconds so the drone will never be off....

You just said it would take 0.3 seconds to switch from one battery to another and then said it would never be off in the same sentence. It seems to me that it would be off for about 0.3 seconds which is about 0.3 seconds too long.

 

[Wolfinze]

Let us say that we switch battery in Zero seconds, i think you dont know how electronics work, do you know what is capacitor ?
Maybe is better for me to shut up and make my tests, if they work out perhaps ill keep it as a secret.
Some persons dont help, some persons make suggestions and give some words to encourage the test guys to continue their test work.

I can switch the dji battery´s with a double relay, also i can switch the extra battery first at distance with the remote control, using only one signal to do this :

Relay press power on extra battery.
Relay press 2 seconds power on extra battery to turn it on !
Relay switch batterys power pin and comunication pins bettwen the one discharged with the one charged.
Also im able to get a signal from the low battery drone ( red leds blinking real fast ) and do the automatic battery change...

But i need time to test this.

Also im loosing my patience to this forum when i found persons that says "we test it all, we made that, it does not work"
Im a person that likes to see for real and see what problem found and try to kill the problem...

Bye bye.

No more reports will be made here until i get my DJI PHANTOM 2 PLUS VERSION 3.0 flying for at least 45 minutes in Air !

Regards.

 

[ViperNuke]

Hey man im with you on this one.. Im also testing a 15000 Mah battery hack and so far i can report nothing but positives, i have adchived a 34 minutes flight time. It does require alot of hacking, firmware/battery firmware and also the app... No Annoying low battery warning. You can also disable the Auto landing when battery is at a low % without even having to hack anything but i took a lil further and rewrote alot of the DJI usless software.. PM me for info.

 

[N017RW]

Hey man im with you on this one.. Im also testing a 15000 Mah battery hack and so far i can report nothing but positives, i have adchived a 34 minutes flight time. It does require alot of hacking, firmware/battery firmware and also the app... No Annoying low battery warning. You can also disable the Auto landing when battery is at a low % without even having to hack anything but i took a lil further and rewrote alot of the DJI usless software.. PM me for info.

Why not share?
I'm curious about the software you (re)wrote.

Do we have to ask?

OK then... Show us your work, please .

 

[ViperNuke]

Hey man im with you on this one.. Im also testing a 15000 Mah battery hack and so far i can report nothing but positives, i have adchived a 34 minutes flight time. It does require alot of hacking, firmware/battery firmware and also the app... No Annoying low battery warning. You can also disable the Auto landing when battery is at a low % without even having to hack anything but i took a lil further and rewrote alot of the DJI usless software.. PM me for info.

Why not share?
I'm curious about the software you (re)wrote.

Do we have to ask?

OK then... Show us your work, please .

Will defntly do once im done testing... I will start a new thread and what i actually hacked/rewrote was the actual DJI 3.8 firmware. Decompiled the app and removed all the useless junk DJI has added and completely removed the smart out of the DJI smart Battery. My goal is to get 40 Minutes on a stock Phantom 2V+

 

[N017RW]

Where does this firmware reside, within the Naza or are you also programming the imbedded processor on the main PCB and or smart batt.?

The only connection to the two I see is via the Naza 'EXP' & 'X3' ports, is this correct?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Wolfinze]

News !! I tested this :

I connected the DJI batery fully charged with two wires in the Power Pins inside the drone to outside of it.
Then i put the drone in a table and turn it on.
He was on with motors on, and in the phone camera app it said 99% battery.
After that i connect the wires to a 10 or 15 amperes battery, i measure the voltage in this big battery and it was 12.39volts, then i and let the drone alone with motors spinning, sometimes i take the remote control, hold the drone in the table and make the motors go up and left and right...
After 40 minutes in the phone i read 92% battery, after 60 minutes i read 83% battery, my spare battery was 12.35volts...
I disconnect the spare battery and measure the voltage in the wires there was 12.0 volts...
Then i connect again the wires to the extra battery, after 75 minutes percentage in the phone was 79% and i give up with no patience...
This 12volts battery is from APC UPS dont know if it as 10 or 15 amperes, its big and weights a lot, so its impossible to take it in the Drone.
I have a battery from my portable pc, it has 6,300 amperes with 11.7 amperes its very light and next time i connected in the Drone and fly with it and DJI battery.

There is only one thing that worry ! If the drone comes down to the ground ill be losing 1300euros after one month.

Best Regards,

NO17RW your coments are very interest !!!
Keep the Work !!

Paulo Lobo

 

[nezar]

Hi Paulo,

I saw you are looking for a battery for your tests.

please contact me i can send you one.

regards

Nezar

 

[justin00]

Care to share a snipnet of the code from firmware (Not the app) ?

You could make a fortune modifying firmware for people but I suspect not much will come of this

Hope I am wrong though

Hey man im with you on this one.. Im also testing a 15000 Mah battery hack and so far i can report nothing but positives, i have adchived a 34 minutes flight time. It does require alot of hacking, firmware/battery firmware and also the app... No Annoying low battery warning. You can also disable the Auto landing when battery is at a low % without even having to hack anything but i took a lil further and rewrote alot of the DJI usless software.. PM me for info.

 

[RoyVa]

Extra battery, extra weight... Equals faster discharge. More current draw on the batteries by the motors trying to handle the extra weight would cause a faster discharge that the current configuration. Until technology catches up with feather weight batteries we are kinda at the mercy of resistance, voltage drop, current flow, and battery weight right now. It's good to do what you are trying but believe that engineers have gone through this too. As the ole say goes.... Today- it is what it is and we have what we've got, enjoy today for we don't know what tomorrow will bring. Words from esophagel cancer support group. Norfolk Va.

 

[Stile2112]

Just install a flux capacitor.... problem solved.

