Battery overheating warning during long flight?

[Edslittleworld]

I was flying in Tucson, AZ and going for a personal distant record. I made it out to over 15,000 feet and immediately turned home. On the way back, I was full throttle in SPORT mode when a little popup and banner warned of overheating battery. So, I just let the unit hover (still a mile out) and eventually brought it back safely. Has anyone ever seen this warning and did it hurt my battery? The temp was 85ish and low humidity, but the sun was out.

 

[willhay555]

Wow, I thought mine was hot today after a full battery on sport mode at 43deg!

 

[Kilrah]

Sport mode at full blast is very demanding on everything. You don't want to do a whole flight like that (not to mention you'll cover less distance than by just being in P mode with OA disabled).

Sport mode gives you about 15% more speed, but probably drains 30% more on the battery. Yes it is likely to suffer.

Wow, I thought mine was hot today after a full battery on sport mode at 43deg!

He's saying 85°F ambient. The battery at 85°C would have caught fire already.

 

[willhay555]

Ah, I don't know what ambient means.

I'd just done ten mins hover and then switched to sport for what was probably another five mins.

Sport mode is 15% faster than P?

Surely not.

 

[Kilrah]

Surely you didn't notice "with OA disabled".

 

[Former Member]

Yes it can hurt your battery. Lipos are sensitive to overheating, and when you fly, you might want to get a temp gun to see what temps are like after you fly on the battery and on the bottom of the heat sink. The battery is in a very tight compartment and doesnt get the benefit of the fan, only the air passing over it, so the bottom side of the battery will get very hot.

The best thing to do if you get that message is to land. If youre too far away from home, land it and drive to go get it. If youre over water, decrease throttle to half or less and let the airflow get it cooled down.

Summer's coming and you wont be the last to get that message. You were flying at 85, but flying in anything over 95 is hard on the cooling system, so best to fly in the morning or evening when the sun isnt that much of a factor.

 

[Kilrah]

you might want to get a temp gun to see what temps are like after you fly on the battery

The battery temp is shown in the app.

 

[Edslittleworld]

Good info, guys! Thanks!!

 

[Heavysledz]

Good info, guys! Thanks!!

did you happen to notice what the battery temp was when you got the alarm? I checked my flight logs and saw I had a battery reach 142.3'F (61'C) but never received a warning or notification....so makes me wonder what temp triggers this warning?

 

[TerryJ]

Ah, I don't know what ambient means.

I'd just done ten mins hover and then switched to sport for what was probably another five mins.

Sport mode is 15% faster than P?

Surely not.

Sport mode is 2x's faster than p mode. Top speed in p mode is 20. Top speed in sport mode is 40.
P.s. 10 out 9 people have a huge problem with fractions!! LMAO

 

[Rbruz]

Yes it can hurt your battery. Lipos are sensitive to overheating, and when you fly, you might want to get a temp gun to see what temps are like after you fly on the battery and on the bottom of the heat sink. The battery is in a very tight compartment and doesnt get the benefit of the fan, only the air passing over it, so the bottom side of the battery will get very hot.

The best thing to do if you get that message is to land. If youre too far away from home, land it and drive to go get it. If youre over water, decrease throttle to half or less and let the airflow get it cooled down.

Summer's coming and you wont be the last to get that message. You were flying at 85, but flying in anything over 95 is hard on the cooling system, so best to fly in the morning or evening when the sun isnt that much of a factor.

Not sure why the batteries don't have a built in heat sink, sure would help !

 

[Heavysledz]

Sport mode is 2x's faster than p mode. Top speed in p mode is 20. Top speed in sport mode is 40.
P.s. 10 out 9 people have a huge problem with fractions!! LMAO

Your comments are not completely correct. Top speed in P-mode is around 36mph (58kph) if the Forward Vision System is turned off but is limited to around 22mph (36kph) if enabled......

***Located on page 11 of users manual***

 

[TerryJ]

Your comments are not completely correct. Top speed in P-mode is around 36mph (58kph) if the Forward Vision System is turned off but is limited to around 22mph (36kph) if enabled......

***Located on page 11 of users manual***

I've never reached that speed in p mode. 20 is what my telemetry tells me. I know that the speed telemetry isn't very accurate but 20 is what it tells me in p mode. I've seen a few videos that people are posting saying they've reached 60 according to tbeir telemetry. Totally not accurate!

