DON'T buy Bangood.com DJI battery for Phantom 3

Malakai · Mar 16, 2016

I dont mean any disrespect here. we all have our own reasons for cheaping out sometimes but this is an area I wouldnt consider. If your phantom is under warranty and you use a third party battery and you crash you are not covered under the warranty. Then it costs you hundreds to get it fixed. I guess thats the risk you are willing to take. If an issue happens and you are using the original parts then the warranty will cover in most circumstances. The way I look at my phantom is its a grands worth of equipment. Cheaping out on essential parts like batteries is just asking for trouble. Sure, while the third party batteries might be made to the same quality the official ones are. Can you really be sure of that? Will they offer you a warranty above the dji warranty and cover your phantom if there is an issue due to the third party battery being at fault? I doubt it.
Personally I recommend saving a little longer and going for official parts like this.

JMHO

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mcphipps · Mar 16, 2016

Malakai said:
I dont mean any disrespect here. we all have our own reasons for cheaping out sometimes but this is an area I wouldnt consider. If your phantom is under warranty and you use a third party battery and you crash you are not covered under the warranty. Then it costs you hundreds to get it fixed. I guess thats the risk you are willing to take. If an issue happens and you are using the original parts then the warranty will cover in most circumstances. The way I look at my phantom is its a grands worth of equipment. Cheaping out on essential parts like batteries is just asking for trouble. Sure, while the third party batteries might be made to the same quality the official ones are. Can you really be sure of that? Will they offer you a warranty above the dji warranty and cover your phantom if there is an issue due to the third party battery being at fault? I doubt it.
Personally I recommend saving a little longer and going for official parts like this.

JMHO

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Ahhh, but what about all the people who have modded the remote? There goes your warranty anyway. So using the "cheap" battery won't hurt you there if the warranty is the only thing holding you back.

mdowney58 · Mar 16, 2016

I tend to agree with @mcphipps.
And yes, those who have modded their equipment probably have voided their warranty.
Not sure if DJI has liability in the event of a mishap where there's either personal injury or property damage, but if they do, it's probably in their best interest to want to control certain factors.

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Tony Cowan · Mar 16, 2016

mdowney58 said:
I tend to agree with @mcphipps.
And yes, those who have modded their equipment probably have voided their warranty.
Not sure if DJI has liability in the event of a mishap where there's either personal injury or property damage, but if they do, it's probably in their best interest to want to control certain factors.

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Proven fact. Modding a remote won't void anything. Just send your drone in and bam!!! They know if mechanical failure or pilot error from the internal logs. How many countless members have modded remotes and sent in their drone. With no problems. Now doing a mod to the drone itself. That is different. But remote. No.

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Tony Cowan · Mar 16, 2016

I also think you will love litchi. Blows go app away. With all the extra features. Track it like on the p4. Record screen is cool. So you get all your data without having to do that tedious overlay with dashware. All telemetry included in video of you want it. No sure of the pano shots. Way points cool too.

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mdowney58 · Mar 16, 2016

Tony Cowan said:
Proven fact. Modding a remote won't void anything. Just send your drone in and bam!!! They know if mechanical failure or pilot error from the internal logs. How many countless members have modded remotes and sent in their drone. With no problems. Now doing a mod to the drone itself. That is different. But remote. No.

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I didn't say modding the remote would void the warranty on the Phantom. Maybe I should edit my post to be more specific.
I'd bet a dollar that if someone sent a remote in for warranty coverage after drilling holes etc. during a mod, that the mfr. would not warranty the remote.
Just my opinion. ..

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mcphipps · Mar 16, 2016

mdowney58 said:
I didn't say modding the remote would void the warranty on the Phantom. Maybe I should edit my post to be more specific.
I'd bet a dollar that if someone sent a remote in for warranty coverage after drilling holes etc. during a mod, that the mfr. would not warranty the remote.
Just my opinion. ..

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I will say modding the remote WILL void your warranty. Go ahead and tell DJI you modded your remote when you send in your bird for repair. See how far that will get you. Oh but you can lie to DJI and just send in the bird and not tell them that you modded your remote that "may" have caused the "crash" you just had. That's OK. Sorry Tony, but I think you are wrong on this one at least morally...LOL

mdowney58
I am sorry, I did not mean to quote your post here.
I wanted to quote Tony. Don't take it personally Tony...LOL

You are right about Litchi....I like it. Scared to death to try it. But I finally got over it and tried it out. I like it a lot.

Mikey

Tony Cowan · Mar 16, 2016

Agreed. Morally. But no one I their right mind will tell dji. Ooh. By the way. I modded the remote which may have contributed to my crash. Hehehe. This time. Morals is one thing and common sense another.

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mcphipps · Mar 16, 2016

Agreed buddy.
I just had to have some fun....

mdowney58 · Mar 16, 2016

Tony Cowan said:
Agreed. Morally. But no one I their right mind will tell dji. Ooh. By the way. I modded the remote which may have contributed to my crash. Hehehe. This time. Morals is one thing and common sense another.

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I wouldn't be pleased with myself if I were dishonest with them, but that seems to be the American way....let someone else take responsibility for one's choices/actions, right?

