Battery overcurrent errors in sport mode

Dronebow · Feb 27, 2017

While flying in sport mode the other day I got a weird error that I have not seen before. Battery Overcurrent on discharge. Has anyone seen this and what does it mean?

Wacker2611 · Feb 27, 2017

Wow, that would scare the pants off me. Never had that, I'm assuming it's not enjoying delivering the extra power?

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Dronebow · Feb 27, 2017

Yeah, I was in Sport going full bore and when that popped up I immediately backed off and flew it back. It scared me too.. I was a mile out over heavy trees and a small lake... would have never found it....

james_mav · Feb 27, 2017

Dronebow said:
While flying in sport mode the other day I got a weird error that I have not seen before. Battery Overcurrent on discharge. Has anyone seen this and what does it mean?
View attachment 7271

I've seen a few pilots report the error message after running the bird pretty hard.

Cyberpower678 · Feb 27, 2017

When you run the bird hard, the battery may deliver to much current for it to safely handle. Back off on the throttle and let the battery cool while the bird still hovers, about 10 seconds. You should be fine.

Dronebow · Feb 27, 2017

Cyberpower678 said:
When you run the bird hard, the battery may deliver to much current for it to safely handle. Back off on the throttle and let the battery cool while the bird still hovers, about 10 seconds. You should be fine.

Is there any documentation about this or is this just the voice of experience??

larkin · Feb 27, 2017

DJI should really chime in on this one. Remember, the batteries themselves can get a firmware update and from the frequency of this error I'd say they are in need of one. I just got this error again and was not flying in Sport mode for more than 5 seconds in 55f degree weather.

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dmyers7 · Feb 27, 2017

Was anyone flying in cold (sub freezing) temps? LIPOs ability to deliver current drops exponentially as the temp hits and goes below freezing. Not sure what the trigger points are for this message but temperature while flying would be an interesting data point to see if it is related to the message.

There has been recorded (on this forum / YouTube) Mavic owners in cold weather flying and receiving this message and then the Mavic force landing and sometimes not in desirable places (like water).

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cobra46 · Feb 27, 2017

I, and many others, have experienced this error. For me, it only happens when I'm commanding full forward AND full up in sport mode. I can do either control individually without issue.

Weather was California cold....about 45-55 degrees.

As a workaround, I no longer do both controls at the same time.

flyNfrank · Feb 27, 2017

These become more frequent the older the battery gets. And knowing how DJI is, they probably program in a life span based on the number of time charged.

The Mavic has a bottom end voltage limit it requires to safely fly. Lets say the battery is 14.0 volts at 100%. Lets say the bottom limit is 11.0 volts. Now as you fly the voltage drains as you go along, and it drains it's fastest when flying full throttle forward and up at the same time. At this point the voltage supply is racing towards that 11.0 volts point. Now, just so happens, these batteries have a return voltage rate. Meaning a small draw or no draw on the volts, the overall voltage will begin climbing back towards the 14.0 direction. So, as others have mentioned, just let off full throttle some, and the warning should go away.

Dronebow · Feb 27, 2017

flyNfrank said:
These become more frequent the older the battery gets. And knowing how DJI is, they probably program in a life span based on the number of time charged.

The Mavic has a bottom end voltage limit it requires to safely fly. Lets say the battery is 14.0 volts at 100%. Lets say the bottom limit is 11.0 volts. Now as you fly the voltage drains as you go along, and it drains it's fastest when flying full throttle forward and up at the same time. At this point the voltage supply is racing towards that 11.0 volts point. Now, just so happens, these batteries have a return voltage rate. Meaning a small draw or no draw on the volts the overall voltage will begin climbing back towards the 14.0 direction. So, as others have mentioned, just let off full throttle some, and the warning should go away.

Hmm.. I bet I have less than 5 charges on each battery so if this is what is referred to as the "older a battery gets" that does not make me happy....

flyNfrank · Feb 27, 2017

Dronebow said:
Hmm.. I bet I have less than 5 charges on each battery so if this is what is referred to as the "older a battery gets" that does not make me happy....

Unfortunately, this is just how it is. And even worse is not long ago we discovered that dji is now know to program the batteries to appear to drain faster then they actually do, and appear to not last as long as they actually do. Once they finally got the P3P & P3A's to the level they felt good about, they then turned to the Smart Battery. Prior to this, these batteries lasted a long time and looked like we get 300 flights/charges out of them easily. Their 1st attempt at programming the batteries resulted in large numbers of P3's dropping out of the sky. Each firmware update after that the battery performance went down hill. Some examples were, when the battery had 3.5 volts remaining, that had it displaying 3.0 volts. Or when the battery displayed say 70% it actually was at 83%. These are the things that make someone not happy. Btw, they also set the firmware to not accept aftermarket batteries as well. The list goes on....

john94si · Feb 27, 2017

Yes it is very common but not good

flyNfrank · Feb 27, 2017

john94si said:
Yes it is very common but not good

The volts are jumping all over the place in the video. The battery firmware in that battery and the app version possibly do not match.

Cyberpower678 · Feb 27, 2017

Dronebow said:
Is there any documentation about this or is this just the voice of experience??

Personal experience.

dewster · Feb 27, 2017

It means slow down.

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alexanderguelph · Feb 27, 2017

Scares me a lot, but flying sport mode while recording in 4K in strong winds it's not uncommon for me to see this error with relatively young batteries. If you back off the throttles for a moment it should come back to normal and everything will be OK. There are a few good threads on this topic if you hunt for them.

"Battery Error" - "Over Current Discharge" Warnings in Flight!

https://r.tapatalk.com/shareLink?ur...share_tid=6660&share_fid=1514257&share_type=t

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dangerm0us · Feb 27, 2017

Could be Voltage Sag. Probably temporarily hits a preset limit DJI have set for it. All LiPo's behave like this under stress.

Or maybe a preset current limit is hit. Maybe the batteries aren't high enough C discharge rating to cope with hard up and hard forward simultaneously in sports mode. Maybe your battery is defective or underperforming. Could also be temp related in the environment you're flying in.

Loads of reasons.

Mako79 · Feb 27, 2017

Dronebow said:
While flying in sport mode the other day I got a weird error that I have not seen before. Battery Overcurrent on discharge. Has anyone seen this and what does it mean?
View attachment 7271

Latest firmware?? Mine is latest firmware and I got this warning also when I was gassing it on sports mode. Temp that day was 20Celcius and I think high altitude lower temps has some correlation.
The warning seems to be there to prevent voltage spikes that can cause the drone to drop from the skies.

znuttyone · Feb 28, 2017

flyNfrank said:
These become more frequent the older the battery gets. And knowing how DJI is, they probably program in a life span based on the number of time charged.
.

Based on my experience , this is not true. I had this happen , the battery had only around 10 charge cycles.

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