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Mavic 2 controller battery draining quickly

The answer is that DJI Go currently does not allow you to turn off charging for Android devices. If you want longer RC battery life, go back to the iPad (making sure the setting to charge the tablet is OFF for the iOS device).

Since there was a recent firmware update, you can check if they changed that, but I haven't heard that they have. It's really kind of a dumb bug.

Chris

It's not DJI that make this choice it's because they follow the USB standard which doesn't allow this functionality whereas Apple use their proprietary lightning connection that does. The modified cables that are available that do disable power but allow data are not USB standard, the charging rate is a minimal 500mA which is barely a trickle and in normal use it's not an issue with the controller easily able to last through three batteries. I used the tablet with the controller for around a year with no issues and the battery percentage still drops very quickly even without a device attached, on its own it has far less batterylife than when I used to use it with the tablet.

There was no firmware update performed on the controller before this behaviour started.
 
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I think this may be an issue with the Android OS exclusively. I normally use an iPad Mini when flying my Mavic Pro and never had any excess controller battery drain. Yesterday I was using my Nvidia Shield tablet (Android 7.0) and after only 2 1/2 flight batteries, the Mavic controller started beeping with low battery warning at 12%. I don't know if there is a way to remedy this issue between the iOS & Android OS. I hope someone has answers.

No, it's not an Android OS issue in this case. Most of the other cases I've found with the same symptoms are from Apple users, the battery on the controller still depletes very quickly when there's no device attached (far faster than it used to with a device attached) and I used this setup for around a year with no issues at all. The batterylife on the controller used to easily last through three batteries whereas now it isn't lasting through one.

The sudden huge drop in batterylife and the fact it's not charging to full properly are consistent with a battery failure. This type of problem can occur with li-ion batteries as well the fact they will degrade in performance over time anyway so I assumed DJI would offer some sort of replacement/repair but I've given up trying to get anything useful from them and for now just using a small power bank to keep the controller topped up.
 
Johnmcl7, I don't believe you are reading MagicMan's post correctly. Re-read the 2nd and 3rd sentence in his first paragraph.

If YOU have an RC that no longer holds a charge, that's one issue and points to the health of the RC battery. That does not mean that your experience applies to all other remote battery experiences.

If MagicMan has an RC that does hold a charge properly with an iOS device, but not with an Android device, then that is most likely about the DJI Go setting, and not RC battery health.

It is well documented in this forum that the setting to turn off tablet charging is available for iOS devices, and is not available for Android. This has nothing to do with a USB standard (of which there are too many -- USB is a mess, which has nothing to do with DJI).

Chris
 
Johnmcl7, I don't believe you are reading MagicMan's post correctly. Re-read the 2nd and 3rd sentence in his first paragraph.

I read his post which is why I said 'in this case' to make it clear the problem they were having is a different one to mine. People are repeatedly blaming Android for my problem and it definitely isn't and continuing to do so is of no benefit as much as it's a fan favourite here.

The USB standards are here:


Both the USB-C and micro USB connectors are there and DJI uses them in standard form which doesn't allow for selectable charging, to do this the cable needs to be modified at which point it is no longer a USB standard which some people do to their own cables but DJI cannot. The Apple Lightning connector is not present because it's not a standard and that allows Apple to add their own features such as selectable charging. Either way, whether DJI Go is charging the device or not has no relevance to this thread.
 
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Yeah mine does this too, definingly just started happening one day and almost lost my drone, went form 60% to 4% in seconds.

Anyone send their controller back for repair? that's what DJI says you have to do, wondering what it costs and if it fixes the problem.

anyone figure out a way to replace the battery yourself?
 
Yeah mine does this too, definingly just started happening one day and almost lost my drone, went form 60% to 4% in seconds.

Anyone send their controller back for repair? that's what DJI says you have to do, wondering what it costs and if it fixes the problem.

anyone figure out a way to replace the battery yourself?
Yup, see this other recent thread:


Chris
 
I'm having the exact same issues. Controller wont'charge beyond 90-95% and discharges rapidly, even without my android phone connected. I'd guess 15 minutes from 90% to 0 %. Renders the drone somewhat useless. The drone is 1 year old and total flight time is just above 12 hrs. Just mailed DJI reporting the issue. If I ever get any response, I'll let you know.
 
Please do. This could affect many more of this in the future, so it would be good to know the resolution path.

Chris

Ok, so I reported the issue to DJI 3-4 weeks ago getting a polite answer a couple of days after my request. They would happily take my controller back for testing/repair.

Unwilling to send it off before I did some more testing myself, I tried to discharge it completely (0 % battery left). I then charged it back up, and to my surprise; it charged to 100%. I then connected it to the aircraft and left it on for 1 and 1/4 of an hour and it didn't discharge to more than 20 % (20 % left that is), though I didn't connect it to my phone during this period. I do use android, so I know connecting it to my phone would for sure discharge the controller faster.

Anyway, i took the drone for a flight this weekend. Controller and phone 100% charged. I churned through 2 and 1/4 batteries on my drone and still had juice left on the controller.

I've had some thoughts as to why it behaved as it did in the past; only charged to 92-95 % and discharged rapidly even when fully charged android phone was connected or not. It states in the manual that one shouldn't use a mobile power-bank to charge it as it can disturb the charging. Yes, I used a power-bank. I've also used it in below -15 degrees C, also tried charging it at this low temperatures using a power-bank. And that's when the issues started.

As for now, I'm reluctant to return the controller at all because I think it works as expected. Do anyone think I should've returned it anyway?
 
Battery life on mine was about 50% what it should be and I have nearly definitive answer as to the cause. The battery capacity printed on the OEM battery is 1975mAh but on the controller itself says that it should be 3,950mAh (see the back of the controller yourself). Boom; dead giveaway that DJI is putting half the battery capacity out of the box into this controller as designed. Anyone disagree, see it different, or have experience with this too?
 
The answer for my M2P controller was that the DJI OEM battery was 1,975mAh which is about half of the capacity listed on the back of the controller, 3,950 mAh. Go figure. I am not impressed with DJI quality control. Been a challenge to find a replacement battery to fix this as the Mavic Pro controller batteries are only about 2450 mAh (they fit) but the connector is only 6 pin whereas the M2P controller is 8 pins. I am still trying to determine if the extra red and black pins are needed. Very poor design IMO.
 
The answer for my M2P controller was that the DJI OEM battery was 1,975mAh which is about half of the capacity listed on the back of the controller, 3,950 mAh. Go figure. I am not impressed with DJI quality control. Been a challenge to find a replacement battery to fix this as the Mavic Pro controller batteries are only about 2450 mAh (they fit) but the connector is only 6 pin whereas the M2P controller is 8 pins. I am still trying to determine if the extra red and black pins are needed. Very poor design IMO.
I'm late with reply, but take note - M2P controller uses cells in 1S2P configuration, this means 2x1975mAh capacity - exactly what was stated on back of controller.
Did you tried just to unplug, wait and re-plug like i described earlier? RC battery replacement
 
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