Are my batteries dead?

[IvanCorrea]

Hi guys, my Phantom 2 is not able to stay in the air for more than a minute before it gives me the low voltage error. I have only used my P2 for work, nothing extreme, and in very few occasions. I first bought my P2 with an extra battery. After a few flights I got an extra 2 just to be safe that I had enough juice for all my needs. I had my P2 stored for a few months in its case with all the batteries. I know that if you don't discharge them for long term storage your batteries might become defective. My question is, besides the 1 minute flights, is there any other way to know if my batteries are dead? I am attaching screenshots for the readings I'm getting from them.

Thanks again for your time.

 

[J Dot]

Hello Ivan,
Try to discharge each battery until the battery turns off ( 8% ) then fully charge it to 100%
And see if that helps. Usually when a battery fails, one cell ( #1/2/3 ) is usually quite a
Bit different than the other 2, yours all look pretty close.
Example:
Cell #1 3972 Mv
Cell #2 3964 Mv
Cell #3 2473 Mv

What happens is cell#3 will reach 0 Mv before the other 2 cells, and the smart battery will think
The whole battery is dead, and on the opposite side of the coin, when you charge, cell #'s 1 & 2
Will take a full charge before cell #3, so smart battery will think it is fully charged, when in
Fact it ain't!

I started working on a way to refresh bad batteries, but requires disassembly ( partly anyway )
Of the battery, once circuit board is reached, unplug it for 24 hours, and battery will be reset to 0 charges 100% life. But this does not fix individual cell Mvs. So this is where I quit, but if you remove each individual cell lead, and use a lipo balancer ( good one ) to bring each cell to 4000 Mv, once all 3 cells are balanced, reattach leads, reset battery ( as it should already be ) as we were balancing our cells, and your battery should be good again, IN THEORY! I never finished the project, but I'm sure it would work. The reset works beautifully, but balancing the cells, that is another story! ( I don't have the right equip to perform the task, and finally find a solution for bad batteries. ) if someone knows how to balance cells or has the means, I'd supply batteries, ready to balance. I'll do the disassembly, and prep work, just want to see if it will work. But that is as far as I got, before app / camera burnout stated happening, so I focused my attention at reverting apps.

But try discharge ( completely ) battery will turn itself off at 8% ( app might show 0 ) but that is not true.
Battery turns off at 8%. Then fully charge to 100% might help? And worth a try.

Batteries should be stored at 40-60% ( never full, or dead ) for future reference.

J Dot

 

[IvanCorrea]

Hello Ivan,
Try to discharge each battery until the battery turns off ( 8% ) then fully charge it to 100%
And see if that helps. Usually when a battery fails, one cell ( #1/2/3 ) is usually quite a
Bit different than the other 2, yours all look pretty close.
Example:
Cell #1 3972 Mv
Cell #2 3964 Mv
Cell #3 2473 Mv

What happens is cell#3 will reach 0 Mv before the other 2 cells, and the smart battery will think
The whole battery is dead, and on the opposite side of the coin, when you charge, cell #'s 1 & 2
Will take a full charge before cell #3, so smart battery will think it is fully charged, when in
Fact it ain't!

I started working on a way to refresh bad batteries, but requires disassembly ( partly anyway )
Of the battery, once circuit board is reached, unplug it for 24 hours, and battery will be reset to 0 charges 100% life. But this does not fix individual cell Mvs. So this is where I quit, but if you remove each individual cell lead, and use a lipo balancer ( good one ) to bring each cell to 4000 Mv, once all 3 cells are balanced, reattach leads, reset battery ( as it should already be ) as we were balancing our cells, and your battery should be good again, IN THEORY! I never finished the project, but I'm sure it would work. The reset works beautifully, but balancing the cells, that is another story! ( I don't have the right equip to perform the task, and finally find a solution for bad batteries. ) if someone knows how to balance cells or has the means, I'd supply batteries, ready to balance. I'll do the disassembly, and prep work, just want to see if it will work. But that is as far as I got, before app / camera burnout stated happening, so I focused my attention at reverting apps.

But try discharge ( completely ) battery will turn itself off at 8% ( app might show 0 ) but that is not true.
Battery turns off at 8%. Then fully charge to 100% might help? And worth a try.

Batteries should be stored at 40-60% ( never full, or dead ) for future reference.

J Dot

Thanks for taking the time to answer, J Dot. Everything you say makes a lot of sense to me. Today a used a fully charged battery and after a minute and a half the battery went to 1 blinking light. I took it off and tested again the charge on the battery and got three green lights.

