P3 Vision Positioning System overheat ?

[Velociraptor]

I´ve been flying multirotors now for over 4 years but just bought my first Phantom.
3 PRO model W323A with all the latest firmwares updated.
I did the first flight yesterday before dawn and I noticed battery came out really hot, unconformable to hand but I didn´t check the battery temperature during flight. Today another quick flight just before the rain started and same thing, battery came out really hot but again I forgot to check temperature in the app. Wookong, Naza and A2 doesn´t have this feature, so I´m not used to.
But in all this years I never seen a multirotor battery getting so hot!
Now at home, checking all the DJI GO detailed configurations, I noticed the battery temperature was reaching almost 50C while the Phantom was sitting on the room table with power on.
After trying to find what could cause such battery heat I noticed the Vision Positioning module was so hot that almost burned my fingers when touching the ultrasonic sensor! And the VPS wasn´t even active in the app as I had it switched off long before noticing the heat.

I´m sure this isn´t normal, or is it?

 

[With The Birds]

Not sure about normal but i do.know that i used the dji flight sim once and could not beleive how hot the area around the VPS got. It was ridiculous.

 

[With The Birds]

I meant to say, upload your.flight records to healthydrones.com and have a look at the bat temp log there. My phamtom batts run cooler than in RC helis, only ever mildly warm to touch after a flight.

 

[Velociraptor]

Well, that is the only thing I haven´t learned yet, how to extract the flight logs!
Will do that and post to healthydrones.com to see how it goes.
But I´m sure there is something wrong, with such heat the battery won´t last long, that is if the Phantom doesn´t burn into flames midair on the next flight!

 

[Velociraptor]

After uploading logs to healthydrones.com it seems the battery is reaching 58C while in flight. And ambient temperate this last couple of days has been around 21c at the time of flight. I wonder how hot this battery will get when it´s 38c out there!

 

[With The Birds]

At 22deg I come down at around 52C after 16mins (I just looked at some recent HD logs).

 

[Velociraptor]

Would be interesting to see how hot the battery goes in a really hot day.
Do you or anyone else has logs on 35-40c day?
I think this relates to a design flaw in thermal dissipation within the Light bridge board that I found out sits right between the battery and the VPS. That is the reason the battery gets so hot.
I really wanted a hot day to test this out and see what would happen with my little new Phantom but summer is finishing here, no more 40c days!

 

[Velociraptor]

OK, I disconnected power cable to VPS today and went for another test flight.
Today ambient temperature was 30C, the VPS didn't heat at all and battery temperature reached 57c even do I was flying full speed of 18m/s most of the time.
Hopefully tomorrow will be another hot day and I will reconnect power to VPS and do another test flight to see how the battery will behave.

 

[Mako79]

Maybe they forgot to connect the tiny VPS module fan. I'm being serious, as I forgot to connect mine when I did the crack-shell transplant.

 

[Velociraptor]

It is connected. I'm not sure if it takes the air out of the battery to the Lightbridge board or the oposite, but it is really small and has nothing to do with the VPS.
This is another point that should have improved in the P4. So much heat is not only dangerous but degrades the battery and must have a noticeble impact in flight autonomy.

 

[Yiannis.B]

OK, I disconnected power cable to VPS today and went for another test flight.
Today ambient temperature was 30C, the VPS didn't heat at all and battery temperature reached 57c even do I was flying full speed of 18m/s most of the time.
Hopefully tomorrow will be another hot day and I will reconnect power to VPS and do another test flight to see how the battery will behave.

Any updates? Disconnecting the power to the VPS module, solves the problem?

Mine is also too hot, but it seems that lightbridge module generates the heat.

 

[robinb]

Something is not right with your drone.
The VPS does not get hot.
Its should be air temp.

with an air temp of 27 deg C my battery rises to 44 deg after 15 minutes fast flying.

 

[RocketBrew]

Would be interesting to see how hot the battery goes in a really hot day.
Do you or anyone else has logs on 35-40c day?

I went out to give the heat a test. It was about 115° F (46°C).

Flew out 16,100' and turned back because of the battery level. Was headed into the wind on the way out, so I went past the return-to-home warning since I would have the wind behind me (HD shows Average Wind Speed 21.7 mph, Max Gust Speed 31.4 mph).

On the way back, still had 3,126' to go when I got Overheated During Discharge and "Warning: Propulsion Output Limited. Aircraft motility has been lowered."

Suddenly wasn't sure I was going to get all the way back at the reduced speed! But I landed with 14% battery.

HD shows the Max Battery Temperature was 161.5° F (72°C).

 

[robinb]

I went out to give the heat a test. It was about 115° F (46°C).
View attachment 57266

Now that is HOT.

 

[CCDD]

Are all of you running the latest FW?

 

[robinb]

no, last one 1.8

 

[CCDD]

Perhaps we can start forgetting about cracked shells and begin worrying about melted ones.