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Re-celling inspire batteries

The cells themselves can be composed and the controller should recognize them, but the point is in their sizes. You need to either look for cells by size or make a new package based on these sizes, but then you can increase the capacity of the cell to the desired power.
For example similar
6 cells of this assembly will weigh 2.6 kg. with a capacity of 26000 mAh. TB48 weighs 659 g capacity 5700 mAh
This option is probably best → with a capacity of 9800 mAh, the weight will be 1020 g. A preliminary calculation (theoretically) shows a flight time of 25-30 minutes.
 
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I was doing some research for the Inspire 2 batteries and found the battery manufacture for DJI. You might be able to find some information on there website. DJI uses a intelligent system or (BMS/ smart battery management system). As you most likely know, DJI feels the user should not do any maintenance on their batteries and when things are not working.... just buy a new one. The TB50 I took apart has the company and part number on each cell. LiPo battery 16.26Wh 3.8v N576223A0779
I found the manufacture website however, I have not pursued any additional information.


All the best
Rich

Manufacturer



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Its coming up on a year since the last post. Does anyone know if there has. been any success in regards to the recelling of TB47/48 batteries? Or any company doing that.
 
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if one would ask for a quote as a company the prod company making the I1 batteries should then be able tobsell as it is not retail. no?
 
I'm having a hard time believing this - but it appears DJI is forcing Inspire 1 owners to ground their birds and buy a new product. Considering the price these products sold for - it hardly seems fair to have to start over in our investment. These birds should be viable for 10 years. I don't understand why the batteries are being discontinued . . .
 
Regarding the BMs pcb and the battery control IC, it may be possible to hack into the chip and reprogram for the capacity, cycle count,.. Or to clear the 'permanent fail' condition that occurs when the discharge too far.

This has been done with Phantom 4 batteries. Most of this work seems to be done by the Russians or in eastern Europe.

Be2works.com is a possible starting point. They started as a way for small electronics shops to re-cell laptop batteries and then re-configure the BMS pcb. You will need a communication adapter like the CP2112 (easily found on eBay or Ali) to get going.

This will depend on what battery management chip is on the board.

Ubrt.com.ua is another service but seems a little dodgy.
 
It has been some time now. I do own a Company and now my Fire Dept, as well as our county SRT team is facing battery issues. We have one of the biggest drone programs in Michigan.

I just contacted a few manufactures for cost on cell's and minimum order. I perform Component level repair on motherboards for Laptops and desktops, MacBook's, data recovery, etc. So I have all the equipment to pull this off. And let me tell you, they use a great deal of solder on those PCB's....lol Your normal soldering iron will burn the PCB before they let go.

If I come up with anything worth doing with a large order I'll pass it along. I know we will be doing most likely 40 batteries @ 12 cells per unit. I just may invest in a large order if the price is right. 1000 Cells ? Again, depends on the price, and minimum order. Can't justify 10K in an order when I have no clue how many would actually re cell (Not just want it)

I will follow up with my findings. I know a couple companies never even responded last year.

Does anyone know the Japan manufacture that made the better cells ? I have a Japanese company in the US I do work for that will bridge the language / culture gap, and their actual job is just that between US / Japan companies. The culture and way of doing business is sooooo different. I'm sure they would hang up on me :)

More to come
 
Oh, and I do have a Company that can reset the IC. I'm trying to come up with a more reasonable cost for a larger scale. As of now it's like $45 a battery, and I already own their equipment to do so. Not sure it's worth resetting ? It doesn't actually shut the battery off does it ? From my understanding it does not.
 
There is a LOT involved in recelling these batteries and changing the settings on the BMS.

I have already burned through two Chinese LiPoHV battery vendors. They have a SERIOUSLY hard time producing quality cells, that can become a matched set that is useable for recelling these batteries. It is also hell getting your money back out of them once they don't deliver on specs, quanitity and quality.

One order was pending for almost 1500 packs. That is right, I was going to go into the "deep end" and commit to buying 1500 TB48 full packs, all built and tested. They couldn't provide on a 10 piece order. They could not meet the specs, the volume and the quality for me to finish going through the order.

As far as desoldering and resoldering in new cells, it is 100% a wasted endeavor. As stated the circuit boards are minimal in size and having desoldered a couple it is just a massive PITA. The only way to do it is to source a new PCB from any number of vendors that do that kind of fab work. The big trick is getting all the internals and the balance connector right. Again, a PITA. (been there, done that, and I can provide pics of a number of packs already built including new PCBs)

Ultimately, the true "fix" is coming up with an alternative pack. Unfortunately there are some reasons why DJI won't let this happen, but suffice to say, the Inspire 1 is doomed to die because of stuff well out of anyone elses control but DJI. But, there would be no reason why soeone couldn't reverse engineer the I2C connection between the aircraft and the battery and build a battery with a brand new firmware. I HIGHLY doubt DJI would go after such an endeavor. They only care about going after people reusing their engineering (like coming up with a 9000mAh pack that uses their BMS).

Oh, I can also confirm, the reprogramming is not simple, not straight forward and there is a whole lot of "rules" that need to be followed to reprogram properly. Again, I have a good 4 months of messing around and figure all of this out. (I also have a few thousand $$$ into all the hardware/software/cells/development to pull it off)

I can confirm, if you know what you are doing, you can reset the cycle count, the capacity, the calibration and the health. No "errors" are "chipset" errors, in that not a single error code I came across keeps a pack from being used or charged or reset up. So it is 100% "Inspire 1" specific in regards to errors and they, quite frankly, don't matter. I have recelled packs with "cell broken" errors, "voltage" errors and a number of other ones, and if you know what you are doing, those errors remain, but the pack works 100% with perfect health. So those errors only matter if you have an original battery that the pack is bad in. Recell it and there is no issues (ie, all the errors are "soft errors" that get sent to the aircraft from the battery, not a "hard error" that locks out the pack like on other implementations).

Sometime next week I will make a whole new post on stuff. I have on hand a 9000mAh battery pack that is programmed and cycles properly that I will be testing for flight times. Video will be provided. I am recovering from spinal surgery I had earlier in the week, so my priorities are a little different for the next week or so, but I figure I should be able to get out to the backyard and take some video at some point here soon.
 
Even better, I tracked down and purchased the necessary hardware / software to gain access and do the resets myself. I'll follow up on how it went.

I did take one battery and re-cell it. Cells are from china, but seem to be working well. I'm getting ready to reset it however to calculate the new cells from what it knew before the swap
 
Even better, I tracked down and purchased the necessary hardware / software to gain access and do the resets myself. I'll follow up on how it went.

I did take one battery and re-cell it. Cells are from china, but seem to be working well. I'm getting ready to reset it however to calculate the new cells from what it knew before the swap
You have my ear. Thanks for your effort(s)!
 
Hello,
we have been working months on regeneration of TB47/TB48, even the "S" and "D" variants for Matrice 100/600, and had a custom production line set up just to manufacture the cells by our own design.
Chinese cells on the markets are mostly similar and don't balance out, we wasted a lot of money on those and they never passed our strict testing.
TB4x are not regular cells, in voltage and in shape, and the C rating we could get is higher than original.
We got to the point that we can re-train all the parameters of the BMS, like capacity, cycle counter and more hidden things that is vital to be adjusted to the new cells.
Also in the TB48, we are starting to include an heating element to bring the cells to optimal efficiency for use in cold environment (under 20°C / 68°F).
For who may be interested, here are our products: Regenerated TB47 and TB48 batteries from KopterMax
 
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