Hi folks,
My Phantom 3 Standard literally fell out of the sky a few days ago while flying at 16 meters altitude. Did not crash into something, no birds, bullets, whatsoever. Complete loss of power while the drone battery was at 60% juice and remote battery ~90%. Crashed onto the ground, with broken camera / gimbal / cables / propellers as a result. Flying with the original battery, latest firmware, all set.
Log can be found here:
https://www.phantomhelp.com/LogViewer/8US35O0P36LT4DKGP397/
Already called DJI support, but my warranty has ended since the product is > 2 years old.
What are my opportunities in this situation? I cannot believe this…
Any help is much appreciated!
It looks like you were using a faulty battery. Cell #1 likely spiked so low that it caused the battery to power off mid-flight.
Hi Mike,
Thanks for your quick reply.
I have seen the strange battery behavior indeed. However, I was using the original DJI battery so I find this highly remarkable. I am aware that my drone is roughly 30 months old, but this should not be possible right?
As with all these aircraft batteries, there is a maintenance procedure that must be maintained. You risk damaging the battery without this. @msinger should be able to provide you with the proper procedures if you were not aware previously.
Batteries are a disposable accessory. All of them will eventually need to be replaced at some point. It’s certainly possible for a battery to last 2.5 years and still be functional. Ans it’s equally possible for a battery to need to be replaced after that same period of time (or sooner).
In your case, it seems that battery was not performing as designed. Unfortunately, I don’t think there is anything you could have done to prevent that disaster – even if you had been watching the battery voltage in DJI GO mid-flight. If prior flight logs showed similar signs when using that battery, then that of course would have been your first hint that it was time to replace it.
Hi Mike,
Thanks again for your response.
As it turned out, your view on these batteries being just disposable accessories is right. What I find strange however, is that I have never seen any warnings on this from DJI. Also, I’m not notified about or triggered to care about the lifetime of my batteries by DJI. I think a lot of people - including me - will accept their OEM battery could lose some performance but they do not expect these sudden dropouts. Especially not from a premium company like DJI building products that last a while.
I think it would be a tough thing for them to explain to people. While it’s not convenient, the best thing you could do is consistently review and compare the battery data after each day you fly to spot any anomalies.
Airdata has features that allow battery data to be reviewed. I only have an HD 360 Lite plan, so I’m not sure exactly what those features can do. It might be worth trying (for even a month) to see if it’s something you could use to monitor your batteries.
