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Inspire 2 Battery Issues

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I had a set of I2 batteries that had an issue before the firmware update came out that was supposed to fix them. They had been sitting for a pretty good long time, but one of them was about two and a half lights on the battery level lights and the other was it about two lights. I had them labeled so I could always put them in the exact same side of the copter when I used them. Also, I labeled one of them with a sticky note Scotch taped to it that said it had the error in it. The error I think was that one of the cells was way higher than the others apparently, seen on battery 2 in photo below, and it would not charge and threw an error code in the go 4 app. When I hook them up to charge them, the battery with the error code won't charge fully, the other one will. This is a pic of go4app battery levels showing battery 2 error, and sixth cell with a way higher level. Might be something else throwing the error, but whats obvious? The other battery, battery one, looks good and always did, and never threw an error.

I2 1.jpg

So a week ago, I updated the copter and these batteries with the current firmware and all my other batteries as well, which never had any problems. I had the two problem batteries in the screen above, set to 10 days discharge time on each one, and after the firmware update, the one with the error code still would not charge up. So I waited over three days like I read to do about the situation, and today, about 4 days later, I put them back in the copter to check the status. The one battery with the error code had now leveled out all of the different cells to about the same charge level. And the other battery was looking pretty good as it always had. Neither one of them threw any error codes. I didn't take a photo of the screen at the time though.
So I put them on the charger and they charged up until both the green lights were on solid and they were through charging. I put them back in the copter and the one that had the error code initially, started showing the error code again. The other battery was okay. They were in the exact same slots or sides of the copter that they always were put in. So I turned the copter off and had the idea to switch the batteries from one side to the other, and when I did this, the battery that had the error code was fine with no error and the levels were looking almost perfect, and the battery without the error codes in it now had an error code thrown. Then I switched them back to the original slots in the copter, and the battery that had always been the good one still shows an error code on it and the battery that always showed an error code now has no error code. The battery that was always a good battery shows levels up and down, varying several volts from cell to cell. This photo below shows the batteries in original slots on copter in first photo and switched in the second photo. The battery showing the error in both photos WAS the good battery.

20190504_132858_1556997575678.jpg
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After I went and ate lunch, I came back to the batteries again and put them back on the charger. They both are showing fully charged on the battery charger, both green lights solid, except the battery which was always good, shows the error code no matter which slot in the copter I put it in, and the battery that was always bad showing an error code, is now beautiful. I'm 100% positive there was no mix up in which battery was the good or bad one. I have a sticky note Scotch taped to the one that always had an error code on it, and they are labeled for the slot that I always put them in on the copter.

And the question arises in my mind, have I ever dropped a battery on the floor or done something to deserve such punishment? As you can see in the pictures of the battery levels, one battery has been charged four times and one five times. Never crashed the copter, or done what some people would say is hard landed It, which I call a light crash. A hard landing is a crash, I don't care how you want to split hairs. I'm thinking about hard landing it though, put it in sport mode and fly it into a **** brick wall. Probably will fix the whole **** thing.

So now I am developing a new product for sale. It is a full helmet that covers all of your head and hair, so that you do not pull all of your hair out dealing with this BS. I remember the wonderful days of having regular old LiPO batteries with a balance charge plug and a deans connector on them.

But the more exciting news is that after this firmware update and everything is updated and looking great, except for these two batteries, I put the propellers on the copter, put it on the ground and got all the satellites around the world linked up to it, fired it up while holding it on the ground just to go with the hunch that there might be a problem looming, and as I'm holding the copter on the ground and fire it up, I move the left stick up from center idling position and the thing is wide open as soon as you move the throttle stick upwards from center any amount. So its now either idling or wide open. So I think if I had have taken it off and try to fly it, it would be somewhere around Saturn or Pluto by now.

Anybody got any ideas on this?
 

