CAN I trust my battery?

[L3thalB3ard]

When I got to work this morning, the sunrise was looking pretty spectacular.. so I decided to fly up and take a picture.. it was a bit chilly but nothing crazy at all. About a minute after take off I got a warning saying that I had a "battery cell broken" needless to say, I flew back and landed immediately.
It ate at me all day, so I read in some forums that said that perhaps running the battery down all the way and recharging it may fix it. So as soon as I got home I decided to hover about 2 feet above some grass. The drone hovered just fine, the battery lasted a normal amount and I never got the broken cell error..
Would you guys trust it?
What do you think caused it? Temperature?
I only drained the battery to its usual 30%. Should I drain it all the way down?
Batteries are so expensive!!


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[L3thalB3ard]

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[Xenomorph]

Did you click the battery icon and see what the readout says? If so, what did it say?

 

[L3thalB3ard]

Did you click the battery icon and see what the readout says? If so, what did it say?

Nope... That would have been smart... I was worried because I was looking at the drone, not the screen. So when I looked down, the error was there. I wasn't sure how long it had been there, and I was already late for work so I just focused on flying back and packing up....


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[tjshelton]

Sign up for healthydrones.com. the maintenance tracker I'd worth it's weight in gold.

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[Dan cutter]

was the drone or battery near your car's heater? If a battery gets warm on one side it will have a slightly different voltage in that cell. I fly in the cold and snow so put my batteries on the dashboard defroster-- You have to turn it (like a chicken on the bbq) or it will let you know.

 

[L3thalB3ard]

was the drone or battery near your car's heater? If a battery gets warm on one side it will have a slightly different voltage in that cell. I fly in the cold and snow so put my batteries on the dashboard defroster-- You have to turn it (like a chicken on the bbq) or it will let you know.

Nah.. I wasn't planning on flying so everything was in the trunk..


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[Dan cutter]

ahhh shoot. and I thought I was so clever....

 

[Quamera]

ahhh shoot. and I thought I was so clever....

I thought you had nailed it too, that's some good advice for people flying in the cold, warm your battery and make sure you do it evenly.

L3, next time you fly make sure you monitor the individual cell voltages by tapping the battery icon. If one cell voltage drops faster than the others the Go app will throw up a warning then if it lags even further behind it will limit the battery output and produce that cell broken warning. Its not actually broken of course, if it was the AC would fall out of the sky, its just producing a lower voltage and when its next charged the intelligent charger will put more power into that cell in an attempt to balance it out with the other 3 cells.

If that particular cell regularly produces warnings (which are more likely to happen under heavy load) then it is on the way out and is more likely to fail completely in the future. I don't know whether DJIs "battery life" indicator monitors the warnings and adjusts the life % down accordingly but I would assume it does so at some stage the battery won't accept charge and it is effectively dead unless you are good with a soldering iron and can swap the dud cell for one of similar age and history.

 

[L3thalB3ard]

I thought you had nailed it too, that's some good advice for people flying in the cold, warm your battery and make sure you do it evenly.

L3, next time you fly make sure you monitor the individual cell voltages by tapping the battery icon. If one cell voltage drops faster than the others the Go app will throw up a warning then if it lags even further behind it will limit the battery output and produce that cell broken warning. Its not actually broken of course, if it was the AC would fall out of the sky, its just producing a lower voltage and when its next charged the intelligent charger will put more power into that cell in an attempt to balance it out with the other 3 cells.

If that particular cell regularly produces warnings (which are more likely to happen under heavy load) then it is on the way out and is more likely to fail completely in the future. I don't know whether DJIs "battery life" indicator monitors the warnings and adjusts the life % down accordingly but I would assume it does so at some stage the battery won't accept charge and it is effectively dead unless you are good with a soldering iron and can swap the dud cell for one of similar age and history.

Cool, I'll report back as soon as I fly that battery again.. Thanks!


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[Quamera]

Cool, I'll report back as soon as I fly that battery again.. Thanks!


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You can also go and have a look at your battery history in DJI Go to see if any warnings have been previously logged without you actually noticing them. That would be an indicator of potential problems in the future.

When I mentioned the soldering iron in my previous post I should add that I have no idea how you would reset or somehow inform the battery microprocessor that changes have been made to the cells. The battery would probably think it was still dead and it maybe fairly tough to convince it otherwise or simply disconnecting power to it may reset everything.