How can one tell if the Phantom battery is defective?

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How can one tell if the Phantom battery is defective?
And related questions...
What is the life span of these Phantom flight batteries?
Is there a way to recondition these batteries, such as drain and recharge?

The battery in question appears to charge up like normal. It gives me 4 green bars and I use it in flight with the P2V+. But at 53% I see the battery icon blinking red and the aircraft goes into auto-land mode. It is too far away to get it home and it does not respond to the remote control anyway. I lost the aircraft that day. It went down over a ridge behind a line of trees near the river at Sparrows Point MD. I would share the video but it isn't very interesting. I believe the Find-My-Phantom app only works if you have a service provider for the phone. I do not. I use the smartphone only for the Phantom. After about 3 hours of searching I actually found it with no major damage.

I have used this battery about 7 times in P2V before using it in the P2V+. Could that be an issue? I am on the most current version of the Android app. There is an option in the app that causes a auto return-to-home on a low battery. On my first test flight in my back yard this RTH kicked in with the battery at 40% which resulted in a very rough landing. This struck me as odd because the aircraft was no higher than 100 feet over my neighbor's house. And the threshold is supposed to be 30% anyway. I cannot risk that happening again so I disabled that auto RTH on low battery. As I have multiple batteries I cannot be sure if it was the same one in use. But clearly something is wrong. Is it the firmware? Is it the app? Is it the battery? I could use some suggestions.
 
gcoxusa said:
How can one tell if the Phantom battery is defective?

When you see:
 

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First, check your cell voltages in the Assistant. They should be relatively close. If you don't have an obviously defective cell, then I would try fully discharging the battery, allow it to cool, then recharge completely. If doing that a few times doesn't help the situation then the battery has probably failed.

What I would suggest for discharging safely is to lock your Phantom down..velcro through the skids around a block of wood....or something heavy through the landing gear so it can't go anywhere. Power her up and hold max throttle until the battery shuts off. You will want the props installed so you have air flowing over the electronics.
 
Yep, that would work, DB. And it's fast. Perhaps as an alternative, though nowhere near as fast a method, would be to not have the motors engaged, but just leaving the copter on with its LED lights blinking. Helps cut down the wear and tear a bit eh. Running a battery down to single digits like this takes a couple of hours. (After using it down to 1 bar, that is).
 
Haven't done this yet but I think I will take the props off and let it run at mid stick (idle). And then monitor to see how hot the motors get. I'm due soon though to run them down to whatever the number is, 8% or something?
 
The only thing that concerns me about no props is heat generated in the electronics with no airflow. It may not matter, but the number of failed Wi-Fi modules concerns me with heat. The camera & gimbal seem to get rather warm also. Perhaps sit a fan nearby directed at the bird?
 
Dirty Bird said:
The only thing that concerns me about no props is heat generated in the electronics with no airflow. It may not matter, but the number of failed Wi-Fi modules concerns me with heat. The camera & gimbal seem to get rather warm also. Perhaps sit a fan nearby directed at the bird?
Good point. I was thinking about the motors and not the internals. Maybe I'll leave the props on but not run it up.
 
I had a battery that did the same thing. Reported it to my dealer and it was replaced. It was still under the 3 month warranty period.

RB
 

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