TB48 fried circuit board

calsettle · Feb 9, 2020

I flew my Inspire 1 today. At one point I came inside and changed batteries. The battery was DOA after a full charge. When powering up it shorted and fried the circuit board. If you look just below my thumb you will see the fried component. Are these boards available? This battery has less than a dozen charges on it.

AntDX316 · Feb 15, 2020

I'd just toss the battery out to be safe.

calsettle · Feb 15, 2020

AntDX316 said:
I'd just toss the battery out to be safe.

I suspect you are right. It would be really costly if it died at altitude. Thanks for the reply.

Avocet · Feb 18, 2020

BTW, was this a DJI SB57 or 58? Or an aftermarket battery?

Thanks ...

calsettle · Feb 18, 2020

Avocet said:
BTW, was this a DJI SB57 or 58? Or an aftermarket battery?

Thanks ...

This was a DJI factory battery. SN 119100238 with a Manuf. date 3/6/2019. 1st flight was 6/8/19, last flight was 1/15/20. Charged 12 times. I have two other TB 48 batteries I bought at the same time that have no problems.

RMartin · Feb 19, 2020

calsettle said:
This was a DJI factory battery. SN 119100238 with a Manuf. date 3/6/2019. 1st flight was 6/8/19, last flight was 1/15/20. Charged 12 times. I have two other TB 48 batteries I bought at the same time that have no problems.

I spoke with a tech that does our annual maintenance on our Inspire and inquired about TB47 and TB48 availability. DJI has shut down production and there are no provisions to repair the batteries because of the Smart technology feature of the batteries. Apparently if you replace a bad cell with an aftermarket replacement it messes up the Smart chip and the battery won't perform. I haven't tried it. Just what I was told. I know that my battery supplier has been out of stock for quite a few months so once our current stock is dead, we move on to a new aircraft.
Out of the 14 batteries we have, only one has failed in three years and 190+ flights. We rarely use the Inspire any more but it does make a good training device for new pilots to get used to flight before diving in to the more advanced aircraft we use on a weekly basis.

calsettle · Feb 19, 2020

RMartin said:
I spoke with a tech that does our annual maintenance on our Inspire and inquired about TB47 and TB48 availability. DJI has shut down production and there are no provisions to repair the batteries because of the Smart technology feature of the batteries. Apparently if you replace a bad cell with an aftermarket replacement it messes up the Smart chip and the battery won't perform. I haven't tried it. Just what I was told. I know that my battery supplier has been out of stock for quite a few months so once our current stock is dead, we move on to a new aircraft.
Out of the 14 batteries we have, only one has failed in three years and 190+ flights. We rarely use the Inspire any more but it does make a good training device for new pilots to get used to flight before diving in to the more advanced aircraft we use on a weekly basis.

Thanks for the feedback. I’m now contemplating unloading the Inspire. This designed obsolescence by DJI is not making them popular. I bought the I1 less than a year ago because I didn’t like the other DJI options at the time. I’ve been a photographer for over 30 years and the x5 camera made sense with my Olympus gear. I would have bought the P4P if it was available. I had a P3P and seemed like I was forever calibrating it.

RMartin · Feb 19, 2020

calsettle said:
Thanks for the feedback. I’m now contemplating unloading the Inspire. This designed obsolescence by DJI is not making them popular. I bought the I1 less than a year ago because I didn’t like the other DJI options at the time. I’ve been a photographer for over 30 years and the x5 camera made sense with my Olympus gear. I would have bought the P4P if it was available. I had a P3P and seemed like I was forever calibrating it.

The Inspire is really good (for us) on small jobs. We have been flying ours for three years now with no real complaints. It just could not keep up with larger projects without wasting a lot of time on my part. It handles 10 acres or less just fine but I can actually fly 100-150 acres faster with the new bird and spend a lot less time in the field to do it.