Phantom 3 Critically low Voltage battery failure brings aircraft down

[Mako79]

Got this voltage battery critical error on my p3a 1.1.9 this morning. It was 4 degrees Celsius.
10 cycles on the battery.

Aircraft self landed (I cancelled and took over).
A few seconds later it went back to normal. I still landed and called it a day. The only idiotic thing I did was I did not look in the battery status to see if there was an imbalance between the cells. Battery is now fully charged.

 

[russsandy]

I took my P3 out to the beach to get some footage of the Gulf Coast of Florida. I had a fully charged battery and calibrated the aircraft got the green flashing go ahead and green Safe to Fly (GPS) on my DJI Pilot App screen, took off and flew up and down the coastline getting some great footage and photos. I continually was monitoring all of my signal levels to ensure a safe flight since I was over water, just off the coast, less than a minute before the failure I had 51% battery, shortly after, just over 10 minutes into the flight an error message popped up on the screen, it had a red triangle with and exclamation point in the center and said Critically low voltage, the aircraft will land now, I hit the return to home button and the controller started beeping and my FPV went out and the Phantom 3 professional never made it back and I tried looking for it but could not find it in the water. Has anyone heard or had anything like this happen? I posted the flight on youtube, I am hoping DJI does the right thing and replaces it. The video can be seen here

. Thanks for any advice.

I HAD THE SAME ISSUE HOWEVER MY CRITICAL BATTERY WAS 22% WHEN IT LANDED IN LAKE POWELL. FRESH WATER. DRONE WILL NOT START, CAMERA WORKS. BEST I COULD DO WITH DJI IS SEND THEM $850 AND THE CONTROLLER FOR A NEW P3A. THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH IT, BUT WHAT ARE THE LITTLE PEOPLE TO DO.
THIS BATTERY ISSUE IS AREAL PROBLEM FOR MANY, MANY PEOPLE.

 

[bobmyers]

I HAD THE SAME ISSUE HOWEVER MY CRITICAL BATTERY WAS 22% WHEN IT LANDED IN LAKE POWELL. FRESH WATER. DRONE WILL NOT START, CAMERA WORKS. BEST I COULD DO WITH DJI IS SEND THEM $850 AND THE CONTROLLER FOR A NEW P3A. THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH IT, BUT WHAT ARE THE LITTLE PEOPLE TO DO.
THIS BATTERY ISSUE IS AREAL PROBLEM FOR MANY, MANY PEOPLE.

The cell balance is critical in these issues-- did you check that during the flight. One cell .03 or lower than the rest can cause failures like the one you mention, because above 51 percent the battery discharge rate was fairly consistent. However, once the low cell reaches 50 percent, it will drain significantly faster than the remaining cells and this puts the battery in a critical voltage situation very fast. It could drain in a minute down to less than 2 volts for 1 cell-- if that were the case.

It is essential to monitor cell balance a couple of times every during every flight to make sure your cell voltage discharges equally during the flight. I check mine at the beginning of the flight at takeoff -- about half thru the flight -- and after I land as a part of post flight check.

Sorry to hear about your loss.

 

[russsandy]

The cell balance is critical in these issues-- did you check that during the flight. One cell .03 or lower than the rest can cause failures like the one you mention, because above 51 percent the battery discharge rate was fairly consistent. However, once the low cell reaches 50 percent, it will drain significantly faster than the remaining cells and this puts the battery in a critical voltage situation very fast. It could drain in a minute down to less than 2 volts for 1 cell-- if that were the case.

It is essential to monitor cell balance a couple of times every during every flight to make sure your cell voltage discharges equally during the flight. I check mine at the beginning of the flight at takeoff -- about half thru the flight -- and after I land as a part of post flight check.

Sorry to hear about your loss.

WOW THANKS, DID NOT KNOW. WILL CHECK AND THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR THE INFO RUSSSANDY

 

[Mariano]

I was just testing it today in my garden for 3 minutes from a full charge, just going up and sides to practice. Suddenly, the "critical low voltage" appeard in my screen and landed. I was lucky because it just landed close to me in the yard. But if that would have happened far away i'll be really done. And now I feel worried about taking the drone far away.
By the way, my drone has 1 week, and i bought 2 extra batteries. So, the three of them (the one that came with the device) are completely new, less than 3 charges all of them.
For me it looks like a software failure. Because i turned it off and on again, and it worked perfect.