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You deserve a response as your writing style, problem not withstanding, has entertained me more that it should, in light of the woes it portends. So, I offer my limited knowledge, two cents, and would have sent you the device you should have even tho' I'm not sure what good it would do. I had both I1 and I2, had a battery issue with the TB48 on I1 and purchased a product called Phantom Angel as the dreaded Go (not 4) said to deep discharge the battery. I tried everything to rid the battery of this error, bought the device, and battery fixed. This device deep discharges the battery. Now, what the hell am I wasting your time with this story and WTH are youI gonna do with a TB47/48 device? Actually, nothing I just wanted to let you know I would have sent it to you, anywhere in the world LOL, as I have a new one on-order that charges Phantm, TB47,48, and yes 50's.
I'm not enough of an engineer to even think about your problem other than seems that deep discharging the batteries a start? I'm too lazy to read the post again, but am presuming you have another pair of TB50's that are not affected by this bizarre set of circumstance and the problem localized (localized for our friends across the pond lol) to these two batteries. Give the Phantom Angel thought or two, perhaps others will post something more relative, and you are indeed in my prayers so that your sanity and marvelous sense of humor are preserved through this technological hell, which we have all experienced.
 
So peanut butter sandwiches do grow on trees then?

Thanks for that. I saw that invention from thomas edison in another post and have the site bookmarked. But my hunch is that if you switch the batteries around and the problem doesn't follow the battery, it is probably something going on with either firmware or internal hardware inside the I2. But firmware is the best bet. I was thinking about maybe looking into re-installing the firmware or reverting and re-installing. Haven't got to the point of looking into it yet though. Though someone might have seen this before and knew what was going on. I haven't tried putting in my other "good" batteries yet for fear of ruining them.

Has anyone tried switching batteries from one side to the other on the copter with errors showing on one of the two batteries in a pair?
 
I doubt a deep discharge of these batteries will solve the problem, with one kind of Angel or the other... and even with a strong 'Oooh my Goood!' looking the sky.

I have one of these batteries charged 10 times and having a significantly less power in 1 cell than the other 5, and DJI GO 4 warns the battery is faulty.
I always install these batteries with the same letter coupled, but there is no technical reason to always put one on the left, the other on the right.
All the DJI batteries I have, not only those of the Inspire 2, at the end of my long flights are completely discharged, 9 times out of 10, reach a total discharge, well beyond the prudential default limit set by DJI.

My Inspire 2 usually flies with 3 batteries on board, the 2 DJI ones and a couple of LiHV 3S 5200mAh (connected in parallel to have 6S).
Well, often one or both these smart batteries turn off automatically because of their very low power (theoretical 0%) remained during the landing, or few seconds after it, with the third external, the splitted unit, still operative having about 3.80 V...3.70 V, so still having some residual power, enough to do the final secure approach to landing and even more, giving some power to the others if are not turned off.

Despite these deep discharges that can reach about 3.00 V/cell for the DJI batteries (and rarely even a little less), the defective one of the Inspire 2 continues to have a cell with much less energy than the others.
I have 4 couple of them recharged many more times and all the others have and have had all the cells pretty well balanced.
Needless to make any attempt to charge/discharge it.

That cell will always be lower than the others, like having a 1 liter bottle, born ill, undersized, it can never contain the same amount of liquid (1 liter) as the other regular ones.
The same is true if there are 5 bottles that are undersized and 1 standard of 1 liter, or 5 standard and 1 a little larger which contains 1liter+.
Suggest to ask for a free replacement under warranty.

And to complicate everything, instable, false readings of the V, could be caused by the electronics, the FW, the oxidized or unstable contacts and give a not-so-smart data confusion.
 
What should the voltage of a TB50 battery be at to fully deep discharge it and reset it's voltage measurement analysis?
 
What should the voltage of a TB50 battery be at to fully deep discharge it and reset it's voltage measurement analysis?
??
There isn't a real reset for a battery, not even for a so called DJI smart battery.
And then there is no difference of the minimum and maximum voltage (I mean V/cell) between the TB50 or any battery of another recent DJI drone.
DJI uses LiHV batteries, not LiPo.

You can let the DJI batteries do his discharge just leaving the battery turned on inserted in the drone, or using the special adapter cable that allows you to use the DJI battery as a power bank to charge another device.
When the power of the smart battery reaches the minimum, the prudential limit set by DJI, the battery will be turned off.
The same when you recharge it, you don't have the possibility to change the max V of the switch off, it's imposed just by the electronics inside the battery.
Theoretically, for LiHV, the safe minimum V under no load is about 3.30 V and 3.00 V, or even a bit less under strong load, as happens during the flight, as saying 0% of remaining power, but actually the estimated % value can be a little bit different between the different DJI drones.

With my modified Inspire 2 and Phantom 4 series, I see the battery turns off at a significantly lower voltage (2.70 V or less) when the aircraft is still in flight during a forced landing, just to use the very small residual power (even well below the theoretical 0%) trying to avoid dropping the drone from the sky, while could switches off with a slightly higher voltage (about 3.10... 3.20 V) if the drone is stable on the ground.

