I own a small fleet of older DJI drones, but my recent purchase of a Mini 3 is the first brand-new drone I have ever acquired. I bought this drone because of the standard battery's phenomenal battery duration of 34 minutes, and a whopping 47 minutes of flight time for the "plus" battery version.
After jumping through the unfamiliar hoops of activating the drone to get out of beginner mode, and pairing it with its controller, I charged up a standard battery and launched the Mini 3 on its first test flight. Just as I was settling in to enjoy the unfolding view of the countryside as the Mini 3 headed out, I got a battery low warning and the drone reverted to RTH after a shocking THREE MINUTES, which is less than one-tenth of the advertised battery duration.
Now, given that this is a brand-new drone, I expected the provided battery to be in pristine condition, and capable of keeping the drone aloft for at least 30 minutes. To see the battery run flat after a piddling 3 minutes left me stupefied. I own a DJI Phantom 3S, a Phantom 3Pro, a Mavic 1 Pro, a Mavic 1 Pro Platinum, and a Mavic 2 Pro, all of which I purchased used from eBay, and I never saw any of the supplied used batteries run critically low in under 20 minutes, with 22 minutes being the average time for a fully charged battery to run low enough for RTH to kick in.
Fortunately, I also purchased two of the extra capacity "Plus" batteries for this Mini 3, and I am in the process of charging them up to see how they fare. All the same, it beggars the belief that a brand-new drone could be sold with a dead battery that will not last a tenth of its specified flight duration. I would love to hear from any other forum contributors here who may have run into dead batteries that were supplied with a brand-new drone. I am inclined to send that battery back to the seller for a refund right away, but I decided to write to this forum first, just in case there is some battery update process that I skipped due to my limited knowledge of the Mini 3. Thanks in advance for any pointers you can share on this very odd predicament.
After jumping through the unfamiliar hoops of activating the drone to get out of beginner mode, and pairing it with its controller, I charged up a standard battery and launched the Mini 3 on its first test flight. Just as I was settling in to enjoy the unfolding view of the countryside as the Mini 3 headed out, I got a battery low warning and the drone reverted to RTH after a shocking THREE MINUTES, which is less than one-tenth of the advertised battery duration.
Now, given that this is a brand-new drone, I expected the provided battery to be in pristine condition, and capable of keeping the drone aloft for at least 30 minutes. To see the battery run flat after a piddling 3 minutes left me stupefied. I own a DJI Phantom 3S, a Phantom 3Pro, a Mavic 1 Pro, a Mavic 1 Pro Platinum, and a Mavic 2 Pro, all of which I purchased used from eBay, and I never saw any of the supplied used batteries run critically low in under 20 minutes, with 22 minutes being the average time for a fully charged battery to run low enough for RTH to kick in.
Fortunately, I also purchased two of the extra capacity "Plus" batteries for this Mini 3, and I am in the process of charging them up to see how they fare. All the same, it beggars the belief that a brand-new drone could be sold with a dead battery that will not last a tenth of its specified flight duration. I would love to hear from any other forum contributors here who may have run into dead batteries that were supplied with a brand-new drone. I am inclined to send that battery back to the seller for a refund right away, but I decided to write to this forum first, just in case there is some battery update process that I skipped due to my limited knowledge of the Mini 3. Thanks in advance for any pointers you can share on this very odd predicament.
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