 

[Heavysledz]

I won't get into a debate with you over the accuracy of the telemetry but again, based off of the specs, it is capable of well over 30 while in P-mode if you turn off the forward vision system. It slows down the top speed to the stated 22mph when enabled in order to give the Mavic ample time to identify and react to obstacles. I looked at my flight logs on AirData UAV and it pretty much backs up the claimed specs (or at least some of them).... My first 2 flights were in P-mode with all of the collision avoidance system settings on and it shows my top speeds of each flight was 20.85 and 22.82mph respectively. I have several other flights in P-mode that registered between 26 and 28mph one of which was while using active track. I can't say that I have reached the claimed top speed of 36mph in P-mode but I really don't try to go top speed while in P-mode so I can't confirm nor deny this part of it but without a shadow of a doubt it will go much quicker the 20mph in P-mode if you disable the forward vision system.

Edit: regarding the claimed +60mph speeds...this was a known issue on the earlier firmware revs that when you chose imperial units it stated mph but was still showing values in kph

 

[MavicPro]

did you happen to notice what the battery temp was when you got the alarm? I checked my flight logs and saw I had a battery reach 142.3'F (61'C) but never received a warning or notification....so makes me wonder what temp triggers this warning?

I've seen my battery temps reach 58c a few times and one time 60c. I'm also curious at what temp we see this battery overheating pop up

 

[dronerdave]

The other day I got a battery over-temp warning on the GPS bar (weather was calm about 78*F). I was shooting some video of a bridge when the the camera started to jump around. Looking up I noticed an eagle flying in the area my Mavic was flying in, so I threw it into sport mode and high tailed it back to the take off point. I don't know what caused the gimbal to start jumping around...I have doubts the bird hit it but it was enough to spook me a bit. As the Mavic was landing I got the battery over-temp warning. The battery seemed warm but not much difference than after a normal flight. I popped in a new fresh battery and took off. About 50 feet out the battery OT warning came on again so I brought it back. After rebooting everything I put in another new battery and got the same warning while lifting off the landing pad. On the ground it seemed like the fan wasn't running in the drone but I don't know what triggers it to run. The bottom of the Mavic was quite warm, something I have never noticed before.
We all drove to another flying spot about 30 miles away and the Mavic started up normal and it operated fine in P mode for the next few hours.

>Did the high speed run cause the battery to overheat the aircraft frame which in turn caused the next batteries to get hot?

>If the aircraft is hot why isn't the fan running?

> Is the temp sensor for the batteries on the Mavic itself (not in each battery)?

BTW At the other site I could hear the fan running. Sorry I don't do well with computers so I don't know how to retrieve the logs.
Thanks for any advice.

 

[jaysrmc]

I was flying in Tucson, AZ and going for a personal distant record. I made it out to over 15,000 feet and immediately turned home. On the way back, I was full throttle in SPORT mode when a little popup and banner warned of overheating battery. So, I just let the unit hover (still a mile out) and eventually brought it back safely. Has anyone ever seen this warning and did it hurt my battery? The temp was 85ish and low humidity, but the sun was out.

I am in Phoenix and in the summer I have had to land because I was afraid the battery was going to cause the drone to have a loss of power incident. I try to do my flights early morning if I am doing some scenic flying around the mountains or lakes.

 

[jaysrmc]

The other day I got a battery over-temp warning on the GPS bar (weather was calm about 78*F). I was shooting some video of a bridge when the the camera started to jump around. Looking up I noticed an eagle flying in the area my Mavic was flying in, so I threw it into sport mode and high tailed it back to the take off point. I don't know what caused the gimbal to start jumping around...I have doubts the bird hit it but it was enough to spook me a bit. As the Mavic was landing I got the battery over-temp warning. The battery seemed warm but not much difference than after a normal flight. I popped in a new fresh battery and took off. About 50 feet out the battery OT warning came on again so I brought it back. After rebooting everything I put in another new battery and got the same warning while lifting off the landing pad. On the ground it seemed like the fan wasn't running in the drone but I don't know what triggers it to run. The bottom of the Mavic was quite warm, something I have never noticed before.
We all drove to another flying spot about 30 miles away and the Mavic started up normal and it operated fine in P mode for the next few hours.

>Did the high speed run cause the battery to overheat the aircraft frame which in turn caused the next batteries to get hot?

>If the aircraft is hot why isn't the fan running?

> Is the temp sensor for the batteries on the Mavic itself (not in each battery)?

BTW At the other site I could hear the fan running. Sorry I don't do well with computers so I don't know how to retrieve the logs.
Thanks for any advice.

You are like me, I run into Eagles and Hawks all the time and land as soon as they start coming near the quad. I really wish that reflective tape worked to scare off birds..

 

[Jonny_Pain]

I once (and stopped after this) did a Top Gun take off in sport mode- full forward and full up and got engine over rev and battery discharge warnings. I was however, a bad arse way to get the party started!

 

[dronerdave]

I once (and stopped after this) did a Top Gun take off in sport mode- full forward and full up and got engine over rev and battery discharge warnings. I was however, a bad arse way to get the party started!

Not any over rev or discharge warnings, only a high battery temp warning...at least from my controller app.