WARNING - TB48 IN FLIGHT BATTERY FAILURE

[wilkia61]

WARNING

After installing the Version 4 Firmware the Inspire automatically "re-programmed" the TB48 batteries as I fitted them prior to flight.

All went OK for the first three flights with three batteries.

Inserted the fourth, went through the, by then, normal wait for the software upgrade to the battery. All OK. First short flight all OK and battery down to 67%.

Took off and started the second flight; no need for battery chnage as again only a short flight needed. All OK until the battery hit 58% charge and then it suddenly dropped immediately to 6%. Red lights flashing everwhere obviously.

It didn't help matters that I was flying over a very large pond at the time at about 98m altitude!!!

Managed to make an emergency descent and steer away from the pond and made a quite heavy emergency landing with 1% power left! Drone was only partially responding to input controls, but enough to maintain a degree of control.

Changed my trousers, and then thought I should alert you all to this possible fault. I have since recharged the battery and it seems to be OK now.

Imagery available for your enjoyment on request (it s a 1.57GB file)!!

BUT - BE WARNED !!!

ALSO POSTED ON DJI FORUM

 

[The Editor]

WARNING

After installing the Version 4 Firmware the Inspire automatically "re-programmed" the TB48 batteries as I fitted them prior to flight.

All went OK for the first three flights with three batteries.

Inserted the fourth, went through the, by then, normal wait for the software upgrade to the battery. All OK. First short flight all OK and battery down to 67%.

Took off and started the second flight; no need for battery chnage as again only a short flight needed. All OK until the battery hit 58% charge and then it suddenly dropped immediately to 6%. Red lights flashing everwhere obviously.

It didn't help matters that I was flying over a very large pond at the time at about 98m altitude!!!

Managed to make an emergency descent and steer away from the pond and made a quite heavy emergency landing with 1% power left! Drone was only partially responding to input controls, but enough to maintain a degree of control.

Changed my trousers, and then thought I should alert you all to this possible fault. I have since recharged the battery and it seems to be OK now.

Imagery available for your enjoyment on request (it s a 1.57GB file)!!

BUT - BE WARNED !!!

ALSO POSTED ON DJI FORUM

Sorry to hear of your mishap but not really anything new.

After updating your firmware on your battery you should not just go straight on a fly without calibrating the battery first. Do a complete discharge and full charge to 100%

As you have found out yourself, all is well know you have recharged the battery from your fateful flight.

Your mistake was to let the battery update firmware and then go straight onto fly without a charge/recharge.

 

[wilkia61]

That would have been nice to know!! Perhaps a warning can be included to appear on screen in the next firmware update to save others from this fate!

 

[The Editor]

Did you update from v1.3.0.00? - Had you already done a calibration when you did that upgrade?

 

[Mike Mas]

There really is no right or wrong way with this broken Discharge prigram DJI incorporated in their battery line. What we need is a way to disable this self discharge feature. There are millions of lipo cells out there without this discharge feature. We're not idiots we can maintain our own batteries we don't need DJI to do it for us and have to put up with is glitch that has crashed a fair number of our machines.

 

[skyPhoenix]

WARNING

After installing the Version 4 Firmware the Inspire automatically "re-programmed" the TB48 batteries as I fitted them prior to flight.

All went OK for the first three flights with three batteries.

Inserted the fourth, went through the, by then, normal wait for the software upgrade to the battery. All OK. First short flight all OK and battery down to 67%.

Took off and started the second flight; no need for battery chnage as again only a short flight needed. All OK until the battery hit 58% charge and then it suddenly dropped immediately to 6%. Red lights flashing everwhere obviously.

It didn't help matters that I was flying over a very large pond at the time at about 98m altitude!!!

Managed to make an emergency descent and steer away from the pond and made a quite heavy emergency landing with 1% power left! Drone was only partially responding to input controls, but enough to maintain a degree of control.

Changed my trousers, and then thought I should alert you all to this possible fault. I have since recharged the battery and it seems to be OK now.

Imagery available for your enjoyment on request (it s a 1.57GB file)!!

BUT - BE WARNED !!!

ALSO POSTED ON DJI FORUM

Just lost my Inspire1 today. Brand new battery. Aircraft went down about 5mins into flight. Latest firmware installed. I was flying over the beach filming kite surfers in Thailand. The voltage just dropped. Went into the red. Couldnt get her home. Probably about 50 meter from shore.
So pissed off. Ive had the Inspire 1 for about a year now. No issues. Always made sure the batteries were 100 percent charged.

 

[10forty2]

You guys are scaring the heck out of me before my first flight..... I got a brand new I1 for Christmas. The weather's been pretty crappy here in the Southeast US for the past several days so I haven't even attempted to go airborne, but I've been spending plenty of time familiarizing myself with the controls and flying with the simulator. I had a heck of a time getting the firmware update installed on the bird and the battery, but finally everything is reading as updated. The remote was no problem. My battery (only one right now that came with the kit...will be getting more soon) wouldn't fully charge at first according to the app and the on-board indicator. But after getting the latest firmware installed, although it was initially showing almost discharged after playing around with the simulator, it suddenly showed back up to 57% without charging. So, I continued running the simulator until it was down to 1% and then I shut everything down. After recharging for about 3 hours, it is now showing at 100%.

Should I be worried? New Year's Day is supposed to finally dry out and the sun possibly shine. I'm really itching to launch the maiden voyage.

 

[The Editor]

Just lost my Inspire1 today. Brand new battery. Aircraft went down about 5mins into flight. Latest firmware installed. I was flying over the beach filming kite surfers in Thailand. The voltage just dropped. Went into the red. Couldnt get her home. Probably about 50 meter from shore.
So pissed off. Ive had the Inspire 1 for about a year now. No issues. Always made sure the batteries were 100 percent charged.

Since you are in Aus I guess we can rule out low temperature with this one!
What firmware were you running ?

 

[skyPhoenix]

Since you are in Aus I guess we can rule out low temperature with this one!
What firmware were you running ?

Im not 100 percent sure which firmware. I have the zip file on main computer back in Australia.
But i upgraded eveything about 2 weeks ago prior to coming to Thailand.
That included battery upgrades.
I was using the Litchi App and had a waypoint mission setup. I have sent the data reports to Litchi. Hopefully they can shed some light as to what caused the failure.
Sent an email to Dji. Hopefully hear back from them sooner than later.
In the mean time i will head back to the spot where i supposedly lost her.
The last known gps coordinates according to the "find my aircraft" show that she was indeed over water and on her way back. However i saw some Gps coordinates listed lastly in the data file that according to "google" display a different location, more favorably inland by about 30 meters. So who knows. Today Im gonna check both spots. Inland according to where the "blue dot" is and if its not too deep take a short swim out to the "find my aircraft" location.