I first thought I had a problem with the gimbal. I brought my batteries to 8% and then fully charged them to 100%. I even stored them in the fridge waiting for the weekend so I could tried them again. I took off the gimbal this time and started testing my batteries. 3 of them flew for more than 12 minutes. That made me think the problem was the gimbal as it was hard for me to believe that all 4 batteries died on me at the same time.

So I charged them again today, as I need to shoot some video on friday, took off the gimbal and tried my "newest" battery first. I got 1:40 of flight time, and got the low voltage alert. I brought it down, got green light again and flew for :30sec before the LV alarm went off again.

I will bring them to 8% again tonight, put them in the fridge, and try again tomorrow. All I need is a solid 15-20 min of footage.

I will look forward to try resetting my oldest battery as you suggested. Let's see what happens.

Thanks again

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using PhantomPilots mobile app

 

[Erised]

Storing them in the fridge (not freezer) in a sealed container with desiccant for storage is good just make sure they are at least 20c (68f) before you take off. I would store them at 50% in the fridge, take them out of the fridge and leave them in the container , wait till they are at room temp or they will condensate, remove from container then full charge to 100% then fly.

 

[IvanCorrea]

Can someone explain to me how come my P2 doesn't give me the low voltage alert when I'm draining the battery? I power the P2 and live it there until it goes to 8%. Don't know any other way of doing it. But i always wonder how come, when flying, I get the error message real quick and when draining the battery i takes la 30 minutes for it to fully drain.

Just curious.

thanks

 

[IvanCorrea]

Storing them in the fridge (not freezer) in a sealed container with desiccant for storage is good just make sure they are at least 20c (68f) before you take off. I would store them at 50% in the fridge, take them out of the fridge and leave them in the container , wait till they are at room temp or they will condensate, remove from container then full charge to 100% then fly.

Thanks for your response, Erised. I do put them in the fridge.

 

[J Dot]

Simple,
It is not under a LOAD!
With the phantom on, it uses very little load on battery, once you start those motors, the load becomes very heavy, causing the low Mv cell to discharge rapidly, causing low voltage alarm. I believe the alarm only sounds when motors are running, if they are off, no alarm, but you will get the red lights. ( but I'm not 100% sure ) I've never gotten an alarm with motors off. Only red lights. I use a phantom angel to discharge my batteries, it works great. Hope this helps.

J Dot

 

[jason]

Hi guys, my Phantom 2 is not able to stay in the air for more than a minute before it gives me the low voltage error. I have only used my P2 for work, nothing extreme, and in very few occasions. I first bought my P2 with an extra battery. After a few flights I got an extra 2 just to be safe that I had enough juice for all my needs. I had my P2 stored for a few months in its case with all the batteries. I know that if you don't discharge them for long term storage your batteries might become defective. My question is, besides the 1 minute flights, is there any other way to know if my batteries are dead? I am attaching screenshots for the readings I'm getting from them.

Thanks again for your time.

Sound as though you haven't been your battery properly at 50% when not using them after several days. The four photos you posted really do not the true story of the battery condition. Cell voltage levels are not as important as the current levels as you can see in these two photos.

Lucky if this battery would keep the P2 in the air more then 6 minutes. If you are using FPV you can monitor only the voltage level and when it reaches 10.6 v you be ready to land your craft before it falls out of the sky.

So my advice is to charging those battery fully then check them using your P2 software and be aware of of the current levels. This battery was 100 feet in the air when I noticed the voltage level was at 10.6 volts at which time I landed it quickly.

 

[IvanCorrea]

Sound as though you haven't been your battery properly at 50% when not using them after several days. The four photos you posted really do not the true story of the battery condition. Cell voltage levels are not as important as the current levels as you can see in these two photos.
View attachment 68894 View attachment 68893

Lucky if this battery would keep the P2 in the air more then 6 minutes. If you are using FPV you can monitor only the voltage level and when it reaches 10.6 v you be ready to land your craft before it falls out of the sky.

So my advice is to charging those battery fully then check them using your P2 software and be aware of of the current levels. This battery was 100 feet in the air when I noticed the voltage level was at 10.6 volts at which time I landed it quickly.
View attachment 68897

Thanks for your reply, Jason. Last night I was able to drain my batteries to 8% so I can test them today. I took a screenshot of the P2 software when they were @ 8% and I will take another screenshot when they're fully charged at 100%. I hope it works because I really need them on friday.

 

[jason]

Thanks for your reply, Jason. Last night I was able to drain my batteries to 8% so I can test them today. I took a screenshot of the P2 software when they were @ 8% and I will take another screenshot when they're fully charged at 100%. I hope it works because I really need them on friday.

Hope it works out ok but just remember to store them properly when not in use.