Defective batteries

davshev · Jul 27, 2022

Has anyone noticed that Autel seems to have some issues with defective batteries? To date they have replaced 3 batteries for me.

AirStag · Jul 30, 2022

I have six batteries and never had an issue. What happened with your three?

vr-pilot · Jul 30, 2022

My 8 batteries are all in very fine condition. Could you please elaborate the specifics?

davshev · Jul 30, 2022

I was getting an "unknown battery" error message with three different batteries during the past year. The most discharges on them were about 75. Autel replaced all three.

vr-pilot · Jul 31, 2022

davshev said:
I was getting an "unknown battery" error message with three different batteries during the past year. The most discharges on them were about 75. Autel replaced all three.

Ah I see. The error message "unknown battery" came on three batteries that had up to 75 charges. You are lucky that Autel did replace them for you.
In general manufacturers tell that Li-Po batteries may be good for up to 200 charges. I would say 100 charges are more realistic in terms of reasonable flight times (endurance) while still being reliable enough for critical missions and/or tough conditions.
Also: battery life time (wear and tear) very much depends on how they are "treated" and the general operating conditions.
My impression is that the MaxiEn batteries are high quality parts that underwent some tough quality checks.
BTW: did your batteries have the latest FW when the "unknown battery" appeared?

davshev · Aug 1, 2022

vr-pilot said:
Ah I see. The error message "unknown battery" came on three batteries that had up to 75 charges. You are lucky that Autel did replace them for you.
In general manufacturers tell that Li-Po batteries may be good for up to 200 charges. I would say 100 charges are more realistic in terms of reasonable flight times (endurance) while still being reliable enough for critical missions and/or tough conditions.
Also: battery life time (wear and tear) very much depends on how they are "treated" and the general operating conditions.
My impression is that the MaxiEn batteries are high quality parts that underwent some tough quality checks.
BTW: did your batteries have the latest FW when the "unknown battery" appeared?

No, the firmware wasn't the latest, and Autel didn't ask about that.

vr-pilot · Aug 2, 2022

davshev said:
No, the firmware wasn't the latest, and Autel didn't ask about that.

O.K. "Firmware version disagree" (i.e. between battery FW and Explorer App) could be a reason, but that is only guessing from my side. Nevertheless interesting to know about such error messages.
But I would see it as a safety feature when the aircraft does not take off if any doubt about the flight battery (power source) occurs.
Just to confirm: you were not able to start motors or take off?

davshev · Aug 2, 2022

vr-pilot said:
O.K. "Firmware version disagree" (i.e. between battery FW and Explorer App) could be a reason, but that is only guessing from my side. Nevertheless interesting to know about such error messages.
But I would see it as a safety feature when the aircraft does not take off if any doubt about the flight battery (power source) occurs.
Just to confirm: you were not able to start motors or take off?

That's correct. Once I got the error message the drone would not start.

AirStag · Aug 3, 2022

I have not had any errors or warnings, but I noticed today when I was sliding a battery in that there was some resistance. So I held the battery up to a light to see if I could see through the spaces between the cells and I could not. That concerns me. I then checked all six batteries and 4 of them have little to no light visible through the battery slots. These batteries all have between 62 and 76 cycles.

I realize batteries only last so long, but how do I know if these should be retired? Will the controller give me some indication that the battery is not performing well enough? I know some will say I should retire these now.

At what number of cycles have you retired your batteries, and why?

Thanks for any feedback.

davshev · Aug 3, 2022

AirStag said:
I have not had any errors or warnings, but I noticed today when I was sliding a battery in that there was some resistance. So I held the battery up to a light to see if I could see through the spaces between the cells and I could not. That concerns me. I then checked all six batteries and 4 of them have little to no light visible through the battery slots. These batteries all have between 62 and 76 cycles.

I realize batteries only last so long, but how do I know if these should be retired? Will the controller give me some indication that the battery is not performing well enough? I know some will say I should retire these now.

At what number of cycles have you retired your batteries, and why?

Thanks for any feedback.

I also have a couple of batteries that have swelled a little. This happened with my Mavick pro as well. So far, I've only seen "unknown battery" warning which prevented taking off. I also recently had a water crash where the battery went from 27% to 0% within 45-60 seconds. I contacted Autel, sent them the flight data and they determined that it should not have gone to 0% so quickly. They are replacing the drone for me. I don't know if this crash was due to battery failure.....and I can't send it to Autel for a post mortem because it's at the bottom of a bay!

mondodrum77 · Aug 28, 2022

I had two with the bundle I bought. The first one went from 31 minutes to landing now in the lake. I paid divers to get it and let me tell you, the gps is pretty much right on. I marked it and 7 days later went to the exact location and they through the anchor dove down 40ft and there it was. Literally took 5 min to find.

Autel was great and looked at my telemetry and replace the drone and the battery. I just did a job and now my other battery ( the original one) did the same thing, lucky I was shooting a farm and just landed next to me. I will be filling out a form to have them replace it. 11 flights on a battery is not enough.

davshev · Aug 28, 2022

mondodrum77 said:
I had two with the bundle I bought. The first one went from 31 minutes to landing now in the lake. I paid divers to get it and let me tell you, the gps is pretty much right on. I marked it and 7 days later went to the exact location and they through the anchor dove down 40ft and there it was. Literally took 5 min to find.

Autel was great and looked at my telemetry and replace the drone and the battery. I just did a job and now my other battery ( the original one) did the same thing, lucky I was shooting a farm and just landed next to me. I will be filling out a form to have them replace it. 11 flights on a battery is not enough.

Was yours completely fried after it came out of the water? My camera still worked after I had a water crash. In fact, the motors also worked, but it doesn't connect to the controller. It was submerged for about 30 min. A few years ago with a Mavic Pro I landed in a tall tree. I had to hire an arborist to climb and get it!

mondodrum77 · Aug 29, 2022

davshev said:
Was yours completely fried after it came out of the water? My camera still worked after I had a water crash. In fact, the motors also worked, but it doesn't connect to the controller. It was submerged for about 30 min. A few years ago with a Mavic Pro I landed in a tall tree. I had to hire an arborist to climb and get it!

I never turned it on because I knew it was a battery failure so I didn’t wanna test it and have them say I burned it up after the fact. But I really wanted to I think it would’ve flew fine. I did put it in rice.

davshev · Aug 29, 2022

mondodrum77 said:
I never turned it on because I knew it was a battery failure so I didn’t wanna test it and have them say I burned it up after the fact. But I really wanted to I think it would’ve flew fine. I did put it in rice.

I'm happy to hear they replaced it. Autel won't touch if they know it was submerged in water, regardless of whether it powers up or not. At least that's the response I got from them. You may as well power it up to see if any parts are salvageable.

mondodrum77 · Aug 30, 2022

davshev said:
I'm happy to hear they replaced it. Autel won't touch if they know it was submerged in water, regardless of whether it powers up or not. At least that's the response I got from them. You may as well power it up to see if any parts are salvageable.

You can clearly see that it was the battery that was bad and not the pilot or the drone. But it took a few emails and that is why I buy my stuff from a dealer not the website. Gen Pac Drones, they will stand up for you.

davshev · Sep 7, 2022

mondodrum77 said:
You can clearly see that it was the battery that was bad and not the pilot or the drone. But it took a few emails and that is why I buy my stuff from a dealer not the website. Gen Pac Drones, they will stand up for you.

FYI, I've been reading about other pilots having their drones fall out of the sky into water because of battery failure. Evo II Pro falling from the skies?!!!??
Also, whether or not Autel decides to replace them seems to depend on whether they were still under warranty.