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mcphipps · Mar 16, 2016

mdowney58 said:
I wouldn't be pleased with myself if I were dishonest with them, but that seems to be the American way....let someone else take responsibility for one's choices/actions, right?

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Yep, I would also feel a bit on the guilty side if I did that. Must be old age doing it to me. Fear of the retribution I might get from the Almighty...

mcphipps · Mar 16, 2016

BTW, where is mountain city? My brother in law lives in / by Winchester.

mdowney58 · Mar 16, 2016

mcphipps said:
Yep, I would also feel a bit on the guilty side if I did that. Must be old age doing it to me. Fear of the retribution I might get from the Almighty...

Yes, there's that, & also I wouldn't want someone to treat me that way.
The Golden Rule is still around...

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Tony Cowan · Mar 16, 2016

I think most will just omit that piece of info. Silence is golden.

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ACC · Mar 17, 2016

Squirrel! said:
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It's not Bangood or their battery.... The complaint should be against DJI. The battery may be no good, I don't know, but that problem is caused by DJI software, not Bangood or their battery.

Squirrel! · Mar 17, 2016

OK. The complaint against Bangood is that they:

didn't put in the description of the battery that it would need an old app version in order to work.

were totally against any return. They wanted me to jump thru hoops so as to get out of a refund for a product that was grossly misrepresented.

After Paypal made Bangood acept a refund, they wanted me to pay for the return shipping...of a product that was misrepresented.

Now, why would I complain to DJI? The way I see it (i'm a businessman) this is part of doing business, protecting ones intellectual property. There might be, or may not be something 'special' about the DJI battery besides being a DJI battery, I don't know. I am not mad at DJI for their business model, I am mad at Bangood for theirs. Theirs is a model of deceit and not accepting responsibility. Until they are forced to.

All Bangood had to do was acknowledge that the battery doesn't work or had to put in the description it only worked with older app versions, and all would be well.

What tangled webs we weave, when we practice to deceive...

Squirrel! · Mar 20, 2016

FINALLY, I got out this evening and flew around. Used the Litchi app and GO app. Also got my true DJI battery today, so now have 3 total! Kinda stoked!

Anyway, The Litchi app allowed the bangood battery to fly without issue. I believe I took it down to 30% before installing a fresh battery (the new DJI one) and I took that one down to the 30's as well, but using Litchi AND the GO app. Started on the 3rd battery (the original) using the GO app and about 1000' out I get a warning on the tablet I'm at 4% and I immediately hit RTH and BAM! Screen went black.

But I heard my baby buzzin' in the sky above me!

So yes, the Bangood battery IS good for the P3s as long as a 3rd party app is used.

As for the Litchi app...I had absolutely nothing set up in its parameters, and flew it and it was a better UI in my opinion than the GO app UI. Now, I updated the GO app yesterday and forgot that most all of my custom settings had be reverted to the default setting, and I wondered why I was getting laggy/choppy video...Because, as I just found out, the camera was set to it's highest resolution (UHD Lite) and my feeble laptop/monitor can only handle 1080p max. So after resetting to 1080p, I will fly again tomorrow after church and will see if that was the cause of the issue(s). I'm pretty confident it is. The Acer Iconia Tab 10, as nice as it is, can only handle 1080p as well.

So, in conclusion, if you plan on flying using only the Litchi app, by all means, go with the Bangood battery @ $97 shipped.
Otherwise, if you can find them, buy the DJI battery for $115-119.

Litchi, worth the 20 spot in my opinion. The UI is really better than the GO app UI with more information.

Stay tuned, FPV/camera test conclusion tomorrow!

CaptainDrone798 · Mar 20, 2016

I found out yesterday that a fellow drone pilot had ordered the battery in question in this thread. He had not yet received it (was ordered in January). He had heard about the after-market batteries not working in the Phantom 3 (DJI blocking after market batteries).

So he informed they seller of this and also sent the link to the video here (YouTube version). The seller wrote back that he can't open the video link on YouTube and apologized for the delay in shipping and asked him to confirm his shipping address. The guy confirmed his shipping address and again sent the video link. The seller wrote back that due to a Chinese holiday and weather the shipment could be late. The guy asked for a refund but the seller just again asked him to confirm his shipping address. So the guy opened up a ticket with Google because the estimated shipping arrival date was early March and it had not yet arrived (over two weeks late). Amazingly Google is more concerned with the shipping receipt date rather than the fact the battery probably won't work. Google is asking the shipper to supply a refund based on the item having not been received based on the estimated receipt date. The shipper is trying to only reimburse half the cost.

Squirrel! · Mar 20, 2016

OK...MUCH better performance today since the resolution was correctly set!

VERY pleased with the video, now.

Still have alot of training to do yet, but I plan on using the Litchi app over the DJI app whenever possible. As a matter of fact, I would like to just delete the GO app. Anyone know of any reason to keep it? The information the Litchi spits out is invaluable in my honest opinion, just heads and shoulders above the DJI app.

Please read my question in the comment section and reply on YouTube. Thanks, everyone!

"Don't know how/why the signal got screwed up, but my question is, why isn't the camera still recording even if transmission data has been lost/disconnected?"