Battery error - cell broken

[deanneat]

Ok - first post there

got the dreaded battery error the other day, out of warranty (actually just on the 12 months old) 3 charges total, cell lost. So googled lots, read lots, warranty, 6 months..... don't fly with bad cell blah blah blah - well, decided to pull the thing apart - and not just a "Oh well - lets do a you-tube on blowing it up"

I am putting together a "Why" this has happened - will post it up when finished, but decided to post up some preliminary findings.

so removed the outer case, made a balancing cable to plug into my iCharger 206B and off I went
3S 11.1V - reported back 12.59V equates to 4.19V per cell - so 3 x fully charged cells

Alarmed with "BATTERY VOL ERR CEL CONNECT" after 6 seconds
checked - 4.19V, 0V, 4.19V - yep cell missing

must be something I did.............

hmmmmmmmm, so soldered my balancing cable to the top of the moterboard (battery, not DJI LED motherboard) thinking the little connections were faulty, got the same report...........

OK so not the motherboard, not the cables, must be the way it is constructed.......... lets remove the cells from this little motherboard

Now metal long nosed plyers, metal screwdriver........ ohhhhhhhh so careful I was knowing I have 3x LiPo fully charged cells waiting to have some fun doing a thermal runaway in my workshop

Managed to remove it (with very little damage) and inspected all 3 individual cells - guess what - perfect

DJI use a spotwelder like everyone else in the industry to weld the cells to each other and to the board with very little solder (except the individual cell reporting and the combined battery leads)

There it is - a high impedance spot welded joint, purely a DJI construction fault, with no warranty and of course deniability.......... I just wonder how many of these are out there ...............

here is a close up............. Hey DJI - you owe me a battery & your spot welding is horrible (but I'm sure you already know that)

I am going to put it together without the DJIA70-1 motherboard as this is the problem and will post up my efforts

at USD$100 each - if you have some, post them my way - might have to fix them and keep them

 

[Demon27]

It appears that I have the same exact issue with around the same manufacture date. I am currently working on building my own lithium spot welder for some other devices so maybe I will add the DJI to my list of repairs.

 

[s2seyecle]

Suggest re-post on DJI Forum.... Maybe a sympathetic Moderator will inquire on your behalf... FWIW, they can only find out about failures if reported to them. Good luck. (Glad you're still with us!)

 

[deanneat]

Suggest re-post on DJI Forum.... Maybe a sympathetic Moderator will inquire on your behalf... FWIW, they can only find out about failures if reported to them. Good luck. (Glad you're still with us!)

yep done

 

[Dragonfly]

yep done

Almost mitigates a battery recall lol.

 

[CuaC]

I had this issue on Saturday after a few weeks not flying. Charged up my batteries (they were in storage mode of course) and found that one of the cells was not reading ok on one of the batteries. I've tried the full discharge, and it didn't work.

Mine was manufactured in Jan 2017, it had around 20 charges...

 

[dewster]

I had this issue on Saturday after a few weeks not flying. Charged up my batteries (they were in storage mode of course) and found that one of the cells was not reading ok on one of the batteries. I've tried the full discharge, and it didn't work.

Mine was manufactured in Jan 2017, it had around 20 charges...

I have the exact same problem.

 

[CuaC]

I have the exact same problem.

A bit dissapointing to be honest... a battery pack is 90€... if I have to buy a new one everytime I cannot fly for a few weeks.. well... we have a problem lol.

 

[Flycaster]

Battery recall? For the Mavic Pro?

 

[CuaC]

Battery recall? For the Mavic Pro?

I don't think they would ever admit their failure...

 

[RayOZ]

I don't think they would ever admit their failure...

only if they start catching fire.

 

[Ian in London]

I too have this on one of my batteries....after 9 momths.. hopefully a warranty claim will be successful...
Ian

 

[garrion]

Wow. You guys are good.

 

[alencelic]

I had this issue on Saturday after a few weeks not flying. Charged up my batteries (they were in storage mode of course) and found that one of the cells was not reading ok on one of the batteries. I've tried the full discharge, and it didn't work.

Mine was manufactured in Jan 2017, it had around 20 charges...

I have exactly the same case - didn't fly for a few months, battery manufactured jan 2017 and it has 20 charges.
Another one got battery initialization fail error, so I'm left with only one working battery.
I'm so disappointed in DJI

 

[RayOZ]

They are chemical batteries. They don't last forever. I think it's the same for all LiPo batteries. Don't know if leaving it unused for a long time deteriorates it, but there's been a few threads about batteries not working after they've been stored for a long time.
My excuse for flying more often.

 

[Youser]

They are chemical batteries. They don't last forever. I think it's the same for all LiPo batteries. Don't know if leaving it unused for a long time deteriorates it, but there's been a few threads about batteries not working after they've been stored for a long time.
My excuse for flying more often.

How long is a long time?

Also, how much difference can there be between cells for them to be ok? Is 0.03v ok?

 

[RayOZ]

Based on DJI's warranty: 6 months or 200 cycles.
I am guessing storage charge, rate of discharge during storage, storage temperature, etc would play apart. I don't suppose anyone has tried measuring the rate of discharge.
Even those regular batteries, AA, AAA, etc comes with an expiry date.
My cousin hardly uses his car, so he bought this device that he plugs to the car battery to simulate regular driving load to keep the battery healthy. Maybe someone can make one for the Mavic batteries.

 

[Eric17]

Is the manufacturer date found from the dji app? My drone shows made feb 20th 2017 so possible to be same batch? I have 3 others id like to check as well. Does this seem to be widespread?

 

[Hoonz]

Sorry to bring this up but I'm encountering the same issue on TWO batteries! I haven't used my Mavic Pro in maybe a year, so when we went camping recently I decided to bring it with me, unfortunately, BOTH batteries gave me the same error. Any updates on this and if DJI is getting it fixed? Any quick fixes?

Thank you!