Battery crapped out.

[jwilson]

Well, looks like you guys have some egg on your faces. Just got this from DJI:

"
Hi Steve,

Thank you for contacting DJI Technical Support.

We are glad to inform you that we already a feedback from our relevant and we can go ahead and replace your faulty battery.

By the way, may we know your current location so that we can advise you accordingly?

We will be waiting for your response.

We're genuinely eager to bring resolution to each of your questions because our heartfelt mission is to offer support in every possible manner. Should you have any more inquiries or concerns, don't hesitate to reach out. I'm here for you, ready to ensure that you receive the care and attention you deserve."

There was no negligence here, or carelessness. It was like the Jim Carry Movie. A Series of Unfortunate Events. There were no steps I took, that a reasonable person would expect to damage the battery. Sometimes s**t just happens. I wouldn't do what I did over again, but I can see how this could of happened to anyone. Just because something bad happens, doesn't mean it's someone's fault. You can always monday morning quarterback, and say someone should of done something differently. But I had no way of knowing, at the time, this would happen. But I'm sure something like this would never happen to you guys.

A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004) ⭐ 6.8 | Adventure, Comedy, Family

1h 48m | PG

www.imdb.com

 

[MS Coast]

Well, looks like you guys have some egg on your faces. Just got this from DJI:

"
Hi Steve,

Thank you for contacting DJI Technical Support.

We are glad to inform you that we already a feedback from our relevant and we can go ahead and replace your faulty battery.

By the way, may we know your current location so that we can advise you accordingly?

We will be waiting for your response.

We're genuinely eager to bring resolution to each of your questions because our heartfelt mission is to offer support in every possible manner. Should you have any more inquiries or concerns, don't hesitate to reach out. I'm here for you, ready to ensure that you receive the care and attention you deserve."

There was no negligence here, or carelessness. It was like the Jim Carry Movie. A Series of Unfortunate Events. There were no steps I took, that a reasonable person would expect to damage the battery. Sometimes s**t just happens. I wouldn't do what I did over again, but I can see how this could of happened to anyone. Just because something bad happens, doesn't mean it's someone's fault. You can always monday morning quarterback, and say someone should of done something differently. But I had no way of knowing, at the time, this would happen. But I'm sure something like this would never happen to you guys.

A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004) ⭐ 6.8 | Adventure, Comedy, Family

1h 48m | PG

www.imdb.com

Per post #20,

"DJI may well elect to give you a new battery, for good publicity, customer relations, or whatever. But not because their product warranty covers such owner-inflicted damage."

Your last (no negligence, or carelessness) paragraph and your initial post about how you exposed the battery to salt water don't seem to be describing the same events.

This brings to mind a tragic swimming accident in Egypt - drowning in the Nile.

 

[jwilson]

Per post #20,

"DJI may well elect to give you a new battery, for good publicity, customer relations, or whatever. But not because their product warranty covers such owner-inflicted damage."

Your last (no negligence, or carelessness) paragraph and your initial post about how you exposed the battery to salt water don't seem to be describing the same events.

This brings to mind a tragic swimming accident in Egypt - drowning in the Nile.

Tell me exactly which thing I did, that was so careless or negligent. Then I will respond.

Got a shocker from DJI today. Now they say it was a European battery, so they can only send it back to a European address. Even though when I lost my mavic 3 pro that was purchased in Thailand, they sent it back to me here in the Philippines. Go figure.

"First of all, please be advised that when we checked your battery's information, it showed that the warranty coverage is in Europe. If we have to replace the battery, we can only send it to a European address.

If you have to send the battery back to us, if you have a friend, family, or relatives in Europe, we suggest to send to them first and let them help to send it back to our European warehouse. After finishing the aftersales service, we can only send your battery back to a European address. We hope you understand."

 

[mavic3usa]

Tell me exactly which thing I did, that was so careless or negligent. Then I will respond.

Got a shocker from DJI today. Now they say it was a European battery, so they can only send it back to a European address. Even though when I lost my mavic 3 pro that was purchased in Thailand, they sent it back to me here in the Philippines. Go figure.

"First of all, please be advised that when we checked your battery's information, it showed that the warranty coverage is in Europe. If we have to replace the battery, we can only send it to a European address.

If you have to send the battery back to us, if you have a friend, family, or relatives in Europe, we suggest to send to them first and let them help to send it back to our European warehouse. After finishing the aftersales service, we can only send your battery back to a European address. We hope you understand."

If you cannot find someone on this forum to help you out, there are inexpensive forwarding services in the EU that can help.

 

[jwilson]

Well dji emailed me this today. So hopefully they can send me the battery directly.

"On a related note, I am currently coordinating with our warehouse team to verify the possibility of sending a replacement battery directly to the Philippines. Rest assured, I will follow up with their response and provide you with an update as soon as possible. Please allow us a window of 24-48 hours to gather the necessary information and get back to you."

