BATTERY ISSUES (Early Autoland)??? POST HERE

[WessexWyvern]

Re: 25%-40% Battery Warning and Auto Descend??

I had an auto land at 40% yesterday. What I found strange us that i couldn't over ride it. After the auto land sequence finished I took back control and flew for a few more mins without a problem so I'm not sure if this is the same problem that everyone else is having or a one off glitch. Hold off from adding my name to the list for the moment while I do more testing but I thought I'd just add to the thread to make sure it stays active.

This is what is happening to mine. It goes into auto land at around 35%-40% (can't over ride) and then after it lands the lights go back to green and i can take off again, but now mine flies for only about 10 seconds before the lights go red and starts to auto land again. Please watch yours and report back if you continue to see this behavior.

Did this happen to all your batteries at once or did it happen to them at different points in time?

I've just tested another battery all the way down to 22% without any problems ?

 

[Double-D]

Re: 25%-40% Battery Warning and Auto Descend??

Well you can add me to the list.
Only had my Vision+ for about a month. Today I was totally surprised when I saw the low battery warning on the app at 53%. It flickered on and off a few times before staying on at 51%. It was over water so headed straight for home. Not sure when auto land initiated as I noticed the percentage dropping strangely rapidly but was around 40% which it fell to very fast. By the time I landed it was on 3%. I turned it off immediately rushed inside to look at the battery status on the assistant software and it read 1%.

Vision+
Firmware - 3.04
Warning levels - 30%/15% default
Discharged - 28 times
Battery life - 91%
Auto land initiated - 40%
Flight condition - slow and calm

Later I charged it up to 62% and flew again.
Low battery warning @ 33%
Auto land initiated @ 29%
Power cycled and lifted off and flew for about 1 min then auto landed again.

As per the Dji guidelines I did a thorough discharge at 20 cycles.
I do charge my batteries 100% straight away after flight (after reading the posts I'm not sure if that's a Good or bad thing) but I use them almost every day only missing the odd day due to weather.
currently charging this battery from 29% and will test again tomorrow.

Let's get to the bottom of this issue guys.

 

[ianwood]

Re: 25%-40% Battery Warning and Auto Descend??

Shartiza, good job pulling this together. Can you post up a summary for me here: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=16254 and I'll add it to the complete list of defect tracking.

I am curious if this is strictly a voltage issue where the low voltage triggers the auto-land. We need some OSD recordings. I haven't seen this yet but I record OSD on almost all flights in case I do experience something like this.

Does switching to attitude and back take you out of auto-land assuming the voltage is above the minimum level? That might help if it is a transient dip in voltage that recovers quickly.

 

[Double-D]

Re: 25%-40% Battery Warning and Auto Descend??

ATT and back did not change anything for me.

 

[wkf94025]

Re: 25%-40% Battery Warning and Auto Descend??

Shartiza, good job pulling this together. Can you post up a summary for me here: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=16254 and I'll add it to the complete list of defect tracking.

I am curious if this is strictly a voltage issue where the low voltage triggers the auto-land. We need some OSD recordings. I haven't seen this yet but I record OSD on almost all flights in case I do experience something like this.

Does switching to attitude and back take you out of auto-land assuming the voltage is above the minimum level? That might help if it is a transient dip in voltage that recovers quickly.

I have plenty of DVR'd flights with iOSD overlay and narration showing auto-landing happening long before 15% left. Just need to find the time to pull a few together. In a perfect world, I would have a second camera looking over my shoulder as evidence that it's landing on its own with 30% to 50% battery left, and that it takes full left stick forward to barely maintain altitude. For all intents and purposes, it's flight over once "HAL decides its time to close the pod bay doors".

Kelly

 

[2011ss]

Re: 25%-40% Battery Warning and Auto Descend??

Hi all. First time poster here.

I have this problem. I will post batt specs later tonight. I dont think it even has 25 cycles on it, maybe only 20. I can get the led flshing and autoland anywhere from 98% to 30%. It will also "flip" back and forth" during flight between auto land and full control.

Overall story. Firm 1.08 , naza mode. Started to autoland at any batt level. Will sometime go into auto land, start to land, then flips back to normal control and all is fine. Then it can happen again, maybe let me have control again, maybe actually land and require a power cycle to clear error. Then its fine and goes back up. SO, i updated all firmware to the latest and greatest. No help and same problems exactly.

I first thought it was because i was in NAZA mode because it first started to happen the day i switched to naza mode.

I still thinks its the firmware even though it started before the update.

