Buyer Beware of DJI - Phantom 2 Batteries

Bill_Burkert · Dec 1, 2014

Phantom batteries are unbelievably poor quality. I have one that was charged 50 times and now wont charge. That means each flight costs me $3.00. It is SN 1277 and displays 4175, 4158, and 4153, 81% of life, and it gets about 5 minutes of flight time. It goes from 60% to less than 30% in less than a minute. I use it for quick testing when I go fly, what a POS!

My second battery is at 94% of life and displays 4181, 4188, and 4184, it lasts about 8 minutes, after 19 charges. The third battery is 90% of of life after 30 charges and display 4156, 5154, and 4159. It also gets about 8 minutes of flight time.

So $450 spent on batteries and together they dont get the original 25 minutes with never a crash or even a hard landing. I really like DJI's stability and flight performance but just cant afford ~3.00 per flight after spending nearly $2K on the setup. Put it together with poor customer service and especially the fly-aways that are their issue but the owner's problem. Don't think I am ready to purchase and Inspire @ $3200.

I, for one, cant wait for the competition. Come on Go Pro!

BlackTracer · Dec 1, 2014

I agree the batteries are crap. I have 3. I always store them at about 50%. #1 came with the copter. #2 and #3 I bought from amazon. #3 started the dreaded "low battery warning and autoland" at 45% with 35 cycles. Discharging and charging did not fix it. Sent it back to my dealer (acting as if it was the one that came with the copter), it tested bad, and they replaced it. New one is working ok, but has only 3 uses. Now battery #2 is doing the same thing. Would have to send it to DJI I suppose. I am very disappointed in these batteries.

Kman · Dec 1, 2014

I know a few people on here are running the Limefuel batteries. Are people having better battery life (number of charges) with those batteries?

ianwood · Dec 2, 2014

I won't be buying anymore DJI batteries. Limefuel only from now on.

jct133 · Dec 2, 2014

ianwood said:
I won't be buying anymore DJI batteries. Limefuel only from now on.

I think I've got a faulty DJI brand battery, brand new. I need to test it another time though. I haven't had a chance to try to use it more than once since I bought it last week. It went from a full charge, down to one bar, wouldn't calibrate properly then automatically land when you take off. The weird thing is, when I got home later and check the battery level it was basically full, so odd. Hoping to test out the battery tomorrow.

Have you guys had good luck with Limefuel batteries? Are they more reliable?

ianwood · Dec 2, 2014

If you have bad batteries and 3.08 didn't help (it didn't for me), post them here in the DJI Bad Battery Registry: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=26733

We're tracking all the bad batteries (there's lots of them) and once we've got a nice round number, we'll confront DJI with it and demand some satisfaction.

Bill_Burkert · Dec 12, 2014

I doubt DJI will ever respond to these kinds of problems. The recourse we have is to stop purchasing DJI products.. I know that is a hard pill to swallow because we all have so much money invested. When my P2 was new it was really fun and amazing because I could fly everywhere with confidence. After I had the P2 fall out of the sky I was devastated but I recovered, then when I had a second incident I lost all confidence.

I sure wish the GOP hackers would expose DJI internal emails because the they have to know that their products has faults, they admit it but say it's our problem.

No more flying for fun, batteries are expensive and one should expect a failure at anytime. I can't afford any more repairs or any property or personnel damage.

Come on GP, somebody make a better flying camera - please.