 

[Mako79]

I think its best that you try and install

Sorry I missed this ... now I can add some feedback because I have been there.

The most you will get from this is a couple extra minutes flight... the battery will count down at a normal rate until it reaches 5200mAh used at 8% on the level meter ... at that point it will Poll the battery for actual voltage level and will hang at 8% until the battery drops below the programmed value and then continue the countdown...

the battery drains in 15 minutes... so you will only gain the respective charge time from a 15 minute charge... very little at best... and you will spend the entire extra time at 8% on the meter with alarms going off and fighting the stick to keep the altitude from dropping.

Instead of charging you would be better to add cells in parallel and gain the entire value from the added power... but you will still count down on the meter at a normal rate and spend your last 10 minutes at 8% fighting the auto land and alarms blaring.

I have done this with a 6600mAh battery and have achieved 28 minute flight times... but they are a bummer because the meter doesn't accurately reflect the battery's actual state.

6600mAh battery mod... http://imgur.com/a/OuJik

There have been many before us who have tried and it's a well known fact that the smart battery firmware is the bottleneck... the firmware has been analyzed with a "smart battery" software program that shows all the parameters and settings... Writing new parameters was struggled with for quite a while and the DJI signature or encryption or whatever just won't allow tweaks.

Every time somebody thinks of this it's a great idea that goes nowhere... even if it was difficult at best it would be done already... many aftermarket companies have tried.


One last note... LiPo batteries DO NOT like being charged while in use... the heat generated for these loads to have any benefit is detrimental to the LiPo... and will certainly shorten the lifespan of the battery at best... turn your Phantom into a flying barbecue at worst.

So technically... this is a beneficial hack for those who like to push thresholds. If the 8 percent alarm goes off, this means they have an extra 5 minutes to get back without damaging the battery with low voltage. I will attempt this hack on a puffy batt I have lying around.
Thanks again DBS.

 

[yorlik]

News !! I tested this :

I connected the DJI batery fully charged with two wires in the Power Pins inside the drone to outside of it.
Then i put the drone in a table and turn it on.
He was on with motors on, and in the phone camera app it said 99% battery.
After that i connect the wires to a 10 or 15 amperes battery, i measure the voltage in this big battery and it was 12.39volts, then i and let the drone alone with motors spinning, sometimes i take the remote control, hold the drone in the table and make the motors go up and left and right...
After 40 minutes in the phone i read 92% battery, after 60 minutes i read 83% battery, my spare battery was 12.35volts...
I disconnect the spare battery and measure the voltage in the wires there was 12.0 volts...
Then i connect again the wires to the extra battery, after 75 minutes percentage in the phone was 79% and i give up with no patience...
This 12volts battery is from APC UPS dont know if it as 10 or 15 amperes, its big and weights a lot, so its impossible to take it in the Drone.
I have a battery from my portable pc, it has 6,300 amperes with 11.7 amperes its very light and next time i connected in the Drone and fly with it and DJI battery.

There is only one thing that worry ! If the drone comes down to the ground ill be losing 1300euros after one month.

Best Regards,

NO17RW your coments are very interest !!!
Keep the Work !!

Paulo Lobo

Paulo, keep trying your stuff. You seem to enjoy doing it and may offer some new insights along the way.

Meanwhile, try to get your experiments into logic steps and know what your are experimenting with.

You said early on you did not know how much current the phantom draws. Paulo, without this info, your experiments are only as worthwhile as your guesses and slapping extra batteries on it. You need to know the basics to make improvements and you at this point have no idea how much current is drawn.

So here you add some battery and run on your desk at idle speed. You did not say if you had props on or off, but let's assume you had them on. Without knowing how much current is drawn during this function, your times of 1 hour, 2 hours, etc have no meaning.

If you learn the basics of what your experiments will do, you would know that running with props on your desk at idle most of the time with the standard battery or even with added batteries is easily calculatable so you only need to run the experiment to prove the calcs accurate.

Calcs would have shown you that idling on your desk pulls about 2 amps. Using only the 5200mah dji battery, IT WOULD HAVE RUN 2.6 HOURS! Paulo, that is 156 minutes. Since you added some more mah to the 5200 it would have run even longer than that. So to prove this with an experiment you would have had to let it run for longer than 156 minutes - you did not, so you proved nothing with that test.

Now if you let it hover in place in the air, you would have drawn about 12 amps. You then should be able to hover for about 30 minutes. If you rise and go forward/reverse, you would have pulled about 18 amps and so could predict around 18 minute flight time. Then you could experiment and prove this.

Then you can add your extra batteries and repeat the tests for direct comparison. Unfortunately I think you will find that the added weight adds almost identical higher current draw during hover and during flight, so you will see why the 5200mah was found as a sweet spot for this weight unit. It is called a snowball effect in engineering: in this case, add more mah capacity and its added weight uses up the gain with more load. it snowballs so if you end up adding the max weight possible, the added current draw keeps you right back at same flight time.

Until we get more mah per unit weight batteries, this will be true.

Will you find small ways to make small minutes gain? sure you will! but do not expect much if you understand what your are fighting and know your basics.

Please learn the basics so you do not waste your time but rather find those interesting tidbits that you are bound to learn and share with us!

I applaud you for your experiments and sharing with us! Keep going.

 

[Carlos Junior]

The CAP is the white housing of the battery where the circuit board is housed.

I can only tell you my findings. If you do not believe my findings that is entirely upto you. You are entitled to your opinion regarding your findings. Maybe you might have better luck than I had to find a way to keep the phantom in the air for longer. If your battery is charging then your plan might work. However before you draw any conclusions see if you can fly your phantom for longer. If you can show that with your setup you flew your phantom in the sky for 40 -45 minutes then please post a link with a video to show this.