Another Dead Battery

[Iflynaza]

This may sound obvious but when you get your new drone make sure to fully charge the batterys I was unlucky and there was a power cut when charging a new battery and the not so smart battery decided that it had reached full charge and now the capacity is a lot lower than the stated 4480mah.
Good luck with the new bird.

 

[Daniel777]

I always charge my P4p and RC together - that's how the charger is designed to be used.

 

[AndrewCCM]

I bought a P4P from B&H Photo and it came with a spare battery. The included battery that was shipped inside the drone was DOA. Would blink a few times and turn off while charging (over and over). B&H referred me to a 3rd party that handles their aerial devices. They are exchanging the battery. Gave me prepaid label and I mailed it off last week. Hope to receive the new one soon. In the meantime, I did have the free extra that was included and I went ahead and bought a 3rd party lower w/h as a spare. They both worked great on the maiden flight. Sure seems DJI has a terrible track record with their batteries.

 

[u000gbk]

I did read the manual and didn't find any verbiage about not charging both the battery and remote at the same time. I have found a substantial number of comments on various sites referring to battery issues dating back at least a year. When I researched this particular drone I did read some comments about battery problems, but I assumed they were incidental and unfortunately, assumed they would have remedied the problem by now.

I have charged BOTH the battery & the remote control simultaneously many times and never had any issues. It works just fine. With both items being charged it may charge the battery a tad slower but the remote controller usually reaches full charge considerably ahead of the battery and when it does, the battery then gets "full-power" charging, so in the long run it is almost the same time frame as just charging the battery by itself.

 

[Flymeaway]

I always charge my P4p and RC together - that's how the charger is designed to be used.

I agree...

 

[Flymeaway]

Sure seems DJI has a terrible track record with their batteries.

Yes....shouldn't be the case

 

[Flymeaway]

I have charged BOTH the battery & the remote control simultaneously many times

When I received the replacement P4P I also charged them together without an issue. Yeah...the charger is designed to charge both units.

 

[Helihover]

You guys are funny

Straight from the horses mouth.

 

[Helihover]

Boy,... It got awfully quiet around here. I'll try and break this down a bit.

The biggest flaw on internet forum is majority rule. Example: 2 people make a comment about how they do things. One person states a fact or even just some common knowledge disputing the first 2. Then 3 people reply back agreeing with the first 2 because they had a similar experience. Then the 5th, 6th, etc, read that everybody is doing it, so it must be the right way, forgetting the whole time the single post that was actually fact. It then snowballs from there and before you know it, false internet information becomes a false fact. Who's going to believe (especially someone new to the game) one person over ten? Majority Rules.

Now, for those of you that don't understand the way a lipo charges, I'll explain in a general, basic way. The charger will measure resistance and base output from the measured resistance. As the battery charges, less and less output (power, amps, etc.) are output to the battery. A battery at 40% might receive the full output of 100 watts (P4 charger rating) while a battery at 90% might only receive say, 20% of the available output. If your controller is "dead" and needing a charge and your flight battery is "dead" needing a charge and you hook both up at the same time the charger will be putting out 100% of its capacity. Just like it would with 1, "dead" flight battery. The problem lies with the time taken to charge 2 vs. 1. By charging 2 "dead" batteries your doubling the time the charger is staying in this 100% range. If the charger runs at 100% for 40 minutes on 1 "dead" battery, the charger is going to run at 100% for 80 minutes on 2 "dead" batteries. These are all round about figures to give you guys a general idea. Your simply prolonging the stress on the charger by charging 2 at the same time. In reality, it is totally unnecessary to charge 2 at the same time as you gain nothing. Its not faster or slower, and you still have to plug them in. Its impossible for it to be faster as the charger is only capable of its max output.

Some of you will ask, why did DJI make the charger this way. Simple, cost. It is a lot more cost efficient to manufacture one charger with two dongles than it is to manufacture two chargers and two dongles.

 

[GadgetGuy]

Running the battery to anywhere near 0% will do permanent damage to the battery.