Let me know what ya think.......this is killing me. It NO FUN TO FLY right now

 

[wkf94025]

Re: 25%-40% Battery Warning and Auto Descend??

I tend to agree that it's likely firmware, but the logic has been in there for a while, and it's the fact that a bunch of us are now getting into the dozens of flights on some of these new batteries that have only been in the market for 6 months.

See my comments on the other topic regarding pre-mature auto-landing:
http://www.phantompilots.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=18044

Kelly

 

[TheEngineer]

Battery Issue - Auto Descend at 75%

I have three Phantom 2 batteries that were previously all working wonderfully. After having one slide out during a change and fall about 1 foot, the battery now sends the craft into auto descent at 75%. Both the LEDs on the battery and the iOSD Mini indicate more than sufficient battery life. Additionally, the battery sometimes seems to kick back on and I regain control of the craft (auto descent stops). Anyone else experienced this? It's almost as if I'm losing contact with 2 of the 3 cells. Anyone opened one of these batteries? Even though this one was dropped 1 foot, the casing shows no dents or damage.

 

[N017RW]

Re: Battery Issue - Auto Descend at 75%

I have three Phantom 2 batteries that were previously all working wonderfully. After having one slide out during a change and fall about 1 foot, the battery now sends the craft into auto descent at 75%. Both the LEDs on the battery and the iOSD Mini indicate more than sufficient battery life. Additionally, the battery sometimes seems to kick back on and I regain control of the craft (auto descent stops). Anyone else experienced this? It's almost as if I'm losing contact with 2 of the 3 cells. Anyone opened one of these batteries? Even though this one was dropped 1 foot, the casing shows no dents or damage.

Dis-assembly video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlOmQbSZ_Rk


I have not watched it but I have seen still photos elsewhere on the web.

 

[2011ss]

Re: 25%-40% Battery Warning and Auto Descend??

Opops. I for got a small bit of info. Before upgrading from 1.08, i would hook up the quad to the PC, it was telling me that the batt was NOT a dji intelligent batt, but of course it was. After updating to current firmware THAT error went away.

I had to put that in there

 

[shartlza]

Re: 25%-40% Battery Warning and Auto Descend??

Shartiza, good job pulling this together. Can you post up a summary for me here: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=16254 and I'll add it to the complete list of defect tracking.

I am curious if this is strictly a voltage issue where the low voltage triggers the auto-land. We need some OSD recordings. I haven't seen this yet but I record OSD on almost all flights in case I do experience something like this.

Does switching to attitude and back take you out of auto-land assuming the voltage is above the minimum level? That might help if it is a transient dip in voltage that recovers quickly.

Done and thanks by the way. I tried to replicate what you did with the compass error posts. I did link to this post so anyone that is having this issue and has not voice it, can do it here and they can post all their stats (updated list below). Just to let you know I have contacted Terry about this, through PM on this board, and I have not heard anything from him. Do you know another contact of someone that is more responsive?

 

[ianwood]

Re: 25%-40% Battery Warning and Auto Descend??

Autoland is a voltage and not a percentage, right?

And has anyone seen a corresponding dip in voltage at the time the autoland took place? (An OSD recording would be great.) If the voltage dips suddenly, it's a defect in the battery and/or the primary power connectors. If not, it is a defect of the controller logic.

Also, I think holding the left stick all the way down will induce autoland as well.

As for getting a response, it's not so easy. I have the same issue.

 

[wkf94025]

Re: 25%-40% Battery Warning and Auto Descend??

FWIW, yesterday I saw my P2 switch in and out of auto-land with corresponding tail lights going between red and green, with iOSD showing 34%-35%. Battery % wasn't' jumpy by more than +/-1%. I don't recall voltage displayed, but have the flight on DVR. Once it was solidly in 34% it went into descent atabout 0.4 M/sec. So tail lights, descent rate, and iOSD battery % were all in synch as battery slowly drained.

Kelly

 

[shartlza]

Re: 25%-40% Battery Warning and Auto Descend??

Autoland is a voltage and not a percentage, right?

And has anyone seen a corresponding dip in voltage at the time the autoland took place? (An OSD recording would be great.) If the voltage dips suddenly, it's a defect in the battery and/or the primary power connectors. If not, it is a defect of the controller logic.

Also, I think holding the left stick all the way down will induce autoland as well.

As for getting a response, it's not so easy. I have the same issue.

