I made sure I spent the first day charging everything up to 100% and updating all the firmware before I took it anywhere. Also the week I was waiting to get it, I think I read every manual and documentation I could find, as well as this site. Thing costs too much to send it up and away without knowing what the heck your doing, at least somewhat.
Critical voltage warning.
- Thread starter robinb
- Start date
Same here, I read forums, you tube etc for weeks before purchasing & receiving my p3 - but for the thousands that
will be opened on xmas day - many people won't..
I have been flying the heck out of my Proto X anticipating the arrival of my Phantom on Tuesday and I am will crazy scared to fly it...
Flying every 20 min or so and practicing circling an object and flying backwards....
Checking Amazon I have been flying it since January 2015...
Flying every 20 min or so and practicing circling an object and flying backwards....
Checking Amazon I have been flying it since January 2015...
DO NOT USE A BATTERY THAT HAS BEEN SELF -DISCHARGED. Charge it first before use.
I am quoting below a user "SultanGirls" from inspire forum that explains the problem:
Battery Fail | DJI Inspire Forum
People say don't fly a partial battery because they don't understand the cause of the problem and haven't made the connection so they err on the side of caution. It's a firmware bug, it should only happen when the battery enters self discharge mode and isn't fully charged before use. Sometimes when this bug occurs it will continue to occur for that battery every time you use it until the reset procedure is performed, which is fully charging it and then fully discharging it till it powers itself off in one use.
I fly partial batteries all the time starting at full charge and making a short flight and using it again later for another short flight, sometimes even 3 or more a couple days apart on the same battery. Ive never had this issue in a year of flying unless the battery self discharging was the reason it was at a partial charge, those batteries have this sudden drop bug occur every time I've used them.
FYI I do run older firmware but I find it unlikely batteries with new firmware are having this problem without the self discharge feature being the reason. At any rate if you're curious or don't believe me it's easy enough to test, let a battery self discharge and use it to fly low and slow in case you lose power and need to land quickly. I'm betting it will happen every time like it does for me. I'd be interested what someone with the new firmware experiences, though I'm pretty sure it will be the same. Set the self discharge time in the app to 10 days to lessen the likelihood of this happening and always make sure to fully charge a battery that self discharges before using it.
I am quoting below a user "SultanGirls" from inspire forum that explains the problem:
Battery Fail | DJI Inspire Forum
People say don't fly a partial battery because they don't understand the cause of the problem and haven't made the connection so they err on the side of caution. It's a firmware bug, it should only happen when the battery enters self discharge mode and isn't fully charged before use. Sometimes when this bug occurs it will continue to occur for that battery every time you use it until the reset procedure is performed, which is fully charging it and then fully discharging it till it powers itself off in one use.
I fly partial batteries all the time starting at full charge and making a short flight and using it again later for another short flight, sometimes even 3 or more a couple days apart on the same battery. Ive never had this issue in a year of flying unless the battery self discharging was the reason it was at a partial charge, those batteries have this sudden drop bug occur every time I've used them.
FYI I do run older firmware but I find it unlikely batteries with new firmware are having this problem without the self discharge feature being the reason. At any rate if you're curious or don't believe me it's easy enough to test, let a battery self discharge and use it to fly low and slow in case you lose power and need to land quickly. I'm betting it will happen every time like it does for me. I'd be interested what someone with the new firmware experiences, though I'm pretty sure it will be the same. Set the self discharge time in the app to 10 days to lessen the likelihood of this happening and always make sure to fully charge a battery that self discharges before using it.
I've posted the following here a couple times and been laughed at and discounted.
Having totalled a p3p already...
It's not that you shouldn't fly with less than 100% charge folks.
It's definitely do NOT fly a battery that has gone into self discharge.
I took four batteries. All set to ten day discharge. All fully charged. I kept checking two for fifteen days straight. Each day both answered with ~100% and four green lights. The other two batteries on day 15 had ~55% percent and two solid one blinking. Two were safe to fly. Two were not. All had been charged at the same time. You can keep your batteries from going into this state simply by pressing the power button on them once a day.
Do not trust a self discharged battery and check what timeframe you all have the self discharge set to.
If the djigo app were to be able to detect a self discharged battery and give a smart response about it instead of safe to fly these cases would go away.
