Phantom 4 Pro - Battery contacts melted!

[Newbieguy]

Not 1.5 firmware, 75 degrees, it hit the ground with 70% battery which the flight started with full capacity battery. Dji determined bad battery contacts. I was cruising at 135 alt. I was just sharing my experience the fact I didn’t have a meltdown made it pretty obvious it wasn’t a relevant problem.

 

[John Locke]

Not 1.5 firmware, 75 degrees, it hit the ground with 70% battery which the flight started with full capacity battery. Dji determined bad battery contacts. I was cruising at 135 alt. I was just sharing my experience the fact I didn’t have a meltdown made it pretty obvious it wasn’t a relevant problem.

Yes, anything is possible, just never heard that before. The P3 had some pretty big blade contacts, so you must have had a bad connector in the craft. Did you notice the replacement craft having a more firm feel when installing the battery, compared to the first craft?

 

[low_budget]

Feb 7th: received, evaluation, and quote.
Feb 9th: repaired and tested
Feb 12th: shipped back
Feb 16th: received refurbished P4 pro and new battery

The condition of the refurbished unit is excellent, it could probably pass as new. I also received a brand new high capacity battery to replace the melted one.
I have only done some basic tests so far, since my altitude is limited to 100 feet.

Naturally, I had to give up my preferred firmware version I haven't updated in a year and update to the newest dji firmware for the drone to connect with live camera feed working.

How to I get rid of the 100 foot altitude restriction? This is making me mad because I've never had to deal with this before. I have an older version of DJI go 4. Do I also need to update my DJI go 4 to the newest version?
I do not want to update DJI go 4 because my current version works great with my old Inspire 2 firmware. I'm thinking the new DJI go won't work with my old Inspire 2 firmware.

If so, the forced firmware update ruined my whole repair experience and I might as well sell the phantom 4.
I don't want my flight altitude and distance limited to something useless at random times.

I really wish DJI just made the part and I could have fixed it myself. Would have gladly spent 8 hours and $200 of my own money to fix the Phantom and able to keep the early firmware.

 

[DaRana]

If DJI process is as advertised you can assume, with respect to a refurb, it is an article that was returned during the original grace period after purchase and has been checked over prior to re supply.

It is not a repaired product.

Based on my own personal experience I don't believe that to be the case, at least not all aspects of what you described. Perhaps it is not a "repaired" product, but it's pretty clear that it isn't very well checked over prior to resupply. Specifically, I received back a Mavic Pro on a DJI Refresh that had a completely non-functional camera focus. It turned on, but any check should have caught the fact that the camera was useless and wouldn't focus at any distance. Others have posted on this board as well with horror stories of receiving back bad units on a warranty repair/refresh.

That said, part of why I wanted to post this was that all we normally hear on a public forum are the bad experiences. While the fact that this happened in the first place is frustrating, **** happens and these are pretty crazy complex pieces of equipment. And the actual warranty replacement process was faster and more straightforward than let's call it the "perceptual average" from the message boards. So, yeah, my first post I was pretty frustrated but overall full process and receiving back a working unit in <3 weeks is good!

IMO DJI still has a pretty deep seated issue with their culture of customer service with respect to the US market, rooted in cultural differences that are pretty common, i.e. it isn't a surprise or uncommon. I do think that they continue to leave unneeded market risk on the table until that address that, but for now, an incremental improvement in the repair process is better than getting worse.

 

[With The Birds]

Based on my own personal experience I don't believe that to be the case, at least not all aspects of what you described. Perhaps it is not a "repaired" product, but it's pretty clear that it isn't very well checked over prior to resupply. Specifically, I received back a Mavic Pro on a DJI Refresh that had a completely non-functional camera focus. It turned on, but any check should have caught the fact that the camera was useless and wouldn't focus at any distance. Others have posted on this board as well with horror stories of receiving back bad units on a warranty repair/refresh.

That said, part of why I wanted to post this was that all we normally hear on a public forum are the bad experiences. While the fact that this happened in the first place is frustrating, **** happens and these are pretty crazy complex pieces of equipment. And the actual warranty replacement process was faster and more straightforward than let's call it the "perceptual average" from the message boards. So, yeah, my first post I was pretty frustrated but overall full process and receiving back a working unit in <3 weeks is good!

IMO DJI still has a pretty deep seated issue with their culture of customer service with respect to the US market, rooted in cultural differences that are pretty common, i.e. it isn't a surprise or uncommon. I do think that they continue to leave unneeded market risk on the table until that address that, but for now, an incremental improvement in the repair process is better than getting worse.

I was simply quoting what DJI say about their refurbished products. What they actually do and with what consistency is a question of fact. What is evident is that quality control and testing would seem to be lacking across all areas ornate their business. I have personal experience in how that doesn’t work well for them, and me unfortunately.

 

[John Locke]

If so, the forced firmware update ruined my whole repair experience and I might as well sell the phantom 4.

I think if you search around you might find in YouTube ways to revert back to earlier firmware. My favorite is 1.3.509, and I have a copy of that. I just don't know how to install it on a later version craft. I have the Dumldor installation tool but another guy could not get the firmware to load in his P4P using Dumldor.

Here's a place to start.

 

[low_budget]

I was able to remove the 100 foot restriction today after updating DJI go and logging in. The Phantom 4 Pro refurb works well and I haven't found any issues. Nice to know I'm not grounded where I normally fly.

So, DJI did a pretty good job in my case. I didn't have DJI refresh, and the Phantom was 9 months old when I had issues so getting that fixed fairly quickly and getting the battery replaced with a new one was nice.