I don't know what Autoland goes off of. If it goes off of voltage, a battery would have to dip to around 10.6-10.7 volts to get to 15%. I would be curious to see a OSD recording on this as well. I would like to see what the voltage and % of battery is when it goes into Autoland. I would take alot of sag in the battery to go to 15% if the battery was at 30% or greater.

I don't know if it is possible, but when the battery voltage gets kind of low or sags (when throttling up) I wonder if the contact pins loose signal and think it is a "Non DJI Battery" and cause it to Autoland. I am also wondering if this is more prominent in the older batteries with the smaller pin contact area. I noticed on my older battery, that is have the issue, the 2 contact pin pads are just small circles and on my new battery the contact pads take up the whole area.

Also there is no way out of Autoland until you land, then you can stop motors and the battery warning will go away and you can take off again. In my case i can only take off for another 10 seconds before the thing Autolands again.

 

[ianwood]

Re: 25%-40% Battery Warning and Auto Descend??

I think it's 10.7 volts. Kelly, that OSD video would be helpful. If anyone has an OSD Mark II, send me any DAT file that has one of these premature autoland events. I can extract the voltages for the battery and even the individual cells and maybe find the trigger event.

As for the I2C pins to the battery, they're low voltage and should not be impacted by a slight dip in voltage. And if they do lose physical contact, the Phantom should still continue flying. I think before fw1.08, it actually killed the motors mid flight! :shock:

 

[shartlza]

Re: 25%-40% Battery Warning and Auto Descend??

FWIW, yesterday I saw my P2 switch in and out of auto-land with corresponding tail lights going between red and green, with iOSD showing 34%-35%. Battery % wasn't' jumpy by more than +/-1%. I don't recall voltage displayed, but have the flight on DVR. Once it was solidly in 34% it went into descent atabout 0.4 M/sec. So tail lights, descent rate, and iOSD battery % were all in synch as battery slowly drained.

Kelly

Can you show us your DVR recording? Your voltage @ 34%-35% should be around 10.9-11.0 volts. If it goes into Autolanding at that level this has to be an issue in the Autoland firmware logic.

The only thing I can think of is maybe the logic looks at each individual cell and if one goes to a 15% level (around 3.5 volts) then it would go into Autoland. With a battery at 35% that would put the other 2 cells on average at 3.75 volt, so that would be 250 mV sage in one cell or 33%. On average at rest the max i see in between cells is 30 mV or 4%. One cell sagging @ 35% worse than the others would be a sign of a bad cell, ie. a bad battery.

 

[shartlza]

Re: Battery Issue - Auto Descend at 75%

I have three Phantom 2 batteries that were previously all working wonderfully. After having one slide out during a change and fall about 1 foot, the battery now sends the craft into auto descent at 75%. Both the LEDs on the battery and the iOSD Mini indicate more than sufficient battery life. Additionally, the battery sometimes seems to kick back on and I regain control of the craft (auto descent stops). Anyone else experienced this? It's almost as if I'm losing contact with 2 of the 3 cells. Anyone opened one of these batteries? Even though this one was dropped 1 foot, the casing shows no dents or damage.

I don't know if yours is related to the fall, but there are other people seeing this issue with perfectly fine battery. If you are seeing this on what seem to be a perfectly fine battery check out this post http://www.phantompilots.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=17324 and place some stats on your battery (there is a chart of page 6).

 

[wkf94025]

Re: 25%-40% Battery Warning and Auto Descend??

On the road to Tahoe for a Phantom-free weekend. I believe I have DVR footage with me on laptop with me. If not, early next week.

Kelly

 

[wkf94025]

Re: 25%-40% Battery Warning and Auto Descend??

Just reviewed my DVR footage from yesterday. Ninety excellent seconds showing stable hover at 42%/11.0v, then slight sag to 10.9v as I climb up 30m quickly, then hover and voltage recovers from climb, then repeat climb/sag/recover, then flirting between autoland and hover until full autoland mode at 35% and 10.9v. Battery icon solld when descent is 0m/sec, and flashes low battery symbol when autolanding at approximately 0.4m/sec. Point being system apparently knows it is autolanding. Sag obvious but shallow (0.1v) and unlikely to be source of false landing trigger.

I will upload this tonight.

Kelly

 

[ElGuano]

Re: 25%-40% Battery Warning and Auto Descend??

Autoland is a voltage and not a percentage, right?

IIRC it's both.

You can set the autoland percentage between 12-20%. The percentage is based off the current counter recorded in the smart battery from last charge. However, there's also the "hidden" autoland that's triggered when you hit 10.65v. I think you already know about that one. That one can't be changed.