Sudden drop of battery level on DJI Go app, please help!!

[gmartinez0003]

I got ready to fly with a fully charged battery and battery % suddenly dropped quickly. It was about 1 second per percent or faster. I quickly turned aircraft and remote off after it dropped to 70%, restarted both, as well as app, and it showed correct battery level, 97%. I took off and hovered about 6 ft, went forward and backward a few times and everything seemed normal. Is this a glitch or does anybody no what's going on? P3Pro, around 80 flights. All firmware is updated. Battery is brand new, has been charged one time and ran down to 60% then fully charged again. I didn't think healthy drones would tell me anything because I wasn't flying, but I'll check log after I rebooted and tested battery. Any opinions would be appreciated.


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[Noble 1]

Perhaps the battery needs to be broken in, since this was its first charge. Best to not do any high altitude or long distance until this discrepancy is resolved.

 

[John Locke]

Sounds like the DJI firmware engineers use to work for Microsoft. Sometimes you just have to reboot.

I had a battery glitch this weekend also. I flew on a 100% freshly charge battery along the ocean. At 53% battery, 3.88V per cell, I got a "Battery Low, 10% left" warning. I was shocked to see this white dialog box in my video screen. I wasn't even flying hard, just in a 20mph cruise along the beach. Fortunately I was very close and I immediately landed within a minute. I had 51% left with 3.81V when I landed. HD didn't show any anomaly in the flight. This is a really a strange event that makes me pause. I've never seen that warning before. My battery had 24 charges, very healthy too, all cells have very little deviation.

 

[Slow Polk]

Sounds like it might be a bad contact. Might want to try a different battery and if it does not do it again then assume it was a glitch like you were thinking.

 

[gmartinez0003]

Sounds like it might be a bad contact. Might want to try a different battery and if it does not do it again then assume it was a glitch like you were thinking.

I flew two batteries before this happened. It happened on the last battery i put in the phantom so idk.


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[gmartinez0003]

That's pretty scary John Locke, and makes me paranoid of flying. I understand the risks when purchasing, and I can cope with a crash due to a faulty or worn out component but not an inaccurate application or something stupid like that.


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[Kestrel24]

How long has it been charged for (time between charging and using?). I may be wrong about this, but I believe the battery begins to self-discharge after 3 or so days -

 

[RedHotPoker]

You can set the discharge time, in the Go app. I put mine at Ten days. If I was going to fly, before venturing off, I'll check my battery packs voltage, and will usually top them off. If need be. It seems well worth the extra effort.
I would want those extra few minutes, just I case I need to bring it down. I don't want my drone, splash landing into a body of water, or torn to splinters if it slams into a tall spruce tree.

RedHotPoker

 

[GadgetGuy]

You can set the discharge time, in the Go app. I put mine at Ten days. If I was going to fly, before venturing off, I'll check my battery packs voltage, and will usually top them off. If need be. It seems well worth the extra effort.
I would want those extra few minutes, just I case I need to bring it down. I don't want my drone, splash landing into a body of water, or torn to splinters if it slams into a tall spruce tree.

RedHotPoker

The self-discharge state is what has been the precipitator of many of the battery shutoffs in flight. If the battery is in a self-discharge mode, the DJI GO app can still report 87% remaining battery, and then shut off 16 seconds into a flight under load, with a single cell reaching under 3.0V. Ask me how I know!

If there is any chance your battery has entered into the self-discharge state, do not attempt to fly with it (for even a minute!), regardless of the % remaining battery displayed by the battery LED's or the DJI GO app! It will not be accurate. Instead, first fully top off the battery, to properly rebalance all 4 cells, and ensure a correct displayed value for remaining battery percentage.

"Keeping P3's in the air until you want them to land!"

 

[PJHoward]

The self-discharge state is what has been the precipitator of many of the battery shutoffs in flight. If the battery is in a self-discharge mode, the DJI GO app can still report 87% remaining battery, and then shut off 16 seconds into a flight under load, with a single cell reaching under 3.0V. Ask me how I know!

If there is any chance your battery has entered into the self-discharge state, do not attempt to fly with it (for even a minute!), regardless of the % remaining battery displayed by the battery LED's or the DJI GO app! It will not be accurate. Instead, first fully top off the battery, to properly rebalance all 4 cells, and ensure a correct displayed value for remaining battery percentage.

"Keeping P3's in the air until you want them to land!"

Is there any way of telling when a battery is in self-discharge mode?

 

[John Locke]

Is there any way of telling when a battery is in self-discharge mode?

None that I'm aware of, and that's a contributing cause off problems. All you can do is count days, but that's complicated with five batteries.

 

[Air Ontario]

You never HAVE to take off, but once you takeoff, you do HAVE to land.

I top up my "100%" charged drone batteries before I fly just to be sure.

