Phantom 4 Battery issues and Autolanding issues

[vgo195]

Hi all,
I have a P4 standard and have some issues lately.
The original battery have some strange behavior while charging.
The first incident was when I was charging the battery it was finished and instead of turning off the 4 lights they remained on as if the battery was on. I turned it off and all good.
The second incident was yesterday when I charged again the battery from 75% to full and this time it was blinking the 4 lights as if it was charging for more than 1 hour. I pulled the charger and the battery was at 100%.
Now to the autolanding issue. Today I was out for mapping an area with Map Pilot. After finishing the mission I took the control and took some pictures of the site. Then I brought the drone back and for no apparent reason it started autolanding if front of me. The battery was at about 30%. I pulled the left stick up, the drone responded but again it started descending. Hopefully I didn't panic and switched to sport mode and took the control of the drone. Then back to GPS mode and landed the drone manually.
All this was happened with the mentioned battery. What do you think, is it the battery false? Should I worry? The battery has 16 charges so far and today I drained it down to 8% and fully charged it without any issues.
I attach a screenshot of the Airdata Uav site.

 

[Fly Dawg]

I attach a screenshot of the Airdata Uav site.

If you can share the link from airdata ( make it sharable ) and place a link to that here we can look at the battery percentages, cell values etc.. and possibly the reason for the autoland. ( Although that may require the aircraft .dat ).

 

[vgo195]

Here is the Airdata link

 

[Fly Dawg]

@vgo195 I don't see an issue with the battery from this data. If you wish to gather more detail, you will need to retrieve the aircraft .dat file for this flight. It is possible that there was an erroneous calculation from the smart battery to the FC that caused the autoland. The .dat may offer more information. If you care to do that see the link below for instructions. If you retrieve the file, you will need to upload that to a sharable location such as drop box, google drive etc..and place a link back here to that if you would like to have us take a look.

Retreive Aircraft Dat

 

[vgo195]

Thanks I will try to retreive it and share it.

 

[Deleted member 62848]

Hi all,
I have a P4 standard and have some issues lately.
The original battery have some strange behavior while charging.
The first incident was when I was charging the battery it was finished and instead of turning off the 4 lights they remained on as if the battery was on. I turned it off and all good.
The second incident was yesterday when I charged again the battery from 75% to full and this time it was blinking the 4 lights as if it was charging for more than 1 hour. I pulled the charger and the battery was at 100%.
Now to the autolanding issue. Today I was out for mapping an area with Map Pilot. After finishing the mission I took the control and took some pictures of the site. Then I brought the drone back and for no apparent reason it started autolanding if front of me. The battery was at about 30%. I pulled the left stick up, the drone responded but again it started descending. Hopefully I didn't panic and switched to sport mode and took the control of the drone. Then back to GPS mode and landed the drone manually.
All this was happened with the mentioned battery. What do you think, is it the battery false? Should I worry? The battery has 16 charges so far and today I drained it down to 8% and fully charged it without any issues.
I attach a screenshot of the Airdata Uav site.

Yes you should worry,,I killed my p4 useing bad battery by mistake,,caused shut down mid air coming down from 370ft got to 71ft then it free fall,,result not good,,if in doubt like you are don't use it,,your discription is what mine sort of did,,,took off 100% ,went to 400ft , got batt alert saying critical batt and went into auto landing which I could control down to just about 150ft then started big wobbles and shut down mid air ,,,start hunting for a new battery,,not worth loseing drone over it

 

[Andy9]

I thing any strange perform of battery need to be taken seriously. Ianzone is right. The battery is 150 or less the drone is over 1000.
Or maybe buy a parachute for 300. It's cheaper than the drone.

 

[vgo195]

Yes you are right. I will download the dat files from the drone to check more details.

 

[vgo195]

Here are the Logs from this day. The folder had 3 dat files with the same date.
If you can shed some light I would appreciate it!

 

[Fly Dawg]

The battery appears to be a non-issue in this flight. At ~ 1160 seconds the smart Battery and FC calculated that there was only enough power to return home. The GO HOME command executed, however you were around 18 meters from the home point which is too close for RTH. When this occurs the aircraft will land where it is, hence why you saw the autoland. This is normal.

 

[vgo195]

Thanks a lot! So why the go home command executed if the battery was at 30% and the drone was so close to home point? Maybe the battery needs calibration? (I already did it after this flight).

 

[Fly Dawg]

So why the go home command executed if the battery was at 30% and the drone was so close to home point? Maybe the battery needs calibration? (I already did it after this flight).

That is based on an internal calculation by the smart battery and the FC. The percentage you actually see is also a calculated value. RTH commands are based on remaining battery time ( Calculated ), distance to home ( Calculated ), Return speed ( Constant ) and a few other variables. It does not depend on "Percentage" alone. Your actual "Percentage" may vary from what the FC calculates to execute the RTH.

 

[vgo195]

So you say that I don't have to worry about the battery?

 

[Fly Dawg]

So you say that I don't have to worry about the battery?

Worrying about batteries goes without saying. Just keep an eye on it if you are concerned. I didn't see anything in the data to indicate a real issue with it. But that was only one set, so can't be definitive on that. Usually if there is a problem you will see vast cell deviations, particularly with one cell or another. Slight deviations are normal as are momentary large deviations. Should you notice a particular cell that is constantly far off, that would be more concerning IMO.

 

[vgo195]

Thanks again Fly Dawg. I'll keep an eye on it.