If 0% were truly 0%, that would be true. It isn't. It's an arbitrary safety cutoff that DJI establishes, while the voltage still remains well above critical voltage levels.

 

[GadgetGuy]

Transferring files with the drone on? Why not remove the SD card to transfer the files? It's a lot faster and more convenient.

Running a battery below 25% isn't advised to keep batteries healthy. You should only do that when you're in trouble, trying to get back to home in the wind, etc. Don't make a practice of below 25% or think it's OK to deplete down to 5%, or much worse 0% to the point where the battery automatically shuts down. Unhealthy battery practices may yield less than the normal 200 charges. If you do have to run the battery down below 25%, don't leave it below 25% overnight, charge it up to at least 60% immediately so it's stored at an optimal level.

DJI batteries can be regularly run down to DJI's 0% without any damage to the health of the battery. At worst, the battery's maximum flight time may see some minor degradation. Both DirtyBum and I can attest to that from personal experience! The 0% is NOT full battery exhaustion. It is DJI's arbitrary point beyond which they will not let you fly with the battery at that voltage level. 10% remaining on the P4P is still 3.6V per cell!

 

[flaviove]

Do not charge the battery and RC at the same time. My brother did it and broke his charger. He had to buy another one.

 

[Mark The Droner]

Did your brother have a P3 or a P4?

 

[flaviove]

He has a P4.

Did your brother have a P3 or a P4?

 

[GadgetGuy]

Do not charge the battery and RC at the same time. My brother did it and broke his charger. He had to buy another one.

There is really no need to anyway. The battery charges in 75 minutes if fully depleted, and the RC charge lasts for at least 10 full batteries. The RC does not require topping off after every flight! It won't even drop to 3 LED's until the 4th or 5th flight. Do it after the battery is charged, and only when at least one of the 4 white LED's is flashing!

 

[John Locke]

Do not charge the battery and RC at the same time. My brother did it and broke his charger. He had to buy another one.

I have charged both at the same time for 2.5yr now, never had an issue on my P3P, P4, P4P and Mavic. Your brother had a defective charger, which is rare, but it can happen. Even the 90W DJI car charger can support charging both at the same time, but it's rare that you'd need to do that.

 

[Helihover]

I have charged both at the same time for 2.5yr now, never had an issue on my P3P, P4, P4P and Mavic. Your brother had a defective charger, which is rare, but it can happen. Even the 90W DJI car charger can support charging both at the same time, but it's rare that you'd need to do that.

I take it you skipped over post #48. Or #49 for that matter

 

[John Locke]

If the charger runs at 100% for 40 minutes on 1 "dead" battery, the charger is going to run at 100% for 80 minutes on 2 "dead" batteries. These are all round about figures to give you guys a general idea. Your simply prolonging the stress on the charger by charging 2 at the same time. In reality, it is totally unnecessary to charge 2 at the same time as you gain nothing. Its not faster or slower, and you still have to plug them in. Its impossible for it to be faster as the charger is only capable of its max output.

This is correct, the only downside to charging both at the same time is each battery is charged at a slower right, taking longer, due to less current to each battery. The convenience of dual charging is plugging them in at the same time. Then after you're done with dinner both batteries are charged, ready to store away for the next flight. A LiPo power supply will only put out what it's rated at, no more. It doesn't know if it's going to one battery or two, when charge two depleted batteries, it's simply putting out it's full power, based on the sensed voltage level, which is sensed by the battery circuitry in the RC, and in the intelligent flight battery, the so-called smarts. The flight battery has more smarts than the RC battery, since flight batteries are more important and work much harder, and cycled more times.

It's important to know the flight batteries, if accidentally left on overnight they will automatically turn off when they reach 3.0V to protect the battery. If the RC battery is left on accidentally the RC will beep at you after a while, but the battery will continue discharge. I don't think the RC will automatically shuts off at 3.0V/cell like the flight batteries, which may be why some people report problems with batteries failing in the RC. I'm wondering how many of those that report RC battery problems had accidentally left the RC on long enough to run the battery totally dead.