 

[jwilson]

Well, I got my new replacement battery yesterday. I did a full charge, and tested it. I got 24 minutes and 53 seconds of flight time, with 14% battery remaining when I landed. I was flying between 24 and 28 mph most of the time. So I told DJI this. This was their response.

"I am pleased to hear that a new battery has been installed and that the maximum battery life for your model is approximately 31 minutes(Measured in a controlled test environment. Specific test conditions are as follows: flying forward at a constant speed of 17 kph in a windless laboratory environment, in photo mode (without photo taking operation during flight), and from 100% battery level until 0%. Results may vary depending on the environment, actual use, and firmware version.).

Therefore, it is normal for the battery to have 14% remaining after 24 minutes and 53 seconds of flight time."

So DJI's test conditions, and claims of 41 minutes of flight time, are pretty unrealistic in my opinion.

Why would you fly in photo mode, without taking photos. I'm almost always in video mode taking 4k video for the whole flight. Of course, your never going to land at 0% battery. I didn't know that 17 kph was the optimal flight speed for a long flight time. I thought it was 22 mph.
So I guess I'll have to adjust my waypoint mission speeds.
So given this, I think any waypoint mission over 17 minutes is very risky. Because you never know what the wind will be.

 

[GadgetGuy]

Well, I got my new replacement battery yesterday. I did a full charge, and tested it. I got 24 minutes and 53 seconds of flight time, with 14% battery remaining when I landed. I was flying between 24 and 28 mph most of the time. So I told DJI this. This was their response.

"I am pleased to hear that a new battery has been installed and that the maximum battery life for your model is approximately 31 minutes(Measured in a controlled test environment. Specific test conditions are as follows: flying forward at a constant speed of 17 kph in a windless laboratory environment, in photo mode (without photo taking operation during flight), and from 100% battery level until 0%. Results may vary depending on the environment, actual use, and firmware version.).

Therefore, it is normal for the battery to have 14% remaining after 24 minutes and 53 seconds of flight time."

So DJI's test conditions, and claims of 41 minutes of flight time, are pretty unrealistic in my opinion.

Why would you fly in photo mode, without taking photos. I'm almost always in video mode taking 4k video for the whole flight. Of course, your never going to land at 0% battery. I didn't know that 17 kph was the optimal flight speed for a long flight time. I thought it was 22 mph.
So I guess I'll have to adjust my waypoint mission speeds.
So given this, I think any waypoint mission over 17 minutes is very risky. Because you never know what the wind will be.

You have yet to tell us whether the battery they replaced was your original 2.5 year old battery, as you believe, or was your battery purchased within the last year, and how you also overcame the no receipt problem which consumed most of your thread, and how convinced them that your negligence should be covered by the battery's one year warranty.

So now, after somehow duping DJI into replacing the battery for free that you, yourself, ruined, which you believe to have been a 2.5 year old battery, you now want to complain about the replacement battery flight times? Your chutz·pah knows no boundaries!

 

[Meta4]

So DJI's test conditions, and claims of 41 minutes of flight time, are pretty unrealistic in my opinion.

The max time DJI shows for the Mavic 3 pro isn't 41 minutes (it's 43 minutes).
What's unrealistic is your lack of understanding regarding the max flight time that DJI publishes.

You don't seem to be aware just how much flight speed, climbing, slowing and accelerating, and pushing into headwinds affects flight times.
Because flight times in real world environments vary a lot, DJI can't tell you a number that will be comparable with the conditions you fly under on any particular day.
So they give a number for the absolute max time under specific conditions to allow you to compare different drone models and they make the test conditions very clear in their specs.

Why would you fly in photo mode, without taking photos. I'm almost always in video mode taking 4k video for the whole flight. Of course, your never going to land at 0% battery.

It should be obvious that you wouldn't, but DJI give you the details so you understand how they achieve that time.

I didn't know that 17 kph was the optimal flight speed for a long flight time. I thought it was 22 mph.

You really need to look at the specs more carefully.
The optimal speed for max flight time is different from the speed for max distance.
Neither is 17 km/h or 22mph.
You can find what they are in the specs here:

DJI Mavic 3 Pro - Specs - DJI

View the specs of DJI Mavic 3 Pro, a triple-lens flagship camera drone with multiple focal lengths, for detailed information about features, functions, and configurations. Mavic 3 Pro has a 4/3 CMOS Hasselblad camera and dual tele cameras, and all three cameras of the Cine version also support...

www.dji.com

So given this, I think any waypoint mission over 17 minutes is very risky. Because you never know what the wind will be.

An experienced flyer should always have a pretty good idea what wind will be before launching.

Well, looks like you guys have some egg on your faces. Just got this from DJI:

Really?

