Drone not shutting down

[GregLee]

Hi All,

Bit of an odd one. Go to use my drone, put in a fully charged battery, drone turns on and connects no problem. If I shut the drone down and then go to turn the drone on again it won’t connect to the controller. The green connection light doesn’t come on at all (neither red or green). The drone turns on but won’t connect.

Things I have tried.
1) update all firmware
2) bought a new battery (same problem) so at least I’m fairly sure it’s not the battery.
3) been through about 6000 forums.
4) recharging the battery to see if it somehow resets things
5) if I press the connect button on the drone, nothing happens.

Things that work
1) for some reason if I let the drone sit turned on and drain the battery, then recharge the battery, everything works fine next time. Hell frustrating process.

Weird things that happen.
1) if the drone ends up in this weird limbo mode where it won’t connect but I shut it down, after a period of time the drone will turn itself on. I thought I was losing my mind where one time I had packed away the drone and randomly heard it turn on in my wardrobe. The second time it thankfully turned on in front of my wife after it had been sitting off on the table for 5 hours.

What I think it could be,
I feel like the drone isn’t shutting down 100% (perhaps software wise?) and then won’t start up properly next time. Reasons for this logic, new battery did nothing, when I let it drain out it might force the drone to shut down differently to a manual shutdown. If I leave it for some time the drone might lose any residual charge in its capacitors and fully shut down.

thought I’d extend to the group to see what everyone thinks.
Thanks, Greg

 

[boblui]

It appears the battery is still supplying power to the drone when the battery is powered off ( all lights on the battery off ). May be you can try turn off the battery. Pull it out, plug it back in, turn the battery on and see what will happen ?

 

[SkyeHigh]

It appears the battery is still supplying power to the drone when the battery is powered off ( all lights on the battery off ). May be you can try turn off the battery. Pull it out, plug it back in, turn the battery on and see what will happen ?

As the Op said, already tried replacing the battery with a new one, same issue.

 

[boblui]

As the Op said, already tried replacing the battery with a new one, same issue.

The problem is clearly on the drone side. I am just trying to establish whether the drone can cause the battery to turn off incompletely. This is just for my own curiosity.

 

[GregLee]

As the Op said, already tried replacing the battery with a new one, same issue.

Yeah tried this.
Most common sequence of events
1) turn drone on (after not using for a number of days)
2) everything connects
3) do my preflight checks etc
4) turn everything off to go out to location
5) turn drone on, won’t connect
6) turn everything on an off multiple times
7) take battery out and put back in
8) still same problem
9) internalize frustration when in a public place
10) try again next weekend

I tend to know now that shutting it down causes the issue so will often do my pre flight checks and just fly all in one go but becomes an issue if I want to do multiple flights with the one charge etc.

 

[GregLee]

On very very rare occasions I get a flashing light error but I couldn’t find this error sequence anywhere.

back lights will flash quickly yellow for about 5 seconds then two slow red pulses.

 

[SkyeHigh]

On very very rare occasions I get a flashing light error but I couldn’t find this error sequence anywhere.

back lights will flash quickly yellow for about 5 seconds then two slow red pulses.

Red blinking slowly is usually a low battery warning. Yellow flashing quickly & constantly indicates lost communication, though it’s normal for the yellow LEDs to flash 4-times during warmup.

It looks more like an issue with the aircraft. Worth checking the contacts for the battery on the aircraft itself are not bent or damaged.

Have there been any crashes?

 

[GregLee]

Red blinking slowly is usually a low battery warning. Yellow flashing quickly & constantly indicates lost communication, though it’s normal for the yellow LEDs to flash 4-times during warmup.

It looks more like an issue with the aircraft. Worth checking the contacts for the battery on the aircraft itself are not bent or damaged.

Have there been any crashes?

Thanks, no crashes, full batteries, problem happened straight out of the box, agree could be contacts on drone but the fact that it works then ceases to work makes me think it’s not the contacts.

 

[GregLee]

As a test I was wondering if there is a way to ‘discharge’ and remaining power that might be in the drone (not the battery) to see if this triggers the drone to ‘reset’ and shut off. Same principle as removing charge from circuit boards before working on them. Not sure how to do this on the M2P? Not sure if I can join two of the drone contacts with a wire. Also don’t want to mess anything else up though.

 

[RayOZ]

Take a video of the issue. Then raise a ticket with DJI. Send the video if they request. No point trying to fault find when it may be a warranty issue. Better they replace the drone or batteries with properly working ones. I assume it’s less than a year old?

 

[SkyeHigh]

The aircraft won’t have any remaining charge once the battery is removed. Any significant residual charge is only relevant to circuits with large capacitors and low current draw.

If you are still covered by warranty I would recommend contacting DJI and explaining the issue and mention that you have tried already with a replacement battery.