DJI battery capacity INCREASING??

ryant · Feb 17, 2022

I was recently checking the health of old M600 batteries (TB48S) we don't use anymore for jobs. I ran into a set of batteries that hadn't be used in over a year and a half, and saw the battery mAh capacity increase from its previous capacity losses, around 3770, to 5700 as if it was a brand new battery. This happened in 5 out of the 6 batteries in the set. Has this happened to anyone else? Does anyone know what might be the reasoning behind this?

BigAl07 · Feb 17, 2022

First off WELCOME to the forum.

Keep in mind that the battery data is an ESTIMATION derived from use, algorithms, and some "fuzzy logic". What that means is that those #'s are off and I would suggest taking that as a very large Red Flag. The reason is if the report erroneous readings in the air, the Flight Controller could indeed shut down for safety reasons. If they state a falsely HIGH reading and then suddenly a realistic/low reading in a short period of time, it could kick in some SAFETY FEATURES that might not be desirable in flight.

I'm not intimately familiar with the batteries for the Matrices series but I do know that on Mavic & Phantom batteries, our SOP (only do this if you fully understand battery chemistry and the dangers involved) is to do a Deep Cycle to help reset the Smart Chip on the battery. We've done this for several years and I fully credit this to helping us get some crazy long life out of many UAS batteries.

As a side note, I seriously doubt I'd trust ANY UAS batteries that have been in storage for several months (year and a half is a LIFETIME for batteries) and would relegate them to ground testing and software updates etc. That's an expensive aircraft to be trusting to "questionable batteries".

I'm curious to hear what others who are more familiar with that M600 and it's intricacies. I've only flown one a couple of times for testing a new camera so I'm far from an M600 Subject Matter Expert.

ryant · Feb 17, 2022

Thanks glad to be here.

I agree with all of that. Didn't seem right, still doesn't, although I did do a short 5 min hover flight with them and saw minimal voltage and power drops. We would never use them for a job, but I'm looking for more training sets and doing inventory. Going to have to continue to test them and see what happens.

I've only been flying the m600 for a few months now, but have noticed in the past as well some batteries have seem small increases in capacity and voltage as well. Nothing like going back to 100% like this set though, so I'm curious as well if anyone else has seem similarities like these.

Got some homework to do with battery chemistry and doing a Deep Cycle now.

Thanks

Arnold LeVine · Feb 19, 2022

Just a wild guess. but is it possible the batteries did their own Deep Cycle while in storage, reset their smart chip, and then you were able to fully charge them? Normally, I would expect them to be dead and unchargeable if they dropped that low?
Again, just a wild guess to throw out to some experts on the forum.

R.Perry · Feb 23, 2022

I haven't had any experience with the TB48 batteries, but a lot with the TB50 for the Inspire 2. I have had several issues with the TB50s, mainly short life span. One battery only lasted for four cycles and then wouldn't charge above 85%..
I have a couple of old pairs that haven't been charged in almost two years. I'm going to put them on the charger and see what happens, however even if they were to come to a full state, I wouldn't use them..

While on the subject of batteries. How low do most of you go before RTH and switching out the batteries. I try to never go below 25 to 30 %.

Fred Garvin · Feb 23, 2022

ryant · Feb 24, 2022

R.Perry said:
I haven't had any experience with the TB48 batteries, but a lot with the TB50 for the Inspire 2. I have had several issues with the TB50s, mainly short life span. One battery only lasted for four cycles and then wouldn't charge above 85%..
I have a couple of old pairs that haven't been charged in almost two years. I'm going to put them on the charger and see what happens, however even if they were to come to a full state, I wouldn't use them..

While on the subject of batteries. How low do most of you go before RTH and switching out the batteries. I try to never go below 25 to 30 %.

I usually only see small increases in some batteries sometimes, while the rest are losing capacity at a mostly equal rate. I would never use batteries from over 1 year or 2 old.

Depends on what I'm flying. When I was filming with a Mavic 3 I was confident in myself and the batteries I was using where I'd push flight to 10% battery life then land (SOMETIMES.) Flying a M600 with multi thousand dollar payloads I would never go below 20%. Our RTH is set at 20%, but we always hand fly take off and landings, so we have complete control. If anything happened in flight we take over and can push the drones limits to get it back and on the ground safely and quickly. It depends on how comfortable you are doing that, and how well you know your batteries.