I have an original Mavic Air which I did not use for a considerable time. I attempted to recharge 2 DJI PB1 batteries and neither the DJI charger nor an aftermarket charger were able to charge them after a number of hours. The LEDs on the aftermarket charger never changed color to indicate that charging was taking place. Is there anything I can do to recover these batteries. As an interesting observation, neither the controller nor two batteries from a Ryse Tello drone which were treated the same way had any problem recharging.
They are likely dead if they won’t charge. How long is a considerable amount time?
My understanding is that these “Smart Batteries” need to have some power in them to activate the recharge cycle in the Firmware of the battery. If the battery is completely dead, it cannot send the signal to the charger to start charging.
Thank you to those who responded. To answer the question about considerable time it was probably more than a year. I am old and don’t go out much so I expected to play with the drone in the house. I forgot about the propwash. I live in a city next to a multi-lane street so avoiding overflying traffic, avoiding power lines and neighbor privacy made yard flying untenable so I put it away. I got it out when I read about remote ID and wanted to check for firmware upgrades. I am still puzzled why the controller and the Tello batteries treated the same way were able to charge. How do stores keep this from happening to their batteries? Is there that much of a rapid turnover?
The turnover would depend on the store, but I doubt most stores have DJI batteries sitting unused in boxes for years.
DJI mentions the following (and more) in the Mavic Air Battery Safety Guidelines:
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DO NOT store the battery for an extended period after fully discharging it. Doing so may over discharge the battery and cause irreparable battery cell damage.
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The battery will enter hibernation mode if depleted and stored for a long period. You cannot manually turn off the battery power LED in this state. Leave the battery unattended for 5 minutes, and then the light will turn off. Recharge the battery to bring it out of hibernation.
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Battery life may be reduced if not used for a long time.
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Fully charge and discharge the battery at least once every 3 months to maintain battery health.
And check out my “HOW TO: Maintain and store your DJI Mavic batteries guide” here:
That and it would be rather challenging to fly any type of DJI drone indoors as the average space is usually too confined.
They are likely dead, but you could try leaving them on the DJI battery charger for a few hours to see if they wake up. I’ve never seen DJI recommend such a thing, but some people claim it worked for them.
For whatever reason, remote controller batteries seem to be a bit more resilient than aircraft batteries. That’s why you don’t see as many people complaining about remote controllers not charging after sitting for long periods of time.
You do not need to worry about New DJI Batteries, they are placed into “Sleep Mode” and like the Fairy Tale about Snow White who ate the poisoned apple and she went into Sleep Mode too and was finally awoken by “Loves First Kiss”; a new battery will awaken with the “first kiss of being charged…”
Actually the Sleep Mode is called “Hibernation Mode…”
As for the Controller’s battery verses the Drone’s battery, the batteries in the controller probably are not Smart Batteries, plus they are larger, last for hours and if they do die, the drone goes into Return to Home mode and does not just drop out of the sky. The Drones batteries need to be Smart so the drone can transmit all the vital specifics to the controller and you know the battery exact status are all times so the drone is not lost due to the battery going dead unexpectedly…