I still hate this firmware because I don't know when it will leave me grounded, but I guess I can deal with it. I had to take a safety quiz in DJI go, LOL.

I would like to downgrade firmware, but I'm to lazy and easily frustrated to attempt something like that. If I can fly where I know there's no restricted airspace then it isn't a big issue.

 

[lickitysplit11111]

Yeah, I’m not sure if there has always an issue, bad soldering, what. I’m also aware of seating securely due to paranoia of falling out. Like you said, it shouldn’t be an easy failure mode to occur. Also noticed looking through my airdataUAV logs that the minor and major derivations across all five batteries were consistently almost all on cell 4. That hints to me that it was maybe a poorly soldered connection or otherwise poor connection point. Never enough to trigger active alerts but above baselines for my first p4p and Mavic.



Yeah, definitely opening a case today. Just annoyed bc I have had to deal with Dji support before so I know this means hours of my time and 5-6 weeks Best Case with no p4p.

Someone was one here about a week ago saying they had a quick turn around time , if you live on the EastCoast your screwed by an xtra two weeks transit time...

 

[DaRana]

I was simply quoting what DJI say about their refurbished products. What they actually do and with what consistency is a question of fact. What is evident is that quality control and testing would seem to be lacking across all areas ornate their business. I have personal experience in how that doesn’t work well for them, and me unfortunately.

Ah, sorry, I misread it as stating what it was not what they said it was. Yeah, qc would be nice.

 

[DaRana]

Someone was one here about a week ago saying they had a quick turn around time , if you live on the EastCoast your screwed by an xtra two weeks transit time...

Yeah the shipping time is killer. They gave me the 2day to the repair center and said they would back but that didn’t happen. One other time I got it back but I think only bc I had raised a stink after I got a bad refresh unit back and an escalation person babysat it for me.

 

[John Locke]

Ah, sorry, I misread it as stating what it was not what they said it was. Yeah, qc would be nice.

I heard a rumor that DJI is going to outsource the manufacturing of their consumer drones to multiple manufacturers. I assume this helps them scale growth faster. I'm hoping it will increase their quality consistency too, with actual outgoing test and inspection, to some degree. I'm not suggesting they fly each drone, but they do need to create some quick and simple tests WHILE they have the drone turned on to link the RC to it. They could save a lot of money in warranty returns if they did that, not to mention happier customers.

I'm told DJI will only manufacture the lower volume commercial craft, which would be Inspire and higher. However, DJI will design all craft and create the firmware and software of course. I've always thought the DJI designs were stellar, but their manufacturing consistency isn't. Maybe they realize that and that's why they will start outsourcing their manufacturing. Cross your fingers!

 

[low_budget]

Same problem with melted battery contacts on my refurbished Phantom 4 pro after only one month and maybe 10 flights. Totally unacceptable. Caught it early this time and only melted one contact pin.
I was using the same battery DJI sent with the refurb.

Proof this IS a design flaw and DJI only applies band aids to the issue instead of redesigning the connectors so they don’t melt and fail.

I’m sending it back AGAIN and hopefully I can sell the refurb without even activating it. This is ********.

 

[low_budget]

OK i got my “repaired” Phantom 4 Pro today with what appears to be a new battery.
There is one problem though, they returned the same P4 I sent in ( no issue there) but they did absolutely nothing to fix it.
It still requires activation on power up, but no repairs performed whatsoever. The damage to the battery connector was much less severe this time with only one pin melted, so I guess they thought that was fine, LOL.
There was a replacement battery board listed on the invoice, but that didn’t get replaced.

Oh well, I can only laugh at the situation.

I guess if I want to get the battery board replaced, I need to take a blowtorch to it and melt those connectors good before sending it in.

 

[Nightwolf]

I heard a rumor that DJI is going to outsource the manufacturing of their consumer drones to multiple manufacturers. I assume this helps them scale growth faster. I'm hoping it will increase their quality consistency too, with actual outgoing test and inspection, to some degree. I'm not suggesting they fly each drone, but they do need to create some quick and simple tests WHILE they have the drone turned on to link the RC to it. They could save a lot of money in warranty returns if they did that, not to mention happier customers.

I'm told DJI will only manufacture the lower volume commercial craft, which would be Inspire and higher. However, DJI will design all craft and create the firmware and software of course. I've always thought the DJI designs were stellar, but their manufacturing consistency isn't. Maybe they realize that and that's why they will start outsourcing their manufacturing. Cross your fingers!

I have never seen outsourcing end up a good thing.

 

[PulsarBG]

I had the exact same problem today. My drone has about 80 hours of flight and the original P4P battery with about 75 cycles got glued to the connector of the drone. I had noticed that one of my batteries was extra hot at the bottom few days earlier but didn't see any damage and considered it a one time thing... but I guess not! By applying quite a lot of force I managed to pull the battery out and saw molten plastic around one of the connector pins. I flew 2 more batteries after that to complete my project and there were no issues. In the picture below I already cut out the moten bits from the connector but you can see where the damage is.
When I compared the molten connector to those of all my other batteries I saw something important. All the pins inside the faulty connector seemed to be way further apart as opposed to the connectors of the other batteries. In my humble opinion there in lies the cause of the problem. As those connector pins somehow got loose over time, the contact with the drone connector deteriorated which caused overheating. I was lucky that my drone did not drop like a rock. At home i tried to pry those pins out and see if I can "restore" them to what the other batteries look like but they would not budge. Let me know if any of this makes any sense to you as it may be a way to screen batteries for this potential issues before it actually stats a BBQ inside our drones.