The battery extinguish I suppose

[Andy9]

It's rediculous because I just read the post from a guy who has almost exact the same problem and I gave him a suggestion to throw the batt. away.

But what's bothering me is, that my battery was around at 60% before I put it into the charger. I have three batteries and I circling among them each 3 months. I put one battery aside and not use it for around three months, then I do the same with another one and so on. I regularily check the battery status and it is normal all the time (two lit and one blinking).

Now when I connected this battery in the charger only the first light started to blink for 15 sec. and then went out and after the same period started blinking again and repeating such sequence at least one hour or so with no progress. I tried to revive it with one short and one long push on the button and it showed all four lights but then when charging only one was blinking all the time. I left it charging and after 12 hours it was completely dead. Only once the third light started to blink for a while and then nothing.
Allbatteries are 4y old and have around 70 cycles of charging.

Is it permanently dead?

 

[quaddamage]

If you want to revive it, check this tool:
O-Gs comm_sbs_bqctrl.py

There's also a very long thread in the "Issues" of this project, where they probably explain more; I stopped tracking it at some point.

Remember that the battery set "Permanent Fail" flag for a reason. You can revive it, but I'd use it as a power bank, not for flying. Over-discharging a battery may cause a serious drop in effective capacity, no matter whether it was new or old.

You know like a phone with old battery says it's 50% charged and then turns off as soon as you try to use it? Damaged drone battery will do the same, only in the middle of flight.

 

[Andy9]

I'm aware of that. The only thing that is odd here is, how can all the resting time (three months) showed two and a half lights and then at charging it went off.

 

[WV. Rootman]

If you want to revive it, check this tool:

GitHub - o-gs/dji-firmware-tools: Tools for handling firmwares of DJI products, with focus on quadcopters.

Tools for handling firmwares of DJI products, with focus on quadcopters. - o-gs/dji-firmware-tools

github.com

There's also a very long thread in the "Issues" of this project, where they probably explain more; I stopped tracking it at some point.

Remember that the battery set "Permanent Fail" flag for a reason. You can revive it, but I'd use it as a power bank, not for flying. Over-discharging a battery may cause a serious drop in effective capacity, no matter whether it was new or old.

You know like a phone with old battery says it's 50% charged and then turns off as soon as you try to use it? Damaged drone battery will do the same, only in the middle of flight.

At 7, I had the resistor color code memorized. I started out in my early teens repairing TV and radios. I had a tool for degaussing TV'S. Then, one day I opened a TV. and everything was on this little board. I replaced a 32 prong chip and fix it. Computers and programing came to be. Either I slowed down or the world sped up and left me behind. Lol. I love your brain. Lol.

 

[Capt KO]

I’ve given up trying to figure out these batts. Sad to say, my deadpool just keeps growing without rhyme nor reason.

 

[quaddamage]

Either I slowed down or the world sped up and left me behind.

Oh, I'm not up to date as well, really. They no longer sell Phantoms, you know. And I'm still here .
I tried flying a borrowed Mavic Mini recently, but it turns out my phone was too old - the app will only install on arm64.

Anyway, for the batteries - they are now controlled by a Battery Maintenance System chip, with micro-processor. They have firmware, internal storage, and some programming - which allows to "ask" the battery for amount of charge, or how long will it last at current load, or how many discharge cycles it had. The battery actually speaks through a generic interface - I2C. And there is also a set of min/max values in the firmware; when they are exceeded, the battery will enter "Permanent Fail" mode. For example, if voltages drop too much or are too high - PF will set. When PF flag is set, the battery will refuse to charge, and refuse to close MOFSETs which provide output power. So all it will do is blink the diodes, showing a specific error code, which is supposed to tell which condition was tripped - on voltage, power, imbalance, resistance, temperature, etc. (did I mention there's a thermocouple in every battery?)

Some batteries have the I2C at external contacts, others you have to open to solder to the I2C interface.

20 years ago, a calculator I had was more powerful than a computer I had 10 years earlier.
10 years ago, a phone I had was more powerful than a computer I had 10 years earlier.
Today even a battery has a computer. Though at least it's not as powerful yet as my PC was 10 years ago.

 

[Andy9]

No cure then. I'm sorry because this batt was just fine 3 months ago. Now I have another of the same age (4y) and the same quantity of charging cycles and I'm wondering will it go the same way. However I'm going to buy a new one urgently.

 

[WV. Rootman]

Oh, I'm not up to date as well, really. They no longer sell Phantoms, you know. And I'm still here .
I tried flying a borrowed Mavic Mini recently, but it turns out my phone was too old - the app will only install on arm64.

Anyway, for the batteries - they are now controlled by a Battery Maintenance System chip, with micro-processor. They have firmware, internal storage, and some programming - which allows to "ask" the battery for amount of charge, or how long will it last at current load, or how many discharge cycles it had. The battery actually speaks through a generic interface - I2C. And there is also a set of min/max values in the firmware; when they are exceeded, the battery will enter "Permanent Fail" mode. For example, if voltages drop too much or are too high - PF will set. When PF flag is set, the battery will refuse to charge, and refuse to close MOFSETs which provide output power. So all it will do is blink the diodes, showing a specific error code, which is supposed to tell which condition was tripped - on voltage, power, imbalance, resistance, temperature, etc. (did I mention there's a thermocouple in every battery?)

Some batteries have the I2C at external contacts, others you have to open to solder to the I2C interface.

20 years ago, a calculator I had was more powerful than a computer I had 10 years earlier.
10 years ago, a phone I had was more powerful than a computer I had 10 years earlier.
Today even a battery has a computer. Though at least it's not as powerful yet as my PC was 10 years ago.

Interesting, thank you. I dunked my P3 into the river and the battery was still blinking when I retrieved it. The cells were wet and swelled up. I could possibly use the circuit board to retrieve and old battery that sat around too long?

 

[quaddamage]

I didn't tried to revive any locked battery myself, all my batteries are in good shape. Though they should be easy to unlock, so I will look if I can get some cheaply.

 

[WV. Rootman]

I didn't tried to revive any locked battery myself, all my batteries are in good shape. Though they should be easy to unlock, so I will look if I can get some cheaply.

We have many battery stores in the US, such as battery plus. They can build you a battery for your needs. I wanted a cheaper battery for my Nikon camera. They are around $50US and they made me one for half the price. They have all kinds of battery cells. I never tried it, but possibly I could buy the cells I need. Then replace them in a bad DJI Phantom battery. The circuit board may have to be reset. Could be a lot cheaper than buying a new battery.