 

[bobmyers]

I was just testing it today in my garden for 3 minutes from a full charge, just going up and sides to practice. Suddenly, the "critical low voltage" appeard in my screen and landed. I was lucky because it just landed close to me in the yard. But if that would have happened far away i'll be really done. And now I feel worried about taking the drone far away.
By the way, my drone has 1 week, and i bought 2 extra batteries. So, the three of them (the one that came with the device) are completely new, less than 3 charges all of them.
For me it looks like a software failure. Because i turned it off and on again, and it worked perfect.

Your battery probably wasn't seated properly, various threads on the forum regarding properly seating the battery.. Has happened to me when I knew that I had shoved the battery all the way in. But upon landing, I noticed that it like a mm from being all the way in. Now I double check and it has not happened to me since.

 

[brianb87]

I HAD THE SAME ISSUE HOWEVER MY CRITICAL BATTERY WAS 22% WHEN IT LANDED IN LAKE POWELL. FRESH WATER. DRONE WILL NOT START, CAMERA WORKS. BEST I COULD DO WITH DJI IS SEND THEM $850 AND THE CONTROLLER FOR A NEW P3A. THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH IT, BUT WHAT ARE THE LITTLE PEOPLE TO DO.
THIS BATTERY ISSUE IS AREAL PROBLEM FOR MANY, MANY PEOPLE.

$850!! That's insane.

We agreed on $875 for this!

 

[TruNorthAerial]

Bob Myers-Monitor your cell balance during flight? Since when? Thats nonsense.

We've put thousands of hours on Phantom batteries without monitoring each cell during flight. Cell balance is really an issue when charging.

Besides what would you do about it mid flight? Pray?

 

[bobmyers]

Bob Myers-Monitor your cell balance during flight? Since when? Thats nonsense.

We've put thousands of hours on Phantom batteries without monitoring each cell during flight. Cell balance is really an issue when charging.

Besides what would you do about it mid flight? Pray?

Nonsense to you maybe-- nosense to me no.. if you check the cell balance during flight -- then you will know ahead of time if you have a cell going bad-- otherwise you may not ever know it -- and it only takes that one bad cell to bring it down. So, I will just keep practicing my nonsense-- and you can just keep flying your thousands of hours with no problems. Cheers

 

[chris digata]

Important.. At the end of the day you must maintain your batteries and calibrate them after around 10 charges to prevent failure.. DJI can not be responsible for your negligence due to bad maintenance and never leave a battery fully charged longer than 24hrs.. 48hr max or your shorting the battery life learn about lipo tech and take a course.. but most of all fly safe and it is hard to do that if you dont understand maintenance

 

[msinger]

Important.. At the end of the day you must maintain your batteries and calibrate them after around 10 charges to prevent failure

DJI recommends doing this after 20 charges and whenever the DJI GO app prompts to do so.

 

[chris digata]

DJI recommends doing this after 20 charges and whenever the DJI GO app prompts to do so.

20 charges and the risk of failure is higher so thats up to you.. but should be ok on a new and trusted battery.. but for the best performance and reliability id stick to around 10 and not push it to 20 on batteries once they hit 80% of their lifespan or in colder climates.. All im saying if you look after them, you lower the risk factor

 

[scoottat]

I am neww to the forum and thought I would add my experience...I just left a P1 and bought a brand new P3S. took it for its first flight. First flight went well experimented with poi...and waypoints. Landed..recharged every thing was fine...and then got a battery failure in mid flight except mine didn't auto land....spun around 4 times and flew off into next neighborhood. I did recover and luckily only had a busted prop. Recharged the battery...lights all look good, I put it in and dji go says battery signal error, on shows 0 volts. tried my buddies battery from his p3m works like a charm. I bought it at bestbuy and am hoping when I take the battery back they will swap it. really hoping I don't have to send it to dji...then I have no flight till it comes back...don't have the 150 extra right now. but deff looks like dji needs to fix this malfunctioning battery..or step up QC at factory.

