Phantom 3 Pro Catastrophic Battery Failure

Power cycling anything brings it one step closer to its demise. Landing gear touching the ground does nothing! Flying a battery that is not 100%, as nearly none of ours ever make it to 100%, is obviously impossible. Leading to the entire idea of not flying a 100% battery nonsense!
 
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Personally, and I only have anecdotal non-data logged evidence to support this...

But on my P2V+, one of the only two times it ever acted wonky (of about ~80 flights) was when taking off with a 50-60% charged battery.

The app reported my battery level accurately (AFAIK), but the P2 started blinking it's low voltage lights on ascent. The lights went off when simply hovering.
I realized pretty quickly that any "high current draw" movements (like ascending) we're triggering the red lights, and landed immediately.

This was also just after I had cleaned both the bird and battery contacts. And I always ensure the battery is fully seated.

~~~

There may be no "requirement" to fly with fully charged batteries, but personally, I won't takeoff again if I've landed once on a battery.

I also mostly fly longer range and/or pre-planned flights, so to me, a 60% charged battery is pretty useless, as within a few minutes I'm down to my safety margin.

As others have noted, the rate of discharge from 100% to say, 60%, is not the same as from 60% to 20%.
 
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I don't understand the corolation between percentage of batt life & voltage. Today I did a deep discharge by ideling the Phantom w/o props. The voltage remained good (not in the red) all the way down to 8%. The other day I did a short flight with the batt starting at 64%. I was surprised when the voltage started going into the red within 1-2 minutes but went up while I was landing?
 
Sorry to see it. Just one small piece of advice for the future, although it doesn't help you now, although it's defending automatically if you'd pushed up on the throttle 100% you can actually make it maintain or clime in altitude for a little while. Probably enough to have gotten it back. Sorry again.
+1 been there done that

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I don't understand the corolation between percentage of batt life & voltage. Today I did a deep discharge by ideling the Phantom w/o props. The voltage remained good (not in the red) all the way down to 8%. The other day I did a short flight with the batt starting at 64%. I was surprised when the voltage started going into the red within 1-2 minutes but went up while I was landing?
It will go into the red briefly under full load after the p3 gets down to about 50%--- no worry unless there is a big disparity in volt readings per cell-- on that is .10 or more lower than the next highest. With good balance all four will probably be red under full load.
 
This happened to me a few weeks ago. There was a nice sunset...had 65% battery left. In my mind that should be enough to get up for a couple of shots and land. I took off, got up about 60m then I got Critical Battery Error and it went in to Land mode. I was able to get it back to me as it descended, but if i was out a little further, that may not have been possible. Dji should address this. I made multiple flights off 1 charge with my P2 many, many times. Also....blackouts..i'm getting tons. C'mon Dji...git your crap together!!
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ImageUploadedByPhantomPilots - DJI Phantom Forum1447206677.176653.jpg
 
This happened to me a few weeks ago. There was a nice sunset...had 65% battery left. In my mind that should be enough to get up for a couple of shots and land. I took off, got up about 60m then I got Critical Battery Error and it went in to Land mode. I was able to get it back to me as it descended, but if i was out a little further, that may not have been possible. Dji should address this. I made multiple flights off 1 charge with my P2 many, many times. Also....blackouts..i'm getting tons. C'mon Dji...git your crap together!!
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The battery may have not been all the way in-- this is a known issue and there are several threads on the forum regarding this issue. Happened to me once-- and I swore that the battery was in and locked. But got it on the ground and much to my surprise the battery had backed out about 1 to 2 mm and the small pins that read the cell voltages lost contact and caused the error. Just make sure the battery in fully in and lock-- no gap between the cap and the housing.
 
i wud ***** piss and moan to get a full replacement. my buddy crashed a s900 and showed dji the video and flight logs and got full replacement!
 
Not sure how many posts are left to make the magical 100... but I've gotta call a little bs and sip the tea on don't fly with less than 100%.

It's a great anecdote... I tell my kids to never drive across state without 100% full tank of gas. Does it only take 40% to get there? Yes. Always be safe I say.

I take my birds off at 100, 97, 80, 75,40, 30%.... I never start bellow 30% unless it's a "I Must Have This Shot and I Have No Other Batteries" situation. These are rare and far between. I'll run it down to 8% if it is near me, and I'll mark that flight as the conditioning flight for the battery. They each have their own matrix sheets.