There was no negligence here, or carelessness. ....

You can't see that you got lucky with DJI after your negligence and carelessness allowed saltwater to ruin your battery?

 

[MS Coast]

Tell me exactly which thing I did, that was so careless or negligent.

Per your own description in post #1:

"So unfortunately, when I finished swimming, I sat in there with my wet swimsuit, and it developed a small puddle of salt water, right where I happened to place my DJI carrying bag."

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

I find this very hard to believe. Are they suggesting I install and older Fly to find the manufacturing date? Unbelievable!

Providing
1) you have an Android screen device and
2) a pre 1.4.12 app is compatible with the drone and
3) the damaged battery will communiucate the information
then I actually think that is a remarkably good suggestion from DJI.
That is if you really do want to find the production date.

I will sometimes install a new version of the app, just to see what it offers, then I uninstall the new version and reinstall my old version. It takes a couple of minutes to go back to the old version.
You can get old android versions of the app from Download DJI Fly APKs for Android - APKMirror .
If you are using an Apple device you can not do this.

All the above said, the flight logs record the battery serial number so, if you kept your old flight logs, you can check when the battery was first used, which might give you an idea of when it was bought.

 

[jwilson]

You have yet to tell us whether the battery they replaced was your original 2.5 year old battery, as you believe, or was your battery purchased within the last year, and how you also overcame the no receipt problem which consumed most of your thread, and how convinced them that your negligence should be covered by the battery's one year warranty.

So now, after somehow duping DJI into replacing the battery for free that you, yourself, ruined, which you believe to have been a 2.5 year old battery, you now want to complain about the replacement battery flight times? Your chutz·pah knows no boundaries!

As I stated before, DJI says it was a European battery, so it couldn't of possibly my original Mavic 3 battery which I bought from Amazon.com in the US.
I did a number of things to convince DJI to not require the receipt. First, I reminded them that they replaced my Mavic 3 pro, when it didn't return from an out of signal range waypoint mission, without a receipt. I didn't have to pay one penny for that. Then I showed them I emailed the Thai store twice, and they never replied. Then i told them I called the Thai store twice on the phone to no avail. Which I actually did. Also, I had written down in my diary, exactly when, where, and how much I paid for my mavic 3 pro. I bought it less than a month after it came out. And they can tell from the serial number when it was manufactured.
So I just appealed to their logic.
You forget that two other batteries got wet in the same salt water, and didn't fail. I bet most Mavic 3 batteries won't fail, if you spray salt water on them, when they're powered off, and then wipe it off before you use it. But again, it was DJI's decision to replace it, not mine.
I do think their rating that batteries flight time 43 minutes is ********. Specially when you're never supposed to fly to 0% battery. Did you know, that some companies rate their products conservatively?

 

[jwilson]

The max time DJI shows for the Mavic 3 pro isn't 41 minutes (it's 43 minutes).
What's unrealistic is your lack of understanding regarding the max flight time that DJI publishes.

You don't seem to be aware just how much flight speed, climbing, slowing and accelerating, and pushing into headwinds affects flight times.
Because flight times in real world environments vary a lot, DJI can't tell you a number that will be comparable with the conditions you fly under on any particular day.
So they give a number for the absolute max time under specific conditions to allow you to compare different drone models and they make the test conditions very clear in their specs.

It should be obvious that you wouldn't, but DJI give you the details so you understand how they achieve that time.


You really need to look at the specs more carefully.
The optimal speed for max flight time is different from the speed for max distance.
Neither is 17 km/h or 22mph.
You can find what they are in the specs here:

DJI Mavic 3 Pro - Specs - DJI

View the specs of DJI Mavic 3 Pro, a triple-lens flagship camera drone with multiple focal lengths, for detailed information about features, functions, and configurations. Mavic 3 Pro has a 4/3 CMOS Hasselblad camera and dual tele cameras, and all three cameras of the Cine version also support...

www.dji.com

An experienced flyer should always have a pretty good idea what wind will be before launching.

Really?


You can't see that you got lucky with DJI after your negligence and carelessness allowed saltwater to ruin your battery?

Reading the specs link you gave me, you can see the flight time conditions in that are totally different than what they sent me in the email.

 

[jwilson]

Per your own description in post #1:

"So unfortunately, when I finished swimming, I sat in there with my wet swimsuit, and it developed a small puddle of salt water, right where I happened to place my DJI carrying bag."

I didn't know the puddle of salt water was formed right where my bag was, because my bag was blocking my view of the puddle. Understand?

 

[tstr14]

Negligence via ignorance is not an excuse. It is unfortunate that the battery was ruined by your actions but clearly is not DJI's fault as they do not sell batteries warranted against salt water exposure. That is not supposition, it is fact. Nevertheless, DJI for whatever reason, gave you a replacement battery that they were not required by the terms in their warranty to provide. Despite this display of goodwill on their part, you are now complaining that the replacement battery doesn't last as long as you think it should. As another member implied, that takes real gall on your part.