It's also interesting to know, there are a lot of reports of brand new flight batteries that won't take a charge. The batteries are actually discharge to a state where the smarts won't allow the battery to charge. If you take the battery apart (which is a pain) and you physically bypass the smarts and put a charge directly to the battery, the battery cells will charge up. If you put a just a short charge into the battery, say 20 minute worth, you can then reassemble the battery and it will charge like normal and usually have a long and health life. There is a guy on Ebay that sells new batteries like this that won't take a charge for like $35/ea. If you a have the skill set and patience to disassemble the battery and perform a "manual charge" on the cells, you can get some bargain deals on used/new batteries. I think the seller even provides YT video to show the "jump start" process, but I may be wrong.

 

[Helihover]

This is correct, the only downside to charging both at the same time is each battery is charged at a slower right, taking longer, due to less current to each battery. The convenience of dual charging is plugging them in at the same time. Then after you're done with dinner both batteries are charged, ready to store away for the next flight. A LiPo power supply will only put out what it's rated at, no more. It doesn't know if it's going to one battery or two, when charge two depleted batteries, it's simply putting out it's full power, based on the sensed voltage level, which is sensed by the battery circuitry in the RC, and in the intelligent flight battery, the so-called smarts. The flight battery has more smarts than the RC battery, since flight batteries are more important and work much harder, and cycled more times.

It's important to know the flight batteries, if accidentally left on overnight they will automatically turn off when they reach 3.0V to protect the battery. If the RC battery is left on accidentally the RC will beep at you after a while, but the battery will continue discharge. I don't think the RC will automatically shuts off at 3.0V/cell like the flight batteries, which may be why some people report problems with batteries failing in the RC. I'm wondering how many of those that report RC battery problems had accidentally left the RC on long enough to run the battery totally dead.

It's also interesting to know, there are a lot of reports of brand new flight batteries that won't take a charge. The batteries are actually discharge to a state where the smarts won't allow the battery to charge. If you take the battery apart (which is a pain) and you physically bypass the smarts and put a charge directly to the battery, the battery cells will charge up. If you put a just a short charge into the battery, say 20 minute worth, you can then reassemble the battery and it will charge like normal and usually have a long and health life. There is a guy on Ebay that sells new batteries like this that won't take a charge for like $35/ea. If you a have the skill set and patience to disassemble the battery and perform a "manual charge" on the cells, you can get some bargain deals on used/new batteries. I think the seller even provides YT video to show the "jump start" process, but I may be wrong.

The whole point is the length of time taken to charge 2 vs. 1. You are keeping the charger in its 100% output stage a lot longer than you would charging one at a time. Thats the downside, not the fact that it takes longer.

Im not saying charging 2 at the same time won't work. It does. Your just stressing the charger longer and doing something that is not recommended by the manufacture. Why you would you do something the manufacture doesn't recommend?

 

[John Locke]

The whole point is the length of time taken to charge 2 vs. 1. You are keeping the charger in its 100% output stage a lot longer than you would charging one at a time. Thats the downside, not the fact that it takes longer.

Im not saying charging 2 at the same time won't work. It does. Your just stressing the charger longer and doing something that is not recommended by the manufacture. Why you would you do something the manufacture doesn't recommend?

There are some things DJI recommends that I disregard as wrong. This is one of them. If you recall, the P3A had a 55W charger. That whole "don't charge both at once" started with that charger, yet they said thing with the P3P 100W charger, and it's the same flight battery. Go figure. DJI's communications has never been their strong point on technical matters, and their online chat and phone support for technical matters is atrocious, often being totally wrong, and often ignorant about their own products. I think they put novices on the phones and chat, employees that I think have never even flow their craft before.

Charging both RC and flight batteries with the DJI 100W charger works, always has. This convenience is good to know that there's no harm in it. You guys can do whatever you want.