It must always be considered that in order to not have an abnormal reduction in life of these batteries (LiHV, LiPo and Li-ion) it is better not to do extreme treatments, deep discharges and possibly also overcharges (for the not smart batteries), for many times and need to wait some hours after the discharge, let it cool, before to start again the next charge.
 
From the research I've done, looks like people are saying that if you get one or a few cells differing in voltage for whatever reason, whether from extensive use or whatever, you need to deep discharge the battery to so to speak "reset" the battery. Or really, I guess, reset its ability to read the cells voltages accurately again. Sort of like draining the gas tank of your car and setting the gas gauge to empty, so that when filled to full, the reading on the gauge is at full, instead of saying three quarters of a tank when it's actually full.

Something kind of strange, I have some broadcast equipment with very expensive battery paks. They had five lights that showed the batterys charge level and I tried charging them for a day or two and they would only get to the third or fourth light of the five. So I called the company and the old guy who owns the company and developed the equipment told me how to reset his battery paks. I thought he was BSing mewhen he told me to take a paper clip and touch the pos and neg together one time and see that it sparked and made a loop, and the battery board would be reset. I didn't believe him, but he swore that it worked. These were $800 a piece batteries. I did what he said to one of them and put it back on the charger and it worked. Charged up to full capacity. Did it to every one of them and they have all been fine ever since.

But I dont want to try that on I2 batteries, but I think the ability for the hardware and software inside the batteries become sort of corrupted in their ability to read the cell levels correctly and think that the battery is fully charged, or, think the levels are such that the software renders the battery incapable of being charged or used because of too tight of tolerances set in the software for levels from cell to cell. If it wasn't for the hardware and software inside the batteries, this problem would not be happening. But I think that if you can "re-boot" the board inside the batteries, sort of like re-booting your computer to get out of a glitch or problem, that the batteries can read the cell levels correctly and get back to normal once the cell levels equalize.

So right now, I am trying a thing sort of like the Phantom Angel device on the two batteries that are pictured in my post. So far I have depleted the batteries to about 18v per cell and the batteries have turned themselves off. They have cooled down. I put them in the I2 and they would not turn on the copter. They are charging now and I will post the results as soon as I see whats what.
 
Sorry, I meant to say about 3v per cell and 18v total.

I have them fully charged now. Took the normal time to charge. I will have to fly it a couple times or so to see how the performance will be. Will do that as soon as I can and post findings.

But I can say this. I used a device that discharges batteries by using a small light bulb and it was slower than the Phantom Angel, and took about and hour to discharge from almost fully charged. The light bulb is smaller I think is why longer time for discharge. When it cut off at the 3v discharge setting, the batteries were'nt actually at 3v per cell and 18v total, they were slightly above that at about 21.8v total. So I then hooked each battery up straight to the bulb instead of thru the circuit board of the discharger and after a few minutes, the battery cut itself off, just as it would if you ran it on the copter until the batteries cut off and the copter won't start. If you push the battery button, it would show only the one battery level light blinking.

Here is a shot of the Go4 App showing battery page now on the left, and the original page showing the error code and the levels all over the place on the right..

20190512_203647_1557711923233_resized.jpg20190427_162309_resized.jpg
 
In this post, one of the two batteries had a cell error, pictured in the last post, looking like one of the cells in one of the batteries was spiking way above the rest making it un-chargable or usable. After switching their position in the copter, from one side to the other, that cell error disappeared in that battery and problems occurred in the other battery. This was all done after I updated the firmware to the latest version.

So after draining the battery with a little light bulb discharger to almost 3v per cell and then draining the rest of the way by hooking the battery directly to the bulb itself until the battery cut itself off, I think just below 3v per cell, I recharged them fully.

After charging the two batteries fully, I flew the I2 and took a few screen caps before, during and after the flight. There was a steady breeze about 5 or 6 mph this day and I flew around throughout the battery time about medium range, not hitting the throttle hard really, but hovering into the breeze and going back and forth across the yard.