Though you will not agree with this opinion, as is evidenced by your numerous attempts to absolve yourself of all blame in this situation, I agree with others who feel you are ahead of the game and should accept what you have gotten and leave it at that.

EDIT: I see you also have another post about an issue with your controller. Is it possible that this too was a victim of salt water invasion?

 

[Yorkshire_Pud]

I bet most Mavic 3 batteries won't fail, if you spray salt water on them,

It all depends where in the battery the salt water reached and what it touched, if it touched two disimilar metals then there is a fair chance it will set up an electrolytic cell and it's hard to believe the damage those can do.
Similarily it may set up a short, which is just waiting for the relevant circuits to be powered.

 

[Meta4]

I didn't know the puddle of salt water was formed right where my bag was, because my bag was blocking my view of the puddle. Understand?

I think that everyone except you understands.
It was your negligence (that means failure to take proper care of something), that was responsible for the demise of the battery

I bet most Mavic 3 batteries won't fail, if you spray salt water on them, when they're powered off, and then wipe it off before you use it.

Why don't you spray seawater over your new battery to find out.
If seawater gets into any of the batteries circuitry, the battery is toast.

I do think their rating that batteries flight time 43 minutes is ********. Specially when you're never supposed to fly to 0% battery.

Do you understand how specifications work?
Are you able to achieve the fuel consumption that the manufacturer of your car advertises?

Did you know, that some companies rate their products conservatively?

No ... please give some examples.

 

[MS Coast]

I didn't know the puddle of salt water was formed right where my bag was, because my bag was blocking my view of the puddle. Understand?

I do understand.

YOU got out of the water and sat down next to the bag holding your drone and YOU dripped salt water on it. YOU didn't even look to see where the salt water YOU released was going. YOU caused the battery to be damaged.

You wheedled a new battery out of DJI, but you continue to deny responsibility and cast yourself as a righteously aggrieved victim.

 

[jwilson]

I think that everyone except you understands.
It was your negligence (that means failure to take proper care of something), that was responsible for the demise of the battery

Why don't you spray seawater over your new battery to find out.
If seawater gets into any of the batteries circuitry, the battery is toast.

Do you understand how specifications work?
Are you able to achieve the fuel consumption that the manufacturer of your car advertises?

No ... please give some examples.

If your shopping for a car, and you see the mpg ratings, city and highway, if you purchase that car, the milage you get will be pretty dam close to the sticker. The EPA checks this, and if they're wrong, the car company will be prosecuted. Drone ratings are virtually unregulated, so that's why they are so far off.
A long time ago, their were two manufacturers of outboard boat engines. Evenruide and Mercury. Evenrude actually sued Mercury, claiming that when Mercury rated their engine at 100 hp, when it was actually 120 hp.

 

[jwilson]

These are some definitions of negligent I found on the internet:

failing to exercise the care expected of a reasonably prudent person in like circumstances

Negligence is an important legal concept; it's usually defined as the failure to use the care that a normally careful person would in a given situation

So did I exercise the care a normal prudent person would? I think I did. Would a normal person, think that water from his swimwear, would go downhill, and form a puddle of water, right where his drone bag was placed, exposing the battery terminals to enough salt water to damage drone batteries that were power off? I don't think so.

I was just looking for all the emails I exchanged with DJI on this topic. Unfortunately, I can't find them, so I probably deleted them. Very unfortunate. They would be interesting reading now.

 

[mavic3usa]

If your shopping for a car, and you see the mpg ratings, city and highway, if you purchase that car, the milage you get will be pretty dam close to the sticker. The EPA checks this, and if they're wrong, the car company will be prosecuted. Drone ratings are virtually unregulated, so that's why they are so far off.
A long time ago, their were two manufacturers of outboard boat engines. Evenruide and Mercury. Evenrude actually sued Mercury, claiming that when Mercury rated their engine at 100 hp, when it was actually 120 hp.

The EPA is the government and the government can't regulate everything. Apparently MPG rose to a high enough level that it has rules but only because past usage has been so abused and lied about and the rampant cheating and dishonesty. When drone battery times reach that level on fraud and require the government to step in, let's talk.

Until then, the government needs to stay out of that business and if customers are unhappy with the battery ratings, let's the market forces correct that. I absolutely don't believe the government should be checking this stuff because....the government doesn't know any better than anyone else. I'd rather have the manufacturer fibbing to us before the government. The government controls everything airlines stats and look at where we are with that! Nobody from the flying customer public can make heads or tails out of anything from Boeing safety and crashes to on-time reporting to cancellations/refunds/etc. It's the biggest cluster ever, why? Government regulations.