Cold Battery Warning

Well, it's in the house at 70 degrees Fahrenheit .... and then straight outside and within 1 minute, I get a cold battery warning .... so, I don't know what putting it my pocket at that point will do if it's temperature sensor (wherever it may be located on the system) drops off that fast.
 
I just talked to DJI and he said that the latest firmware will not allow you to take off in subzero weather. I asked where the sensors were and how to override the cold battery warning ,,,, and he hung up on me. Great customer service!!!!
 
I accept no responsibility if anything bad happens but what if you start your drone in your house (lift off, hover) and then fly it outside your front door and then up into the sky?

Or engage the motors and then move the drone outside (don't cut yourself) and then take off outside?
 
Okay, well the house currently at about 19c and upon engaging the motors it is saying the battery temp is below 15c - so right off the hop the sensors are innacurate - that's problem #1 to solve (not me, for DJI Software engineers). So in the meantime I will have to build an incubator type arrangement with a car battery warmer to get the degrees built up for takeoff, and then rush it out to my heliport, and see if that alters the sensor soft response any. Madness in this day and age really.
 
Found a partial, temporary fix. Built an incubator with a car battery warmer and thermometer/alarm. Beeps when it hits 25c, run in out to launch, insert in Phantom and take off. Don't know what is going to happen with a 20 minute walk down a frigid beach though ... might need a portable pocket or backpack warmer.
 
I simply put both my batteries on my heated seat on way to flying when cold then put them in my pocket before flying then just before take off pop one in. They don't like being cold, would you like to go outside in the cold without a coat on ? Lol


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I was going to fly my P3Pro in my back yard yesterday, it was -2C and by the time the imu warmed up I got the cold battery warning. I grabbed a fully charged battery from the house, fired it up and watched my voltage decend from 98% to 55% within a min.
needless to say I'm not going to try flying till it warms up.
Just fyi ive got everything on the latest firmware
 
This really sounds strange, there's a big difference between sub-zero and 25C (77F). It does not make sense to have a battery warning if its operating within DJI specification, 0C-40C.

What is the lowest temperature the firmware will let you take off? The reason I ask, is I've flown in some really cold temps with no problem.
My firmware is 1.3, I miss out on all the fun features.;)
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I think the issue here is that the 'smart battery' is not so smart in the temperature sensor department or it's been offset for legal/claims reasons, There appears to be an offset of ~4 degrees, which was enough to cause my engagement issues. I would advise not downloading the latest version of the firmware (if you live in a cold climate) until they get the bug fully addressed.
 
Well, it's in the house at 70 degrees Fahrenheit .... and then straight outside and within 1 minute, I get a cold battery warning .... so, I don't know what putting it my pocket at that point will do if it's temperature sensor (wherever it may be located on the system) drops off that fast.

Excellent post in that you didn't see the need to start a new thread! Well done.

Could it be your sensors are okay? You didn't mention your air temp other than it was at least 0 C.

Reading through various battery threads over the past several months, we've learned the best operating temp for our lipo battery (battery temp, not air temp) is 30-40 C. We've learned that 20 C is "cool" for a battery and it won't operate as efficiently. 15 C is cold and promotes "voltage lag" which is dangerous since it could bring a cell down to a critical level prematurely and force an auto land, or worse, a drop from the sky. Hence, the cold battery warning.

So if you take a battery that's 19 C and bring it outside into air that's something close to 0 C, it seems reasonable to me the temp could drop 4 C before you had a chance to get into the air.

What I do is warm my battery up to something close to 30 C before each cold weather flight. My batteries never give me a problem in cold weather and they never get to 20 C. Just be sure your batttery doesn't approach 60 C because at that point it can become volatile
 
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I know this is kind of an old topic but I was flying my phantom 3 standard today I just got it like the 28th of December 2016. It was around 20 degrees out and I got a cold battery warning. When I come back and landed my drone it shut my phone off. I tried to turn it back on and it showed my phone was dead. When I started flying it was over 60% charge. I came home and tried to turn the phone back on and it did. After my phone came back on it was over 50% charged. I don't know if that was a fail safe that it now has in the firmware but it was odd.
 

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