Battery wouldn’t turn on after flight

[Chrislaf]

I have a generic P3 battery that has less than 100 flights on it that wouldn’t turn on the next day after a flight the previous night. The flight ended with it at 25%. When it was on the DJI multi charger it just briefly turned on then shut off. I left it on the charger for 4 - 6 hours and it finally charged up and turns on. Any idea what caused this? Seems to be working fine now.

Chris

 

[captainmilehigh]

I have a generic P3 battery that has less than 100 flights on it that wouldn’t turn on the next day after a flight the previous night. The flight ended with it at 25%. When it was on the DJI multi charger it just briefly turned on then shut off. I left it on the charger for 4 - 6 hours and it finally charged up and turns on. Any idea what caused this? Seems to be working fine now.

Chris

Maybe the charger thought the battery temp was 'hot' and delayed charging startup. Just a guess.

 

[Chrislaf]

Maybe the charger thought the battery temp was 'hot' and delayed charging startup. Just a guess.

Thanks for your reply. The battery was completely cooled. I didn’t put it on the charger until the next day after the fight.

Chris

 

[RodPad]

Does "generic" mean not an official DJI battery?

Rod ..

 

[Chrislaf]

Yes.

 

[captainmilehigh]

Thanks for your reply. The battery was completely cooled. I didn’t put it on the charger until the next day after the fight.

Chris

Ok, just a guess anyway. I haven't had very good luck with aftermarket non-DJI batteries, so I bite the bullet and pay for OEM DJI batteries. None of them have ever failed me, although a few have been 'squeezed' a bit returning from a distance flight.

 

[Chrislaf]

Ok, just a guess anyway. I haven't had very good luck with aftermarket non-DJI batteries, so I bite the bullet and pay for OEM DJI batteries. None of them have ever failed me, although a few have been 'squeezed' a bit returning from a distance flight.

I have never had a problem with aftermarket batteries especially the PowerExtra brand. I have a number of PowerExtra batteries that have close to 200 charge cycles which are now retired just because of the high cycles. They are still working fine, I just don’t want to take any chances since the charging capacity has reduced into the 60 - 70% range.

The problem battery was a FlyHi one which I won’t buy again.

I haven’t been able to buy DJI ones for a while unless used and I have know way of knowing how they were treated.

Chris

 

[captainmilehigh]

I have never had a problem with aftermarket batteries especially the PowerExtra brand. I have a number of PowerExtra batteries that have close to 200 charge cycles which are now retired just because of the high cycles. They are still working fine, I just don’t want to take any chances since the charging capacity has reduced into the 60 - 70% range.

The problem battery was a FlyHi one which I won’t buy again.

I haven’t been able to buy DJI ones for a while unless used and I have know way of knowing how they were treated.

Chris

Yep, I've heard the Power-Extra brand is pretty good, so I may need to rely on them in the future. Until then, I will baby my DJI OEM batteries a while longer.

 

[Mark The Droner]

This thread reminds me of my wife's Ember coffee cup. It's got a rechargeable lithium battery in it. It's like 8 years old. In the beginning, everything was perfect. The last couple years, it is becoming more and more difficult to charge. You put the cup on the charger and nothing happens. The contacts are good, everything is fine, but the charger lamp on the cup is not lit. Sometimes it will charge right away, sometimes not. I suspect it has its best chance to charge right away when it the battery has more power in it. If she depletes the battery too much, it is very reluctant to begin charging right away. So after a minute of trying to make sure the contacts are good, we just leave it alone on the charger. Several hours later, it's still not charging. But often, if we reposition it on the charger, it will finally begin charging. So was it quietly trickle charging during those hours? Not sure. It also could be that it's more apt to charge a little later in the day when the ambient temp is warmer. Bottom line is it's an old battery and it's wearing out.

 

[Chrislaf]

You are probably right. It’s just over 4 years old. I guess I’m spoiled, my 3 other PowerExtra batteries lasted 7 years before I retired them.

Chris

 

[quaddamage]

The Phantom 3 battery board has Texas Instruments BQ30Z55 Battery Management System (BMS) chip on it.

That chip is a non-public version of BQ30Z554, and is basically identical. So you can check BQ30Z554 specification (available in the link under chip model) to see how many checks and reason for disabling the battery are there. A lot. They include:
* Temperature sensor near cells being too hot
* Temperature sensor near the enabling MOSFET transistors being too hot
* Computed temperature based on recent power draw being too high
* Cells being too much out of balance
* Cells having voltage outside of configured bounds
* Cells having compensated voltage out of another set of bounds (compensated for running batteries to extrapolate their expected voltage without load)
* Cells drawing or charging with too high current
* The battery board operating outside of expected parameters, like a MOSFET giving incorrect resistance
* Short circuit protections, watchdog protections and a lot more - see the "Protections" chapter in "Technical Reference" document
* The battery entered Permanent Failure state (and there's another set of protections which can trigger that state)


So the proper answer to "Any idea what caused [my battery to not charge]?" is:
We don't know. Temperature is a probable cause, but there's a ton of other possibilities.
Some errors are interpreted by the micro-controller attached to the BMS, and presented in form of various diode blinking codes. If diodes do not show any code, the only way to know for sure would be to connect to the BMS chip and ask it for status using SBS protocol - this can be done using `comm_sbs_bqctrl.py` script, or "Dji Battery Killer" software. There are other programs as well, but these two are free.

 

[Chrislaf]

The Phantom 3 battery board has Texas Instruments BQ30Z55 Battery Management System (BMS) chip on it.

That chip is a non-public version of BQ30Z554, and is basically identical. So you can check BQ30Z554 specification (available in the link under chip model) to see how many checks and reason for disabling the battery are there. A lot. They include:
* Temperature sensor near cells being too hot
* Temperature sensor near the enabling MOSFET transistors being too hot
* Computed temperature based on recent power draw being too high
* Cells being too much out of balance
* Cells having voltage outside of configured bounds
* Cells having compensated voltage out of another set of bounds (compensated for running batteries to extrapolate their expected voltage without load)
* Cells drawing or charging with too high current
* The battery board operating outside of expected parameters, like a MOSFET giving incorrect resistance
* Short circuit protections, watchdog protections and a lot more - see the "Protections" chapter in "Technical Reference" document
* The battery entered Permanent Failure state (and there's another set of protections which can trigger that state)


So the proper answer to "Any idea what caused [my battery to not charge]?" is:
We don't know. Temperature is a probable cause, but there's a ton of other possibilities.
Some errors are interpreted by the micro-controller attached to the BMS, and presented in form of various diode blinking codes. If diodes do not show any code, the only way to know for sure would be to connect to the BMS chip and ask it for status using SBS protocol - this can be done using `comm_sbs_bqctrl.py` script, or "Dji Battery Killer" software. There are other programs as well, but these two are free.

Thank you for that detailed response.

Chris