The fact dji replaced mine and others says they are aware.
Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk
Oso
Premium Pilot
Seems like these reports are never ending all of a sudden. I know I may sound like a broken record, but I really think something was introduced about a month ago that is leading to these reports.
Anyone care to examine my Flight log from my crash? | DJI Phantom Forum
Critical battery warning | DJI Phantom Forum
There may be-- but consider that there are many purchasing the P3 now that have no clue when they take it out of the box and that applies to batteries too. With the holiday season coming up, the crashes will continue to grow because of ignorance of the P3 and the systems that make it stay in the air.
- Joined
- Nov 26, 2015
- Messages
- 24
- Reaction score
- 14
- Age
- 54
I had the same "critically low voltage" alert today within 2 minutes of a flight. The battery was fully charged (just prior to takeoff). My drone was right near the takeoff site (i.e., not far away). Zero wind. At time of the alert, the flight time left on the grid was 17:24 minutes left, and battery was 87% full (3.86 V). I was able to continue flying without problems so the battery was clearly not low.
I just updated to the latest software for the drone and remote last night. I also calibrated the IMU after the software update.
This was my 137th flight, and I have 1.4 million feet of flight distance experience under my belt. This is the first time I saw this error. I suspect that this is a software issue that will need an updated fix.
-gumby
I just updated to the latest software for the drone and remote last night. I also calibrated the IMU after the software update.
This was my 137th flight, and I have 1.4 million feet of flight distance experience under my belt. This is the first time I saw this error. I suspect that this is a software issue that will need an updated fix.
-gumby
I had the same problem yesterday. All of a sudden it stated critical low voltage and started to land. Luckily I wasn't too far away and was able to land. Messaged DJI and they said fully discharge the battery and recharge, but I certainly won't be using that battery again.
As far as I can see, my mistake was to recharge the battery partially to around 60% and then fly. I've done about 150 flights in total, without any problems, and wasn't even aware that the battery's need to be fully charged before flying.
I'm assuming it's ok to fly for around 10 minutes for example and then fly again on the same day with say 50% charge, as long as the battery wasn't just partially charged initially ??
As far as I can see, my mistake was to recharge the battery partially to around 60% and then fly. I've done about 150 flights in total, without any problems, and wasn't even aware that the battery's need to be fully charged before flying.
I'm assuming it's ok to fly for around 10 minutes for example and then fly again on the same day with say 50% charge, as long as the battery wasn't just partially charged initially ??
I believe the bird expects the battery to be at 100% when starting up. It bases its calculations off of that assumption. It can't tell whether it was partially charged or partially used, just that it's not 100%. iow, once you turn the bird off, when it turns on again it expects a full battery.
I always charge my batteries to 100% before take off what the point taking off with 60% battery and using your bird for less than 6 minutes.
I'm actually on holiday and used a bar on the island to recharge my batteries. Unfortunately I couldn't wait for the full hour, hence the partial charge
I experienced this once on a freshly charged battery, at around 40%. The only abnormal thing about the day was that it was very cold, so I'm naïvely guessing it had something to do with that. After landing I was able to do several low, safe flights on that same battery. Lesson learned though that when this happens, hold the throttle all the way up to slow the descent and bring it to a safe landing area. Mine was over the water when it happened and I nearly lost my ____.
alokbhargava
Premium Pilot
Yes I have always said, these intelligent batteries are not that intelligent. They will make wrong time/ charge estimate if the batteries were not fully charged at the beginning.
I got this warning for the first time this morning. Battery was at 88% when it happened. I cancelled the RTH (as I had the altitude set very high) and landed safely. Batteries were fully charged the previous day. I turned the P3 off then back on and didn't have any further issue with that battery (which has 78 charge cycles on it). The outside air temperature was pretty low (20F), but battery had warmed up to 30C and all four cells were in the green.
I don't know where you get your information, but if it's really true that a Phantom can't simply use the voltage readings from the battery to determine the charge level for each cell, as displayed in the controller display, this system is a radically flawed design.
Meta4
Premium Pilot
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2014
- Messages
- 15,301
- Reaction score
- 9,242
An "intelligent" battery isn't very clever - but it isn't that dumb either.
If you put a 30% battery in the Phantom, the app shows it as being 30% and shows flight time appropriate to 30%.
Similar threads