The only time you can have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

 

[alokbhargava]

The self-discharge state is what has been the precipitator of many of the battery shutoffs in flight. If the battery is in a self-discharge mode, the DJI GO app can still report 87% remaining battery, and then shut off 16 seconds into a flight under load, with a single cell reaching under 3.0V. Ask me how I know!

If there is any chance your battery has entered into the self-discharge state, do not attempt to fly with it (for even a minute!), regardless of the % remaining battery displayed by the battery LED's or the DJI GO app! It will not be accurate. Instead, first fully top off the battery, to properly rebalance all 4 cells, and ensure a correct displayed value for remaining battery percentage.

"Keeping P3's in the air until you want them to land!"

I'm not really convinced that if the battery is in self discharge mode and if you turn it on to use it on P3, it will discharge very quickly. Why is it so? It should take whole day to discharge by 40% on its own.

Technically it should come out of self discharge mode when it is switched on.

I guess it's a failure of battery's electronic circuits or FW.

 

[jack1144]

I'm not really convinced that if the battery is in self discharge mode and if you turn it on to use it on P3, it will discharge very quickly. Why is it so? It should take whole day to discharge by 40% on its own.

Technically it should come out of self discharge mode when it is switched on.

I guess it's a failure of battery's electronic circuits or FW.

Temperature plays a big role. If battery is below 25c I would prewarm it. The low temp causes big voltage drops when the battery isn't fully charged.
The other thing is full charge state starts depleting immediately. Full charge the battery and let it sit for a several days even before entering self discharge, and the capacity will be lowered.
I see the main problem is the battery state is tested UNLOADED which will always give a false reading.

 

[alokbhargava]

Temperature plays a big role. If battery is below 25c I would prewarm it. The low temp causes big voltage drops when the battery isn't fully charged.
The other thing is full charge state starts depleting immediately. Full charge the battery and let it sit for a several days even before entering self discharge, and the capacity will be lowered.
I see the main problem is the battery state is tested UNLOADED which will always give a false reading.

We understand the conditions of lightly loaded or unloaded voltages and the effect of circuit filter capacitors who can supply for a short time. But original post hints at able to reuse the battery after initial problems which got resolved after restating.

My point is that there are other associated problems we are not aware of. We should not always point to discharge cycle mode as that doesn't seem to be an issue here.

 

[Air Ontario]

Just as a reference point in case it may be of help.....
I charge batteries @ 17C, + / -1C, as I keep the battery charging area about 62F during the winter. I do the IMU "warmup" inside before taking the bird outside, getting GPS/Home point, then launch.

I will leave a battery in the off position in the bird after a flight for a couple of minutes just to dissipate most of the heat/kill any condensation before recharging.

However, I am flying anywhere between -20C and 5C/-4F to 41F. I also top up even the 100% batteries if they will take a charge.

I also keep the C2 switch on the Pro programed to toggle the battery info and I watch the voltage in the upper menu bar under batt%.
If I see any yellow voltage numbers I back off, or stop multiple stick inputs and just use a single stick input.

I doubt I would see any battery "issues" if the weather was fit for man or beast.

 

[jack1144]

We understand the conditions of lightly loaded or unloaded voltages and the effect of circuit filter capacitors who can supply for a short time. But original post hints at able to reuse the battery after initial problems which got resolved after restating.

My point is that there are other associated problems we are not aware of. We should not always point to discharge cycle mode as that doesn't seem to be an issue here.

Ya I agree with your point of not pointing at discharge cycle everytime. I was pointing at temperature and once run for a few minutes battery temp comes up and reads ok.

 

[gmartinez0003]

I'm not really convinced that if the battery is in self discharge mode and if you turn it on to use it on P3, it will discharge very quickly. Why is it so? It should take whole day to discharge by 40% on its own.

Technically it should come out of self discharge mode when it is switched on.

I guess it's a failure of battery's electronic circuits or FW.

Thanks you guys for the posts. I never fly the same battery twice in one day. I live in Oklahoma so I'm more worried about the wind than temperature this time of year. I always top batteries off and fly down to around 50%. I flew the problem battery again today and it went perfect so I hope it was an issue with the app. If it's the battery, you guys will be reading a post from me with a lot of curse words! [emoji51]


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[GadgetGuy]

The main problem with a battery in a self-discharge state is that the cell voltages are not properly balanced during the discharge, such that any one battery cell could vary in voltage by enough from the others that the lowest cell could reach less than 3.0V under extreme load, triggering the "low voltage protection" algorithm, which will immediately shut the battery off, even if in flight, to "protect" the battery, by destroying the aircraft and the battery!
If you check the Battery History in the DJI GO app, it will tell you if the battery has entered into self-discharge under Record 01. Best to always top off to 100% before every first flight of the day with each and every battery.