...Guess its time for a new battery(drifting issues)

[Sir Maxwell Greene]

I have no solid proof, but hear me out...I'm convinced the bulging/swelling battery issue is linked to the drifting drone issue.
My MA is about a year old. I have 3 batteries, all the same age and give or take a few charges have the same amount of cycles on them.

2 of the 3 look like as in the image below. The better one has a slight bulge/ swelling, but funny enough does not drift in the air.
The 2 "bad" ones drift without fail and act erratically on almost all the testing.
I have done the IMU calibration countless times, compass calibration, checked satellites ; none of it seemed to help.

**I know using batteries like this is not safe, hell, just carrying them around freaks me out. I wanted to test a little and then post my findings here, hoping someone else could back me up or otherwise have a different take on it?

 

[Meta4]

I'm convinced the bulging/swelling battery issue is linked to the drifting drone issue.

The better one has a slight bulge/ swelling, but funny enough does not drift in the air.
The 2 "bad" ones drift without fail and act erratically on almost all the testing.

I can't think of anything a battery could do that would cause the drone to drift, least of all some minor swelling.
It sounds like coincidence has been confused with correlation.

I have done the IMU calibration countless times, compass calibration, checked satellites ; none of it seemed to help.

The compass won't make any difference and there are always plenty of satellites unless you are flying down low with trees or obstacles blocking the terrain.
A better idea than messing around with unrelated things would be to properly test, examine flight data and look at things that might possibly be related.
Like VPS and the surface texture/lighting below the drone.
Here's a question to start you off.
Does it drift when the VPS is disabled?

 

[Former Member]

I have no solid proof, but hear me out...I'm convinced the bulging/swelling battery issue is linked to the drifting drone issue.
My MA is about a year old. I have 3 batteries, all the same age and give or take a few charges have the same amount of cycles on them.

2 of the 3 look like as in the image below. The better one has a slight bulge/ swelling, but funny enough does not drift in the air.
The 2 "bad" ones drift without fail and act erratically on almost all the testing.
I have done the IMU calibration countless times, compass calibration, checked satellites ; none of it seemed to help.

**I know using batteries like this is not safe, ****, just carrying them around freaks me out. I wanted to test a little and then post my findings here, hoping someone else could back me up or otherwise have a different take on it?

Think about it this way. The battery puffed. Do you know the reason why it puffed? Was it due to heat, overdischarging, etc?

If a battery puff is due to overheating while it's inside the drone, several things might happen. You might get uneven discharging, overdischarging, overheating, or all. Your battery has puffed upwards. If it stayed locked in to the drone, the puff had to go somewhere. In your case, it crushed what is above the battery, which is the ESC board and then the core board with IMU. The IMU sits on top of the downward sensors so it might have gotten effected by the excess heat or pressure coming from the expansion of the battery. Not likely, but possible.

 

[Arce101]

What causes swelling batteries

 

[CanadaDrone]

What causes swelling batteries

Improper battery care, and/or too much heat. Leaving them at/near 100% charge in hot climates and flying when it's too hot out is probably the #1 reason.

No chance a slightly puffed battery will make an otherwise normally functioning drone drift, IMO. Should never fly with one anyway.

 

[Former Member]

Improper battery care, and/or too much heat. Leaving them at/near 100% charge in hot climates and flying when it's too hot out is probably the #1 reason.

No chance a slightly puffed battery will make an otherwise normally functioning drone drift, IMO. Should never fly with one anyway.

Even if the electronics above it are being squeezed together from the puffing of the battery? I'm not to sure about that. Just look at the battery and you can see that that 5 mm has to go somewhere.

 

[CanadaDrone]

Even if the electronics above it are being squeezed together from the puffing of the battery? I'm not to sure about that. Just look at the battery and you can see that that 5 mm has to go somewhere.

I still don't think so, but that is just my opinion. There aren't really any moving mechanical parts right above the battery bay that would be affected by light pressure causing it to drift. It might even squish back into itself once it's clipped in (I'd have to see it installed of course). There can't be that much pressure involved (I suspect that puffed battery is less rigid than the Air fuselage), and if the OP was for some reason forcing the battery into place with huge amounts of force that is a separate issue.

What parts of the Air circuit board, when squeezed lightly, would cause a drift? I can't really think of anything. It's kind of like if I took my hands and squeezed the motherboard of my computer really hard from both sides while it was running, absolutely nothing would happen.

At any rate, I would never fly with that battery nor would I even keep it in my house.

 

[Former Member]

What parts of the Air circuit board, when squeezed lightly, would cause a drift?

My first thought was that If the GPS unit were damaged by being forced up into the top body, that would cause the drone to lose GPS navigation, and drift. The GPS unit sits directly above the battery on the top of the ESC board.

 

[CanadaDrone]

My first thought was that If the GPS unit were damaged by being forced up into the top body, that would cause the drone to lose GPS navigation, and drift. The GPS unit sits directly above the battery on the top of the ESC board.

