Phantom II Battery Resurrection?

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Hey Ya'll,

I've read a couple threads here about how to care for the Phantom II batteries. I did so because I'm pretty sure I ruined my batteries through improper storage.

I bought my Phantom II about 5 months ago and when I did I bought extra batteries. Thinking I was going to get the Phantom flying soon, I charged the batteries. But then I left for over four months without ever flying the Phantom so the batteries sat for about five months fully charged.

When I got back the batteries were still fully charged (97-98%) so I took the quad for its first flight. About 5 minutes into the flight the Phantom stopped responding to throttle and self lands/crashes from only a few feet in the air - only two broken props.

After reading about battery care here in these forums it looks like I did exactly the right thing to ruin the batteries - storing them for long periods at full charge. Expensive lesson learned.

I tried one more charge and flight and the quad still starts to land when the battery is at about 50-60%. My question is, can these batteries be resurrected by repeated cycling or are they dead to me now?

Thanks for your help!

gringorio
 
Try a total discharge - by running the quad with the props off, so that the % charge goes down to zero. You will not damage them, as they will still have some charge left.

Then, fully recharge and see if they last a little longer. Sometimes this will re-calibrate the battery charge meter, but if the batteries are shot, there is not a lot you can do.

You cannot recondition lipos in the same way you can ni-cads I'm afraid.
 
Try a total discharge - by running the quad with the props off, so that the % charge goes down to zero. You will not damage them, as they will still have some charge left.

Then, fully recharge and see if they last a little longer. Sometimes this will re-calibrate the battery charge meter, but if the batteries are shot, there is not a lot you can do.

You cannot recondition lipos in the same way you can ni-cads I'm afraid.

Thanks for the reply! So I tried cycling them like you suggested and that did not work. Live and learn I guess.

My brother seems to think storing them in the refrigerator between uses helps maintain the batteries. Anyone think that's true? How do you store your P2 batteries between uses?
 
I like to reference the following.

http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/types_of_lithium_ion

There is some reading there that Lithium Ions can be somewhat restored but that is only from an extremely low state of charge and I don't remember reading how it's done properly. Certainty as said above it's not the same recondition as a ni-cad.

Yes store them in the fridge from 70-40% charge state (not freezer).

Basically:
Higher storage/use temp = Sorter life
Higher discharge = Shorter life
Higher charge = Shorter life
Higher discharge rate = Shorter life

So basically anything you do to make the battery more useful to you reduces its life.
 
i got battery 4 month old with 6 charges on it (2 off them are trying to recover it ) and its duff.
stored at 50% in the cool. not to happy
 
They should have self discharged to 50% after about 10 days.
It's part of the "smart" *cough* that's built into them.
I'm not sure why yours didn't do so.

I had one battery once gave me a "do not use again" error, saying cells were damaged or some such thing.
It had under 20 cycles on it.
I ran it down to 8% charge, recharged it, and I've never seen another error message since.
Never says the cells are damaged. I have it clearly marked "not for flight use" and use it for getting satellite lock before flight (can take 20 minutes, which I don't want to use my flight battery to do).
I've also used it for some low speed low height LOS flying just when testing things, but do so with great caution and with an incredibly constant eye on the battery meter on both the screen and the battery itself. But so far it seems to quite faultlessly deplete in reasonably equal amounts from the high 90%'s down to 20% without any problems at all. I almost want to start trusting it again. But have enough "good" batteries that are trusted, to not have to do so with this one.

I wish I had more advice for how you might fix yours. Mine seems to have fixed itself from a full discharge. If it's already shot, there would be no harm in trying the deep discharge again.
Worst case scenario they remain wrecked, but it's worth a try.
 
They should have self discharged to 50% after about 10 days.
Thats only if they are the newest batterys with the new firmware. but its never a good idea to rely on letting dji take care of your batterys if you can do it your self and then know they are in the right state before storing them cause even the self discharge is not meant to replace taking care of your batteys and is just meant as a back up in case you forget to do it. But I also think letting one go a full 10 days and doing it a lot is just asking for trouble with these not so smart and very finicky battery's
 

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