Battery Hibernation?!

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Hey there. I bought my wife's Phantom 3 Standard - she had NEVER used it (a Christmas present) and it has sat around for 15 months collecting dust. Now that the thing is out of the box, I am having trouble getting the batteries charged up. There are 3 (she bought a couple spares). With 2 of them, there is one light bar that lights at the bottom and the circle button is red when you push it. Plugged into the charger the 4 lights blink in succession a few time, the circle button is still red and then NOTHING. All lights off. I have let it charge for 12 hours and no change. Same status. The remaining battery is just plain dead. No lights at all. Plugged for hours & hours into the charger - no change. I have tried a few of the solutions I found in this forum to wake the battery up, but it doesn't make a difference. Please advise. I don't really want to hear that all 3 batteries are worthless now. Some other advice would be better. Thanks!
 
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Maybe this wil help:

Battery Hibernation mode:

It is important NOT to alter the sequence:

1. Switch on battery - ignore what happens to lights etc.
2. LEAVE IT ALONE for at least 5 minutes.
3. Do NOT touch power button - plug into DJI charger
4. LEAVE IT ALONE.. it may be hours before it wakes up ... DON'T TOUCH IT !

You need a DJI charger for this - it's the only time a specific charger is required in fact ... you cannot use any 3rd party charger.

The secret is to NOT touch the power button after point 1), if you do, you need to put the battery away for a while, then start again.
 
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I recently did some explanation on how the phantom batteries work, might be useful:
 
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Hi All
I have 2 batteries one almost new ,been used once and put away . the other been used many times, put away same time and runs like clockwork (no jokes about the drone being wind up)
The new battery is dead no lights, dead. its so new there are no marks on the copper plug. Ive read all the comments on everysite, tried everything but dead. I did see a comment about "reset" or is this another expression for bring out of hibernation? also read put 3v charge in (somehow) car battery charger ?
Like the above comments I'd like to think this is not a £76 diseased battery.

Thanks in anticipation and happy Christmas
 
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It would seem you haven't read my original post.See copy below. Do you write sarcastic posts to everyone? I was posting about a battery not how to go back to school.

Hi All
I have 2 batteries one almost new ,been used once and put away . the other been used many times, put away same time and runs like clockwork (no jokes about the drone being wind up)
The new battery is dead no lights, dead. its so new there are no marks on the copper plug. Ive read all the comments on everysite, tried everything but dead. I did see a comment about "reset" or is this another expression for bring out of hibernation? also read put 3v charge in (somehow) car battery charger ?
Like the above comments I'd like to think this is not a £76 diseased battery.

Thanks in anticipation and happy Christmas
 
We've seen posts like this many times. When the dust settles, the result is almost always the same, which is to say the battery is completely dead. See post #2. Maybe 2% of the time, a battery can be brought back, but it's extremely rare. Sorry for your loss.

Merry Christmas.
 
Do you write sarcastic posts to everyone? I was posting about a battery not how to go back to school.
For sarcasm - you can judge that yourself, these other posts are public.
Though the situation suggests I was not sarcastic enough.

Anyway, the answer:
1. Try trickle charging for a day, that's the only possible non-invasive recovery
2. Open and measure then charge the cells directly using LiPo charger, skipping BMS; if measured below 3V on any cell, you can be sure PF mode was triggered in the BMS
3. Communicate through SMBus using SBS v1.1 commands; for Phantoms you have to solder to test pads inside

For reset - there is an SBS command for that. It may help if the battery has PF flag storing disabled. Some Phantom batteries do. Plus you can desolder and re-solder the cells.
For hibernation - how it works, and how to enter/leave the state, is best described in BMS chip spec. The spec file name is mentioned here. Though for some reason there's no link to it. But I was able to find the PDF no problem with only the file name. Also all similar chips from TI seem to have the same description for hibernation.

I suspect this will be my last post in this thread, hopefully someone else will answer any follow ups.

When the dust settles, the result is almost always the same, which is to say the battery is completely dead.
Oh, I'm always recovering overdischarged batteries. But I never use then for flying! I'm marking them with "X" or something, and use only as power bank or for testing, repairs and messing with firmware - while they're on the ground.

These batteries act normally (besides having capacity decreased, depending on how long they were in that state), but there is always some degradation inside. Under a high stress, they may overheat.

Still, if you buy a power bank, the cells inside will be of much lower quality - power banks don't have to provide such a high output, so they use lower grade cells, even the expensive ones. This means even a deteriorated drone battery makes a power bank which is better than anything you can buy.
 
For sarcasm - you can judge that yourself, these other posts are public.
Though the situation suggests I was not sarcastic enough.

Anyway, the answer:
1. Try trickle charging for a day, that's the only possible non-invasive recovery
2. Open and measure then charge the cells directly using LiPo charger, skipping BMS; if measured below 3V on any cell, you can be sure PF mode was triggered in the BMS
3. Communicate through SMBus using SBS v1.1 commands; for Phantoms you have to solder to test pads inside

For reset - there is an SBS command for that. It may help if the battery has PF flag storing disabled. Some Phantom batteries do. Plus you can desolder and re-solder the cells.
For hibernation - how it works, and how to enter/leave the state, is best described in BMS chip spec. The spec file name is mentioned here. Though for some reason there's no link to it. But I was able to find the PDF no problem with only the file name. Also all similar chips from TI seem to have the same description for hibernation.

I suspect this will be my last post in this thread, hopefully someone else will answer any follow ups.


Oh, I'm always recovering overdischarged batteries. But I never use then for flying! I'm marking them with "X" or something, and use only as power bank or for testing, repairs and messing with firmware - while they're on the ground.

These batteries act normally (besides having capacity decreased, depending on how long they were in that state), but there is always some degradation inside. Under a high stress, they may overheat.

Still, if you buy a power bank, the cells inside will be of much lower quality - power banks don't have to provide such a high output, so they use lower grade cells, even the expensive ones. This means even a deteriorated drone battery makes a power bank which is better than anything you can buy.
Thanks ,merry Christmas
 

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