P3 Battery Service Life Question

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I have 2 batteries, #1 came with my P3A a year and a half ago, #2 I got last month. According to the in app battery life indicator, #1 is now down to 68% and #2 is now 98%. This info is only in Litchi, since Dji Go stopped showing it several updates ago. It must still be available in their SDK however.

My older battery (68% life) heats up much more during flights than my newer battery (98% life). Guess it works harder to produce the needed amperage. Makes sense anyway. But, how hot is too hot?

So, is anyone else tracking battery life? At what Percentage do you toss the battery? (for safety sake)
Other than not being able to reach maximum (100%) charge, does it really matter?

Here is the Litchi battery screen for both batteries:

IMG_0020.jpg


IMG_0021.jpg


Below is the battery section of the Go app:

IMG_0022.jpg


IMG_0023.jpg
 
The battery life percentage value isn't very useful. Having said that, 68% is one of the lowest numbers I've seen, so I'd say you've gotten your money's worth. Personally, I would retire that battery. They tend to do strange things when they get older... like auto land with no warning and 27% battery strength for example. It's sad, but you can still use it as a bench battery, and you can use it as a power pack if you make yourself one of these: DIY: Module Discharge Battery Phantom 3

or buy one of these: USB charging from Phantom 3 battery
 
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If you look in the P3A full manual, there is a section about the battery where it tells you how to check remaining life.....press and hold the on button for 5 seconds, and the LEDs will indicate % of life left. Down load the manual and check.
 
Hello, Same issue here at 139 charge cycles 98 Flights on this battery going to retire this pack at 100 flights.
The percentage is all over the place sometimes it shows 98% reboot shows 68% and 49%
Just retire your battery isn't worth the risk.
 

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Here is the chart on page 20 of the P3P manual.


View attachment 71329
Hey, thanks for the reference to the section in the manual. I didn't remember reading that section before. (and I've spent a lot of time in that manual)
According to that method in the manual, I have 30-40% charges left (not the 68% in Litchi) so since I've charged it 130 times, that's 40% of 325 (calculated). I guess 325 charges is the expected service life if I'm in the norm, which, according to my cell voltages, I am. That's a lot of charges left. Successful flights? Who knows.
Right now everything seems normal, but I will save the older battery for local flights. And as Mark the Droner says, it will be good for bench work.
 
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I did this test to on P3P battery to, only had two lights (50-60%) but on healthy drones battery life was shown as 80%.
 
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Try a battery re-conditioning where you deplete the battery to the point that it will no longer "turn-on" (<8%), then recharge it to 100%. Also, you can use the DJI Desktop software (DJI Assistant) to monitor battery, cells, and a host of other items.
 
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The TXT file the aircraft generates each flight has the most battery info of anything out there. The image below only shows the Life Percent and number of flights. I only gathered based on what the OP mentioned in his original post.



DD.jpg
 
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The TXT file the aircraft generates each flight has the most battery info of anything out there. The image below only shows the Life Percent and number of flights. I only gathered based on what the OP mentioned in his original post.



View attachment 71347
You're right (as always). The FLY.csv file really gets into it. I looked at one for my new battery. I'll check out the file for this older battery.
Thanks Frank!
 
You're right (as always). The FLY.csv file really gets into it. I looked at one for my new battery. I'll check out the file for this older battery.
Thanks Frank!

If you notice odd behavior between batteries, you should check the AB.Log for the battery firmware version. This would be located on the microSD card in the hidden folder MISC/LOG/. You would need to look at this after flying with each of the two batteries. Imo, the older firmware could be better. Or at least a higher percentage of that older firmware is better. It just depends on which firmware version it is.
 
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