Charged fully. Cell levels are pretty close to the same value.
20190512_203647_1557711923233_resized.jpg

Before taking off, just after startup.
IMG_0033.PNG


Just after takeoff.
IMG_0034.PNG

IMG_0035.PNG


About 8 and half minutes into flight.
IMG_0037.PNG

IMG_0038.PNG

About 15 minutes into flight.
IMG_0041.PNG

IMG_0042.PNG

About 17 minutes into flight.
IMG_0043.PNG

IMG_0044.PNG
 
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About 19 minutes into flight.
IMG_0045.PNG

IMG_0048.PNG


Landing at 8% battery and about 20 minutes flight time.
IMG_0049.PNG

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Battery after stabilizing and cooling down from flight.
IMG_0052.PNG

Battery fully charged again.
IMG_0053.PNG


So it seems from doing a full discharge until the battery cuts itself off, letting it cool down and then charging it fully, the batteries firmware seems to be able to reset its cell voltage measurement system, at least enough to be able to register all the cells at 100% when fully charged and not having any cells spiking or vastly different from one to the next, making it unusable.

At 8% though, the cells are at 3.5v to 3.6v range. I couldn't tell what the actual voltage was right before it cut itself off when I discharged it fully, not having a way to read individual cell info on a lightbulb discharger. But from what I've read, I think it cuts itself off at about the 2.8v to 3v range to avoid damaging itself.
 
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??
There isn't a real reset for a battery, not even for a so called DJI smart battery.
And then there is no difference of the minimum and maximum voltage (I mean V/cell) between the TB50 or any battery of another recent DJI drone.
DJI uses LiHV batteries, not LiPo.

You can let the DJI batteries do his discharge just leaving the battery turned on inserted in the drone, or using the special adapter cable that allows you to use the DJI battery as a power bank to charge another device.
When the power of the smart battery reaches the minimum, the prudential limit set by DJI, the battery will be turned off.
The same when you recharge it, you don't have the possibility to change the max V of the switch off, it's imposed just by the electronics inside the battery.
Theoretically, for LiHV, the safe minimum V under no load is about 3.30 V and 3.00 V, or even a bit less under strong load, as happens during the flight, as saying 0% of remaining power, but actually the estimated % value can be a little bit different between the different DJI drones.

With my modified Inspire 2 and Phantom 4 series, I see the battery turns off at a significantly lower voltage (2.70 V or less) when the aircraft is still in flight during a forced landing, just to use the very small residual power (even well below the theoretical 0%) trying to avoid dropping the drone from the sky, while could switches off with a slightly higher voltage (about 3.10... 3.20 V) if the drone is stable on the ground.

It must always be considered that in order to not have an abnormal reduction in life of these batteries (LiHV, LiPo and Li-ion) it is better not to do extreme treatments, deep discharges and possibly also overcharges (for the not smart batteries), for many times and need to wait some hours after the discharge, let it cool, before to start again the next charge.
LiHV is Lipo.
It's the same chemistry - Lithium Polymer.
LiHV just have a higher density and a maximum top out charge of 4.35v per cell rather than standard Lipo's which are 4.2v.
 
LiHV is Lipo.
It's the same chemistry - Lithium Polymer.
LiHV just have a higher density and a maximum top out charge of 4.35v per cell rather than standard Lipo's which are 4.2v.

LiHV and LiPo batteries are both batteries based on lithium polymer, they have different maximum V and different storage and nominal voltages.
They do have a different chemistries.

4.35 V and 3.80 V
4.20 V and 3.70 V
Maximum and nominal/storage voltage.

LiHV usually have a lower IR.
LiHV are lighter than LiPo at the same nominal capacity.
They also have a different discharging curve.
Right, LiHV have a little more power density if charged above 4.20 V.
 
LiHV and LiPo batteries are both batteries based on lithium polymer, they have different maximum V and different storage and nominal voltages.
They do have a different chemistries.

4.35 V and 3.80 V
4.20 V and 3.70 V
Maximum and nominal/storage voltage.

LiHV usually have a lower IR.
LiHV are lighter than LiPo at the same nominal capacity.
They also have a different discharging curve.
Right, LiHV have a little more power density if charged above 4.20 V.
So what I said then!
Your post implied that LiHV is not Lipo which it is, since LiPo means Lithium Polymer.
LiHV are simply a newer form of Lithium Polymer cell.

You are giving bad advice/info here by saying that Lipo's should be stored at 3.7v per cell. Nominal and storage voltage are completely different things
Standard Lipos should be stored at around 3.8v and LiHV at circa 3.86v - so approx 50% charged.

