Time to Discharge Feature - Not working

[Gregg Smith]

Has anyone else experienced an issue with the Phantom 3 SmartBatteries not auto discharging as indicated in the app? I set mine to 2-days and I charged them Friday thinking that I was going to use them this past weekend. But we decided not to fly and I figured they would start to discharge after Sunday. Today's Tuesday and they all still report full battery strength. How fast do they discharge? Is it that after 2 days it will very, very slowly start to leak off the charge and could take a week or more to discharge to the recommended storage levels?

Hoping that the new Firmware will resolve if this is in-fact an issue.

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[happydays]

AFAIK, if you check them (by pressing the indicator button) this resets the clock and it will take a further two days to begin the discharge. I also think the discharge rate is quite slow.

 

[bbfpv]

Pretty sure it takes longer than 2 days to discharge from full to 50%, and as @happydays stated, if you press the battery button, it resets the timer.

 

[Gregg Smith]

Ah. And I did press the button over the weekend and again this morning. that's got to be the dumbest thing I've ever seen. Press the button and resets the timer. LOL. Gotta love DJI if that's the case. I could see if I powered the battery on, but I should be able to press it once to check battery life.

 

[bbfpv]

Ah. And I did press the button over the weekend and again this morning. that's got to be the dumbest thing I've ever seen. Press the button and resets the timer. LOL. Gotta love DJI if that's the case. I could see if I powered the battery on, but I should be able to press it once to check battery life.

Yeah, I agree. It's the equivalent of cooking steaks on a grill that resets to 0 degrees every time you open it. How can these guys accomplish something as revolutionary as a phantom, but fail on the dumbest ****? Seems like they need to hire a few more entry level engineers at DJI. lol

 

[4wd]

With the Vision Plus I found that a single press to check them didn't reset the clock.
Haven't really tested P3 batteriy behaviour yet

 

[snerd]

It's something I also can't get to work properly. I set all of my batteries to 1 day. Check 2 days later, no change. I check each one in the App, they all confirm 1 day. Either they discharge "really" slow, or I'm missing something.

 

[4wd]

I've deliberately left a full one for a week and they are set to start discharging after three days.
It now has two solid lights and one flashing.
Conclusion - seems to work.

 

[tcope]

Ah. And I did press the button over the weekend and again this morning. that's got to be the dumbest thing I've ever seen. Press the button and resets the timer. LOL. Gotta love DJI if that's the case. I could see if I powered the battery on, but I should be able to press it once to check battery life.

Dumb... unless you want to stop a discharge, which is reasonable. Your way the only way to do this would be to use the battery. Dumb. I think it's better to assume if the battery is not being used... that it's not being used. This includes pressing the button.

 

[Trilithon]

Mine work, set for 7 days. Don't poke the button.

 

[bobmyers]

I've deliberately left a full one for a week and they are set to start discharging after three days.
It now has two solid lights and one flashing.
Conclusion - seems to work.

+1

 

[GadgetGuy]

AFAIK, if you check them (by pressing the indicator button) this resets the clock and it will take a further two days to begin the discharge. I also think the discharge rate is quite slow.

That is great information! Pressing the indicator button to cancel the accumulated time to discharge, and restart the timer sure beats having to keep track of the accumulated time to prevent discharge, so all spares are still fully charged, without needing to recharge all of them before leaving home, if it has been more than 7 days since the last fully charged battery was used.

Related question: To top off a battery that is still ~95% charged to 100%, you have to to turn the battery on when connected to the charger.

How does that work when using the DJI 4 port battery hub?
Will it top them all off, without needing to turn them on, if they are all at 95% to start?
If you need to still turn each of them on, that would defeat the purpose of the hub topping off the most fully charged battery first. Hmmm...

 

[GadgetGuy]

Dumb... unless you want to stop a discharge, which is reasonable. Your way the only way to do this would be to use the battery. Dumb. I think it's better to assume if the battery is not being used... that it's not being used. This includes pressing the button.

Exactly! +1

 

[Mako79]

To the OP, how many batteries do you have??
If you have more than 1 battery, then you must insert all remaining into the phantom and apply the changes with the GO app. It cannot apply the "when to discharge" number to a battery that it cannot communicate to.

Also, if you make changes in the go app, make sure you exit the go app THEN POWER down the phantom. This will allow the changes to write as the parameters are stored on the P3.

 

[Gregg Smith]

To the OP, how many batteries do you have??
If you have more than 1 battery, then you must insert all remaining into the phantom and apply the changes with the GO app. It cannot apply the "when to discharge" number to a battery that it cannot communicate to.

Also, if you make changes in the go app, make sure you exit the go app THEN POWER down the phantom. This will allow the changes to write as the parameters are stored on the P3.

Mine are all working correctly now. I did originally set all batteries to the right 2-days I wanted and not just one battery. None of them were working. When I updated my firmware everything started to work properly. I can press them to check the status and it doesn't seem to interrupt them. If I turn them on, then it resets the timer from what I can tell. But I haven't fully tested it. I was just happy to see them discharging properly.

Thanks to all the replies and input. Seems as though I wasn't alone in this.

 

[GadgetGuy]

OhOh! Sounds like pressing to check the status to cancel the discharge may not work anymore. Now I'll have to actually turn them fully on, to reset them?
I don't want mine discharging, as leaving home with less than fully charged batteries is more dangerous! Finding your last battery with only 50-70% charge when you need 100% means missing shots!

 

[bobmyers]

OhOh! Sounds like pressing to check the status to cancel the discharge may not work anymore. Now I'll have to actually turn them fully on, to reset them?
I don't want mine discharging, as leaving home with less than fully charged batteries is more dangerous! Finding your last battery with only 50-70% charge when you need 100% means missing shots!

Maybe one of the "Moderator Experts" or @minsinger will weigh in on this.

 

[GadgetGuy]

Also, if anyone has any experience with the DJI Battery Hub, does it bypass the need to turn on any battery that is already 90%+ charged to top it off?

 

[phantom1972]

Mine work, set for 7 days. Don't poke the button.

After 9 days, say, you want to know how much it's discharged. If you push the button, is the timer now reset to 7 days, now with a partially discharged battery? Mind boggling.

I know, DJI GO is a rather complex application, there MUST be a big fat PDF manual. We just need to go RTFM! Where is it again? LOL

 

[GadgetGuy]

No matter what your settings and no matter what the app and the battery displays, if your battery has been sitting unused for a day or longer, always top it off before flying with it! Otherwise, you risk the battery shutoff in midflight! Only by topping off before flight are the cells properly rebalanced, which is critical to avoiding any cell ever reaching 2.99V under load, which will immediately shut off the battery, especially if in the air! Ask me how I know...