 

[dingus]

Dang - I think I messed up big time. I did not check the voltage before my flight (with 60% battery), and I had not charged the battery for a few days. I got a critical voltage warning when the drone was 400 ft away, it tried to land @ the home point and fell from the sky, smacked on the concrete, shattered to pieces.. Am I at fault for this? I got the "safe to fly" message on my DJI phantom so I took it for a flight. Everything seemed okay until I took the drone far away from me

 

[Nigel150]

I had a similar problem this weekend - flying my Phantom 3 on a partially charged (35%) battery. It was fine for a minute or two, then I got a critical voltage warning and it started to land... in a ravine. Fortunately managed to get back just in time. Broke a prop guard, but otherwise fine.
I'm pretty sure it's just this voltage issue and the solution is to only fly on a fully-charged battery, but I'd appreciate any gurus looking at my flight record to see if there was anything else at play. Record attached.

 

[msinger]

I had a similar problem this weekend - flying my Phantom 3 on a partially charged (35%) battery.

You took off with a battery that was almost completely depleted flight-wise. You should be landing before the first battery cell reaches 3.3V. That occurred a few seconds into your flight. See more details here.

 

[Nigel150]

Thanks msinger. Appreciate it. I didn't look any further than the battery charge %, so I thought I was fine for a short flight. Valuable lesson learnt without too much damage.

 

[grottoli]

Unless you saw the cell voltage prior to losing the signal, you cannot rule out the possibility of a battery/cell failure. ...

If a LiPo is defective before it is used, it will fail within the first few cycles... Even if it appeared to be working at first, it can still take a few cycles before the issue makes an impact in performance. It's easy to spot if you know what to look for and when. Monitoring the cell voltages while flying and making sure that the voltage difference is minimal across the cells is what everyone should be doing. Simply relying on the battery percentage will not adequately protect you from such a failure.

This is why I put the battery info panel on the C2 button on the RC. I can toggle to it for a quick check from time to time. Very handy.

Happy flying



Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots mobile app

 

[Kenneth-UAV]

I took my P3 out to the beach to get some footage of the Gulf Coast of Florida. I had a fully charged battery and calibrated the aircraft got the green flashing go ahead and green Safe to Fly (GPS) on my DJI Pilot App screen, took off and flew up and down the coastline getting some great footage and photos. I continually was monitoring all of my signal levels to ensure a safe flight since I was over water, just off the coast, less than a minute before the failure I had 51% battery, shortly after, just over 10 minutes into the flight an error message popped up on the screen, it had a red triangle with and exclamation point in the center and said Critically low voltage, the aircraft will land now, I hit the return to home button and the controller started beeping and my FPV went out and the Phantom 3 professional never made it back and I tried looking for it but could not find it in the water. Has anyone heard or had anything like this happen? I posted the flight on youtube, I am hoping DJI does the right thing and replaces it. The video can be seen here

. Thanks for any advice.

Low voltage and critical-low-battery indications are two different things. Low voltage can be caused by...

1) A battery becoming partially dislodged in flight (always slap the battery in firmly).

2) The second reason is overheating... let your open battery compartment cool slightly when quick changing batteries. After I remove my battery, I set the drone down, nose down on the ground for 20 seconds to let the battery compartment cool, before inserting the next battery.

 

[With The Birds]

Low voltage and critical-low-battery indications are two different things. Low voltage can be caused by...

1) A battery becoming partially dislodged in flight (always slap the battery in firmly).

2) The second reason is overheating... let your open battery compartment cool slightly when quick changing batteries. After I remove my battery, I set the drone down, nose down on the ground for 20 seconds to let the battery compartment cool, before inserting the next battery.

If she ain’t in properly your gonna have normal voltage followed by no voltage.

As to getting your P3 to do a bit of yoga between batteries that downward dog cooling pose is probably a complete waste of time and effort. I have often flown 4-6 packs back to back with no problems.