The discharge curve is basically the same, LiHV simply start out at a slightly higher voltage (when fully charged) and the decreased IR means a marginal less voltage drop under load. However, physical chemistry dictates the discharge curve which track the same once the initial higher 0.15v has dropped.
The reason DJI used them is their weight to power ratio is slightly increased over standard lipo's meaning squeezing slightly longer flight times verses standard cells.

Anyway, this thread was about errors the OP was experiencing using/swapping his packs over on his aircraft - not Lipo v LiHV differences so apologies to @skyview 911 for derailing your thread. :cool:
 
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So Editor, what do you think about draining these TB50 batteries down until they cut themselves off, letting cool down and recharging them?

I'm not sure it makes them brand new, but the differences in cell voltages seem to even out saving what was an unusable battery.

But really the thing I was getting at too was how to do it and do it kind of easily and cheaply. The DJI RC charging cable and a lightbulb discharger was what I used. Only thing is that I got a couple of the dischargers years ago and cant seem to find them now. It has a function that discharges to storage voltage or down to full discharge if desired. I see dischargers out there that use no bulbs but fans and heat sinks, so I guess that would work well. But still have to go a little further to get the battery to cut itself off. I also see dischargers that work if you want to totally discharge batteries for disposal and that would work for the rest of the way since these batteries firmware cuts off the functions at around 2.8v or so. Or if you want to watch the things discharge one of these total dischargers would work as long as the battery's firmware cut it off when its supposed to.
 
So what I said then!
Your post implied that LiHV is not Lipo which it is, since LiPo means Lithium Polymer.
LiHV are simply a newer form of Lithium Polymer cell.

You are giving bad advice/info here by saying that Lipo's should be stored at 3.7v per cell. Nominal and storage voltage are completely different things
Standard Lipos should be stored at around 3.8v and LiHV at circa 3.86v - so approx 50% charged.

The discharge curve is basically the same, LiHV simply start out at a slightly higher voltage (when fully charged) and the decreased IR means a marginal less voltage drop under load. However, physical chemistry dictates the discharge curve which track the same once the initial higher 0.15v has dropped.
The reason DJI used them is their weight to power ratio is slightly increased over standard lipo's meaning squeezing slightly longer flight times verses standard cells.

Anyway, this thread was about errors the OP was experiencing using/swapping his packs over on his aircraft - not Lipo v LiHV differences so apologies to @skyview 911 for derailing your thread. :cool:

Nah, my post does not imply what you wrote me, with your bad interpretation.
I know what is a LiHV, mate, I have hundreds of different batteries and chargers.
I just have wrote LiPo, LiHV, Li-ion because they are 3 of the most used.
Are different rechargeable batteries, repeat different, having the lithium inside, used for these task, on flying drones having a weakness, the risk of being permanently altered by over-discharges.

The storage values could be 3.90 V and 3.85 V, respectively for LiHV and LiPo but are not critical at all, actually not all the producers of batteries and chargers, and the literatures, suggest the same exact value.
Because there is not a definible voltage, a V target necessary for the storage state, can be a relatively narrow range of voltages.
This is something as a compromise between battery safety/longevity and the convenience of having not too long charging times.
They could also stay at lower voltages, 3.60...3.70 V, (10%...20% of remaining power) for months, or more than a year without any issue, without any demage.
For this reason I have wrote (suggested) to consider the same value for the standard voltage declared, the one written on the battery and the maintenance voltage, the battery V in storage mode.
Anyway this is for those that have to do with the not smart batteries, without electronics in it, and those who would like to go beyond the limits written in the DJI smart batteries to be able to repair them, such as skyview 911, here.

Again, the discharge curve between LiPo and LiHV is different, slightly, but different and not only at the start, but also during the discharge and close to the end.
Before the end (the full disharge) the discharge curve of the LiHV drops a little faster than that of the LiPo, for this reason the residual power could be less predictable.

Your stating: "LiHVs are only a newer form of Lithium Polymer" implies denying they have a different chemistries!
And this is actually a bad info.
They have been invented more recently, and they have a different formula.

Off topic, maybe just a bit, but never mind The Editor, we do not have compartmentalized thoughts ...right?
 
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I'm trying to figure out what difference all of this makes in trying to save or revive these batteries that seemed to be bad due to firmware problems that DJI came out with trying to fix a bunch of problems while creating a bunch more.
 

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