I can't buy into this "well, it has less than 100%, it's going to crash" party. I don't see a correlation there at all. IN fact, some batteries can only get to 98% relative charge, but can still fly 22 minutes or so. I have a hard time seeing where the placebo affect turns on for some of these people.
 
To add to the 100% battery debate and to get to the 100 post:D,,,I had 150+ houses to shoot. 20-30 flights a day, 5 batteries ,squeezing every minute out of each battery. I had no problems with taking off with 35-40%
Depending on the house I get 3-5 houses per battery ( Not saying it's right but)
post 96;)
 
I can't count all the times I lowered the low battery warning slide to below 20% just to be able to quickly lift off for a shot i didn't want to miss, and returned on the critical level...
Now I have enough batteries not to worry about it. :)
oh yeah, and I'd swear I grew some grey matter under the skull since ;)
 
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I usually air on the side of the caution, but I noticed that the manual suggests that mobile device, controller, and flight battery must all be fully charged. Flight battery aside for a moment I actually charge my controller once ever 15 flights or so and my phone is all over the place. I think it's safe to say you don't have to have a fully charged phone in order to have successful flight, but the preflight checklist recommends that you do. [emoji16]


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I usually air on the side of the caution, but I noticed that the manual suggests that mobile device, controller, and flight battery must all be fully charged. Flight battery aside for a moment I actually charge my controller once ever 15 flights or so and my phone is all over the place. I think it's safe to say you don't have to have a fully charged phone in order to have successful flight, but the preflight checklist recommends that you do. [emoji16]


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The P3 will fly without the Iphone if you lose signal. The P3 will RTH if the controller loses poser.

The controller will still send and receive a the same signal strength even if the battery is down to 25%--

The important battery is the P3, that is the one that you want to have enough power left in the event of a lost signal issue..
 
Man. That would be very hard to do business with them ever again after there equipment failed. Sorry to hear that they only gave a thirty percent discount. Sickening since you had no control over it.
 
I'm sad to say I'm now the owner of a salvaged P3pro that crashed into a lake in Maine. I was able to borrow a boat and fish it out of the lake.

What upsets me is the battery failed at 58% I did contact DJI and they are only giving me a 30% discount on another new P3pro.

Here is the crash.

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Here is the flight right before I changed to my second battery.

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I feel empty not having the ability to just go flying. I'm still waiting on the 30% discount from DJI to email me the link to purchase the new unit, but I may have to call them on Monday to try in speed up the process.
I'm sad to say I'm now the owner of a salvaged P3pro that crashed into a lake in Maine. I was able to borrow a boat and fish it out of the lake.

What upsets me is the battery failed at 58% I did contact DJI and they are only giving me a 30% discount on another new P3pro.

Here is the crash.

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For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Here is the flight right before I changed to my second battery.

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For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

I feel empty not having the ability to just go flying. I'm still waiting on the 30% discount from DJI to email me the link to purchase the new unit, but I may have to call them on Monday to try in speed up the process.


Sorry to see it, but welcome to the club.
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I was invited by a scuba diving company to go 30 miles out into the Gulf of Mexico to document their activities from their boat, I turned them down. If I lost my P3P over that water, I'd be SOL ( So Out of Luck ;)) so as a policy I refuse to fly over water. AFAIK there is no "drone" insurance policy available that covers total loss as a result of pilot error or act of God. Note I said AFAIK
 
I'm sad to say I'm now the owner of a salvaged P3pro that crashed into a lake in Maine. I was able to borrow a boat and fish it out of the lake.

What upsets me is the battery failed at 58% I did contact DJI and they are only giving me a 30% discount on another new P3pro.

Here is the crash.

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Here is the flight right before I changed to my second battery.

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For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

I feel empty not having the ability to just go flying. I'm still waiting on the 30% discount from DJI to email me the link to purchase the new unit, but I may have to call them on Monday to try in speed up the process.
dont do that your just giving dji another sale and your money just send it to ALLTRONIX.ORG
 
My trycopter fell in the canal across street and I was looking for it a hole week some how I manage to retrieve it , the first thing I did was take it apart and blow compress nitrogen to all component , I replace one esc blown and the screen of the kk board , still flying.
 

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