Hello friends. I know this has been gone over before, but before I open up my controller, I'm wondering if anyone has come up with an answer to this question: Where can a buy a replacement battery for my controller on my Phantom 4 controller. Each entry in this forum on the subject, that seems to have an answer to the problem, has somehow jumped me to the Phantom 3 forum. That controller seems to have a one cell battery and you can apparently get a replacement battery with wires that have no connectors from Amazon!
Now I am reading about the phantom 4 having batteries with more than one cell? Won't the battery for the P3 fit the P4? I don't mean "fit" like fit in the space necessarily. I feel like that sending in the entire controller to replace a battery is beyond idiotic. If I can find any LiPo battery of the same voltage, I wouldn't mind drilling a hole in the case and running a wire through it and velcro the battery to the controller if I can't find an exact replacement size. In the past few years I have built half a dozen multirotors from scratch and have no problem with bogeying things up to make them work right. I can run a wire from a battery in my pocket to it's point of use.
I know that there are delicate parts in the controller, but I have had my other multi rotor controllers apart, installing a back light for my DX6i, and I have had my FrySky transmitter apart and find nothing that should prevent any careful person from working on them. So I haven't opened this one up yet because it just started improperly charging today, and in checking my purchase and looking at the dji forums I see that DJI makes no warrantee on any phantom purchased after August 2016 if it wasn't purchased from them. My purchase was from Best Buy, so I'm left to my own devices and I think that there must be another battery that will work.
It started out when I pulled it off the charger today and pressed the button to see that it was charged and was dismayed to see that it was only at 75% according to the lights. I plugged it in and it did what it is doing now. So I turned it on and started a flight, just to see how it was working and in less than 8 minutes it was giving me warnings. The beeper went off and the scrolling warning about a low transmitter battery showed up. Then I plugged it in and the first light blinked for about an hour and then stopped. I unplugged it and plugged it in again and it started with the first light on steady and the second light blinking and for a moment I had some hope, but the second light went out along with the first one in less than two minutes. Unplugging and replugging repeats the routine. It flashes for a minute or so and then they both go out. I have had LiPo batteries go beyond recharging with my Thunder Ace Charger and with some coaxing brought it up by charging it for very short periods with the charger set for a different type of battery until it had enough charge for it to respond to the LiPo setting and the battery recovered and I got a lot more flights out of them. My experience tells me that this is a battery failure. On an 8 month old battery, and I have less than 10 hours on the aircraft and probably twice that much on the controller through editing and watching the flights and sky pixel. The charger itself charges my flight batteries in their normal time so I'm not thinking that there is anything wrong there.
So please, if anyone knows the voltage of the battery that I am going to find when I open the case please let me know. If there is absolutely no way to match this battery, voltage wise, I guess I'd have to send it in but considering the risk and cost and time lost (to say nothing of all the unhappy responses from people who have shipped their equipment to DJI) I'd rather fix this myself. To have your thousand dollar equipment sitting idly by because a battery went dead, just perplexes me to no end.
Happy to hear any of your thoughts, and thank you for reading this. PhantomPilots is great!
MikeyP
Now I am reading about the phantom 4 having batteries with more than one cell? Won't the battery for the P3 fit the P4? I don't mean "fit" like fit in the space necessarily. I feel like that sending in the entire controller to replace a battery is beyond idiotic. If I can find any LiPo battery of the same voltage, I wouldn't mind drilling a hole in the case and running a wire through it and velcro the battery to the controller if I can't find an exact replacement size. In the past few years I have built half a dozen multirotors from scratch and have no problem with bogeying things up to make them work right. I can run a wire from a battery in my pocket to it's point of use.
I know that there are delicate parts in the controller, but I have had my other multi rotor controllers apart, installing a back light for my DX6i, and I have had my FrySky transmitter apart and find nothing that should prevent any careful person from working on them. So I haven't opened this one up yet because it just started improperly charging today, and in checking my purchase and looking at the dji forums I see that DJI makes no warrantee on any phantom purchased after August 2016 if it wasn't purchased from them. My purchase was from Best Buy, so I'm left to my own devices and I think that there must be another battery that will work.
It started out when I pulled it off the charger today and pressed the button to see that it was charged and was dismayed to see that it was only at 75% according to the lights. I plugged it in and it did what it is doing now. So I turned it on and started a flight, just to see how it was working and in less than 8 minutes it was giving me warnings. The beeper went off and the scrolling warning about a low transmitter battery showed up. Then I plugged it in and the first light blinked for about an hour and then stopped. I unplugged it and plugged it in again and it started with the first light on steady and the second light blinking and for a moment I had some hope, but the second light went out along with the first one in less than two minutes. Unplugging and replugging repeats the routine. It flashes for a minute or so and then they both go out. I have had LiPo batteries go beyond recharging with my Thunder Ace Charger and with some coaxing brought it up by charging it for very short periods with the charger set for a different type of battery until it had enough charge for it to respond to the LiPo setting and the battery recovered and I got a lot more flights out of them. My experience tells me that this is a battery failure. On an 8 month old battery, and I have less than 10 hours on the aircraft and probably twice that much on the controller through editing and watching the flights and sky pixel. The charger itself charges my flight batteries in their normal time so I'm not thinking that there is anything wrong there.
So please, if anyone knows the voltage of the battery that I am going to find when I open the case please let me know. If there is absolutely no way to match this battery, voltage wise, I guess I'd have to send it in but considering the risk and cost and time lost (to say nothing of all the unhappy responses from people who have shipped their equipment to DJI) I'd rather fix this myself. To have your thousand dollar equipment sitting idly by because a battery went dead, just perplexes me to no end.
Happy to hear any of your thoughts, and thank you for reading this. PhantomPilots is great!
MikeyP