What the hell is wrong with the Batteries failing so fast!

[Doug Benson]

I have 2 Solos and 5 batteries... 1 Solo and 4 Batteries are just under 1 and a half years old.
2 of them crash almost immediately cant do more than maybe 2.5 minutes of video and I better be landing super fast or I'm falling out of the sky. WTF?
The other 3, 2 of which last about 10 minutes if I'm lucky... which doesn't make me happy either.
The worst thing is that... if I fully charge the batts today by tomorrow they only have 90%
the next day they will be at 80%, the next will be 70% and so on.
What's going on here?
I use all kinds of batteries for all kinds of things and have never seen batteries this crappy.

WHY ARE OUR BATTERIES SO CRAPPY!!!!
Its really pissing me off since these damn things cost me $149.00 EACH!!! YES $750 on crappy ass batteries has me pissed off and we have no recourse!
Does anyone else make a better battery for solo yet?

 

[Hassentassen]

How many % charge is left in the battery when you normally land? (before the batteries went bad)

 

[Doug Benson]

I typically begin flying home and landing at 25%, the 2 batteries I have that are "bad" start at 100% then as soon as I'm airborne and about 10' high they drop straight to about 85%. At 50' they are already about 35%. Very quickly Solo begins whistling and chirping her alarm at 25% and if I'm lucky with full power on and almost crash landing with just a quick blow off before I plop it down, I'll have about 10% left.

What I don't understand is why they loose so much power sitting on the table as soon as I take it off the charger? Are all drone batteries like this? Dji etc?

 

[n8lbv]

I get about 10 minutes flights on both of mine all stock with a gopro and gimbal installed.
I have less total flights on each battery.

I don't go much past 20% remaining before I land.
I usually have it back between 20-20% left
And worse case is 12-15% left. that I have done once or twice.

I don't leave them sitting more than a couple of days fully charged.

And I try to store them at 3.8V/cell charge level.

(two solid lights before they flash) I think..
I have another post hat details that..

Light that = storage charge level.

 

[n8lbv]

Doug, how many flight minutes did you get when they were brand new?

 

[KDan]

I typically begin flying home and landing at 25%, the 2 batteries I have that are "bad" start at 100% then as soon as I'm airborne and about 10' high they drop straight to about 85%. At 50' they are already about 35%. Very quickly Solo begins whistling and chirping her alarm at 25% and if I'm lucky with full power on and almost crash landing with just a quick blow off before I plop it down, I'll have about 10% left.

What I don't understand is why they loose so much power sitting on the table as soon as I take it off the charger? Are all drone batteries like this? Dji etc?

Your batteries are shot. Welcome to the world of RC Lipo Batteries. I've been flying electric RC aircraft for over 20 years, and using Lipoly batteries for as long as they've been around. I'm sure that I've spend well over $1000 in LiPoly batteries and gradually learned along the way what you must do to lengthen their lifespan.
Most people know that over-discharging kills them quickly. I try to never go below 30%. Even at 30% you will notice that the Solo battery is quite warm when you land. This is a sign that the battery has fairly high internal resistance - not a good thing. Heat is the enemy of these batteries - they get hotter as they approach a discharged condition, and the hotter they get, the harder it is on them. I heard somewhere that the cells in the Solo packs are only 10c rated. That's a pretty crappy battery by today's standards.

One other big factor that kills Lipolys is leaving them sit fully charged. A lot of people do that and don't realize how harmful it is. You should never let a LiPoly battery sit at full charge any longer than necessary. They should always be stored at around 40% charge - and no more than 60%.

Fully charging LiPolys when they are very cold is also bad. The maximum charge voltage of LiPoly's decreases with temperature. If you try to fully charge your battery when it is very cold, you are overcharging it and you are immediately damaging it.

Even with proper care, I wouldn't expect the Solo batteries to last more than about three years. And, you'll see a noticeable decrease in performance by the second year. You might do better if you fly infrequently and always store them properly.

If 3DR is no longer producing the batteries (as with the Solo itself) we have a problem. At some point within the next two or three years most of our Solo's will be grounded and useless until someone comes out with a replacement battery, or someone starts a rebuilding service. The is a big problem with the proprietary "smart battery". I've been building and flying DIY drones for years and this is never a problem with them because you can always get new generic batteries.

 

[pyrate]

wow, ok the discharging over a few days is a part of the smart battery circuitry
they will purposely discharge to storage voltage by design. It is not good to store fully charged batteries.
On flight time, I have batteries that are right at two years old and I get 13 or so minutes on them.
But I discharge mine to 15-10% almost every flight and recharge them to full and put them away

 

[andrew.baker.142]

Doug,
I'm guessing you mistreated your batteries. KDan hit the nail on the head. Always store LiPo batteries around 50% charge. Storing the discharged is worse than storing them fully charged. At least the smart battery circuits will try and discharge them to storage voltage over time.
Also don't store them in a hot car if you can avoid it.
Hang on to your 'bad' batteries. I'd expect you will be able to use the smart battery circuitry with a DIY fix in the not to distant future.

 

[spartaHawk]

Hang on to your 'bad' batteries. I'd expect you will be able to use the smart battery circuitry with a DIY fix in the not to distant future.

This is what I think we'll ultimately end up doing.

Also, although it would be nice to use the Solo until it's so old it's ancient tech, but in three years drone tech will be so good we'll be able to buy something better than the Solo for like $300 new. Although for someone to make a mid-range drone like that doesn't make a lot of sense. It's usually been dirt cheap or top end.