Maybe, I don't know. He said not all his batteries drift though, and I would think any damage done to the GPS unit due to pressure would be permanent, not only during the moments of pressure. This is all speculation of course. I think he'd have to REALLY force that battery in there far beyond what would be reasonable to damage the aircraft, and I think after that, any damage would be permanent, rather than change depending on what battery is installed.

 

[Former Member]

I would think any damage done to the GPS unit due to pressure would be permanent, not only during the moments of pressure.

Unless its a loose wire or pinched GPS ribbon cable, which would make perfect sense. Either of those under pressure, especially from a puffed Lipo, would result in intermittent signal loss.

Wish I had my hands on it.

 

[CanadaDrone]

Unless its a loose wire or pinched GPS ribbon cable, which would make perfect sense. Either of those under pressure, especially from a puffed Lipo, would result in intermittent signal loss.

Wish I had my hands on it.

It's interesting for sure. The remote/app would report too few (or zero) satellites or a weak (or zero) GPS signal though if it was losing signal, and the OP did not mention any issues with those parameters which is one reason why I would assume the GPS unit itself is not being affected.

 

[Former Member]

It's interesting for sure. The remote/app would report too few (or zero) satellites or a weak (or zero) GPS signal though if it was losing signal, and the OP did not mention any issues with those parameters which is one reason why I would assume the GPS unit itself is not being affected.

Anything is possible, Sometimes, and this is one of those times, it's impossible to make a correct diagnosis without physically inspecting it.

 

[Sir Maxwell Greene]

Hey guys, thanks for all the replies. Some updates and some additional info.

The battery does take a little bit of force to go in. Not enough that im worried about the body or clips not holding it in place.
However, after a full flight the battery does swell even more, so getting it out takes a very firm grip on the side clips of the battery to pop it out.
Once installed there is no sign on the outside of the drone or battery of swelling or bulging. But im sure it is pressing up on the inside of the drone body... Im too scared to force the bulging part of the battery back into place by hand...

Does it drift when the VPS is disabled?

With and without VPS enabled.

Improper battery care, and/or too much heat. Leaving them at/near 100% charge in hot climates and flying when it's too hot out is probably the #1 reason.

This is most likely my issue; Bangkok. I flyin all kinds of conditions here and its usually 33°C + all the time.

This past few days I've flown in various conditions;
Indoors, a very large exhibition hall; no GPS at all, VPS off. I flew in Tripod, had no drifting.
Without Tripod mode it would obviously drift all over the place.

Outside; large parking lot (surrounded by a highway, powerlines 50+ meters away) and a large sports field(central bangkok city), 10-13+ satellites achieved.
The first 10 minutes of flight+-50% of the flight seem ok, after that i experienced some drifting. This was with one of the batteries.
This is why im convinced it has to do with heat and/or bulging. When the drone was in its first 6-7 months it was all good with no issues at all.

Wether its to do with the battery pressing up on or affecting the PCB components/GPS unit etc(as mentioned above) is more for you tech repair guys to say.


I guess at this stage its too random to conclude anything...I am not going to be testing those batteries at all any more as they have now bulged even more. One of them bursting the clips on the body of the battery completely. I can get a photo if anyone wants(be quick, ima dispose of it soon).

I've just ordered 2 brand new DJI batteries and will be working a drone job this weekend. So will monitor and report back.

 

[Meta4]

With and without VPS enabled.

So far you haven't explained the drifting.
It's a bit hard to solve the mystery without knowing anything about the mystery.
What can you say about what the drone does, how far it wanders, what direction etc?
Can you post any flight data for one of these flights?

Indoors, a very large exhibition hall; no GPS at all, VPS off. I flew in Tripod, had no drifting.
Without Tripod mode it would obviously drift all over the place.

Despite the name, Tripod Mode does nothing to improve stability of the drone.
It just slows the joystick response so you have fine control.
If there was a hardware or other issue that made the drone wander, it would still wander in Tripod Mode.

 

[JamesD71]

I have no solid proof, but hear me out...I'm convinced the bulging/swelling battery issue is linked to the drifting drone issue.
My MA is about a year old. I have 3 batteries, all the same age and give or take a few charges have the same amount of cycles on them.

2 of the 3 look like as in the image below. The better one has a slight bulge/ swelling, but funny enough does not drift in the air.
The 2 "bad" ones drift without fail and act erratically on almost all the testing.
I have done the IMU calibration countless times, compass calibration, checked satellites ; none of it seemed to help.

**I know using batteries like this is not safe, hell, just carrying them around freaks me out. I wanted to test a little and then post my findings here, hoping someone else could back me up or otherwise have a different take on it?


View attachment 69649

I have same issues with lithium batteries (packs) for ham radio hand held transceivers of Chinese manufacture. American or (real) Japanese manufactured lithium batteries are much more expensive. Do they swell / expand like this? In my experience, you get what you pay for...Chinese cells/packs get puffy after 15 to 20 cycles, won’t hold the rated power any more. I’ve just received a Mavic Air and have no experience with flying it yet...I’m hopeful to receive over 25 cycles from these Chinese batteries, while harvesting 14+ minutes of non-sport mode flight time for each cycle...that makes it about $3 per reliable flight cycle. I’m seeing these DJI batteries going for $72 - $77 shipped.