 

[Doug Benson]

Thanks so much for all the great replies, I understand much better I am to blame for my ignorance.
That being said, one thing I didn't hear, does anybody make a generic replacement? Or am I stuck replacing them with $80 3dr batts that will eventually fail again.
Love Solo... Not so happy with 3dr.

 

[treesmokingdroneflyingguy]

$55 on amazon

 

[andrew.baker.142]

Thanks so much for all the great replies, I understand much better I am to blame for my ignorance.
That being said, one thing I didn't hear, does anybody make a generic replacement? Or am I stuck replacing them with $80 3dr batts that will eventually fail again.
Love Solo... Not so happy with 3dr.

Nothing else on the market right now. We have hope though.

 

[treesmokingdroneflyingguy]

Nothing else on the market right now. We have hope though.

Amazon.com: 3DR Solo Smart Battery: Camera & Photo

Cheaper than $80

 

[gn1000]

That's great prices for you guys in the gool old u s of a. Unfortunately Amazon or anywhere else for that matter will ship batteries to the uk.

Over here Amazon uk price equates to $108 for what definitely looks like a copy to $150 for what may or may not be genuine (there's no picture of the back). The best price for a genuine elsewhere here is $128

 

[treesmokingdroneflyingguy]

That's the one I had purchased and it is a legit solo battery. Even though 3dr shut production down. Items are still stored In warehouses.
That's very unfortunate that they don't ship there.

 

[Doug Benson]

Thanks for all the great replies, I now know some new stuff not to do.
No aftermarket batts for solo yet huh?

 

[kneel23]

All 3DR and DJI "intelligent" batteries have some advanced memory and discharging functions to them. You can damage those functions, or sometimes they need to be "Reset" as well.

If you store them at 100% they should automatically slowly discharge themselves to 50%

I also forgot to discharge my batteries during the winter, but noticed all 3 of my Solo batteries would discharge themselves and then just stay around 40-50%

So I flew one of the batteries, and it discharged normally, I got a good 10-12 minutes from half a battery that had sat all winter, with no charging since last year.

Today I tried to fly the two other batteries which were also self-discharged (over the winter) at about 38% to 45% each. Both of those batteries immediately dropped to 25% then 20% then 15%... 12%...10% etc. within about 30 seconds triggering return home (even tho I just took off)

So while the auto-discharge seems to work and help, don't trust the capacity on batteries that have been stored for a long time.

So I am now charging them all to 100% again and will report back how they fare after that.

 

[Hezarfen]

Your batteries are shot. Welcome to the world of RC Lipo Batteries. I've been flying electric RC aircraft for over 20 years, and using Lipoly batteries for as long as they've been around. I'm sure that I've spend well over $1000 in LiPoly batteries and gradually learned along the way what you must do to lengthen their lifespan.
Most people know that over-discharging kills them quickly. I try to never go below 30%. Even at 30% you will notice that the Solo battery is quite warm when you land. This is a sign that the battery has fairly high internal resistance - not a good thing. Heat is the enemy of these batteries - they get hotter as they approach a discharged condition, and the hotter they get, the harder it is on them. I heard somewhere that the cells in the Solo packs are only 10c rated. That's a pretty crappy battery by today's standards.

One other big factor that kills Lipolys is leaving them sit fully charged. A lot of people do that and don't realize how harmful it is. You should never let a LiPoly battery sit at full charge any longer than necessary. They should always be stored at around 40% charge - and no more than 60%.

Fully charging LiPolys when they are very cold is also bad. The maximum charge voltage of LiPoly's decreases with temperature. If you try to fully charge your battery when it is very cold, you are overcharging it and you are immediately damaging it.

Even with proper care, I wouldn't expect the Solo batteries to last more than about three years. And, you'll see a noticeable decrease in performance by the second year. You might do better if you fly infrequently and always store them properly.

If 3DR is no longer producing the batteries (as with the Solo itself) we have a problem. At some point within the next two or three years most of our Solo's will be grounded and useless until someone comes out with a replacement battery, or someone starts a rebuilding service. The is a big problem with the proprietary "smart battery". I've been building and flying DIY drones for years and this is never a problem with them because you can always get new generic batteries.

Very important information. Could it be an alternative solution with 18850 class batteries? I have been thinking about this and made some preliminary calculations. For example Solo "hover" and "slowly flight" consumes max 25 A.

Solo Smart Batery : 1.2 lb × 453.59237
= 544.310844 g, 5400 mAh

Ncr 18650 Li-ion Batteries: 4 Serial 2 Parallel > 8 x 46 gr =~360 gr 6800 mAh
It's a beautiful dream for now. Maybe it can be real with your valuable experience and contributions.

 

[kneel23]

Yup so after charging my two older batteries, they will not hold a charge. Started out at 100% and they went down by 1% every few seconds.
They still take hours to charge to 100% so its weird how they seem to charge properly, and at the right time frame... but discharging happens at exponentially faster rate.

I stored the batteries at 100% over the winter (discharged themselves to 50% but apparently that feature does not actually help the life of the battery nor to prevent damage from idiots like me who forget to discharge their batteries because they had originally charged them to 100% to use them one more time last fall)


Guess we are all SOL with batteries that are behaving this way? I could have sworn there was a way to reset and recalibrate the batteries' "memory" but I only know how to reset plain lipos that get discharged lower than 1% and then won't charge.. not these.