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I have a friend of mine just fixed my 2 batteries they took the charge and we will be flying tomorrow. If it works he is going to charge me 50.00 each. I figured what the hell all I have is a paper weight now. I will keep everyone posted.
How did he fix them? Details would be greatly appreciated.
 
I had a friend of mine that just rebuilt mine he took it apart and jump started the old battery. We are flying it tomorrow I will let everyone know if it works he is going to charge me 100.00 dollars for both 50.00 each. I figured what the hell all I have is a paper weight now.

Has anyone done a battery rebuild on the X-Star batteries? I am staring to do a rebuild and did not see much on here that anyone has done this.


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How do you plan on doing a rebuild? batteries, how did you pry the case open with out destroying? Thanks
 
I don’t know I know he took them part and jumpstart them. I will be flying today. I will keep you updated.
Thank yo, any details you can find out on how he jump started them and what type of charger her used etc.. would be greatly appreciated. I have a brand new X-star with 2 dead batteries just sitting like everyone else,and I am dying to fly it atleast once before the FAA eventually bans them altogether.Good luck with your flight test.
 
I have contacted Max Amps to see if they will make available a quality battery or a DIY kit for us to replace the cells. I'm very concerned about using just any cells. The "C" rating is very important here. The wires on the cell posted a few posts up are small and indicate a cell that is only suitable for low current discharge.

I have looked to find a quality hard case 4s battery that is the same size as the stock Autel battery so little to no modification has to be done to the battery itself. Just solder the output leads and the balance wires in the correct places. I have not found such battery yet.
 
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Update: I have located what looks like the correct size cells but a 4s battery pack is $100. That's over twice as much as a standard 4s battery pack. They seem to called "Shortys". If you look up "4s 5000mah shorty" you will come up with some packs with the same size cells as the X-Star battery has. Here are 2 that I found...

Performa Racing Graphene Lipo Shorty 5000 14.8V 120C PA9300
and

I'm thinking if you removed the hard case, the cells are the same size as the X-Star's battery. I do like the 100C and 120C rating.

All that being said, I hope the BMS on the X-Star battery is not one that has to be reset as Josh mentioned about a problem they run into with rebuilding a DJI battery. I'm thinking if a "Revived from the Dead" battery will charge and work in the X-Star, I think we should be ok.
 
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I have been experimenting with using the control board from a bad x star battery with other batteries, and just got it to work with a generic $35 14.8 v battery from Amazon. Here are pics of the first test flight. The battery is longer and hangs out a bit, but does not seem to impact flight stability.dronetest1.jpg
 

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I have been experimenting with using the control board from a bad x star battery with other batteries, and just got it to work with a generic $35 14.8 v battery from Amazon. Here are pics of the first test flight. The battery is longer and hangs out a bit, but does not seem to impact flight stability.View attachment 9933
Does the app recognize the battery levels and report back capacity and flight times correctly?
 
Does the app recognize the battery levels and report back capacity and flight times correctly?
Yes, the battery levels are recognized, capacity seems to be a bit underreported, flight times seem to be correct based on the reported capacity. I have only made 3 flights so far, so am still experimenting.
 
Ok, work has had me super busy and I have had some time here and there to test. I have had good results and have gotten the battery board to slowly update to a new battery. Last test flight for the black brick was 15 minutes 25 seconds. The silver pack was only about 10 mins. You have to do some additional things to get the battery board to "reset" or read the new capacity of the battery. Trying to put together videos on all of this that I have done to date.
3 Batteries.JPG Black Brick.JPGBlack Brick Flying.JPGSilver Pack.JPGSilver Pack Flying.JPG
 
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Thank yo, any details you can find out on how he jump started them and what type of charger her used etc.. would be greatly appreciated. I have a brand new X-star with 2 dead batteries just sitting like everyone else,and I am dying to fly it atleast once before the FAA eventually bans them altogether.Good luck with your flight test.
A video I did when I brought back 5 batteries

 
Ok, work has had me super busy and I have had some time here and there to test. I have had good results and have gotten the battery board to slowly update to a new battery. Last test flight for the black brick was 15 minutes 25 seconds. The silver pack was only about 10 mins. You have to do some additional things to get the battery board to "reset" or read the new capacity of the battery. Trying to put together videos on all of this that I have done to date.
View attachment 10103 View attachment 10099View attachment 10100View attachment 10101View attachment 10102
Your set up looks a lot like mine! I see you wired up an extra (5th) balance wire from the neg terminal of the battery. I did that at first as well, because the battery packs I used had five balance wires vs the 4 used by the Autel battery controller (it gets the neg value from the main neg wire), but then ended up cutting that 5th wire so that drive power doesn't go through that small wire to the neg wire to the drone. It isn't needed and therefore was just a potential failure point.BatteryAdaptations.JPG
 
Your set up looks a lot like mine! I see you wired up an extra (5th) balance wire from the neg terminal of the battery. I did that at first as well, because the battery packs I used had five balance wires vs the 4 used by the Autel battery controller (it gets the neg value from the main neg wire), but then ended up cutting that 5th wire so that drive power doesn't go through that small wire to the neg wire to the drone. It isn't needed and therefore was just a potential failure point.View attachment 10104
The balance leads were in an interesting order. Not what I expected but my first tear down. I thought a battery like that but I want to make it fit back in the old case. Plus mine seems to fly a little tilted with the pack i am using. The board adjusts after a few uses but I have not gotten mine to read the full mah that the battery pack says it is.
 
The balance leads were in an interesting order. Not what I expected but my first tear down. I thought a battery like that but I want to make it fit back in the old case. Plus mine seems to fly a little tilted with the pack i am using. The board adjusts after a few uses but I have not gotten mine to read the full mah that the battery pack says it is.
Even though the battery packs I am using stick way out the back of the battery compartment, the flight controls seem to keep everything pretty stable, have not noticed any significant difference from the original battery pack. I have the same issue re: battery capacity readings - of my two setups, one is closer than the other. I think it may have to do with the history of the original battery from which the control board was removed - the one that gives the low reading also says that there is only 70% of life left, resetting does not seem to set that back. But I have only done a few flights, so maybe over time it will adjust. Just glad it works at all!!
 
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how did you try to reset them? did you do the RST on the motherboard? Same issue here. As you drain and recharge the board will adjust. It seems to take a while. I wonder if I used a larger pack first if it would adjust the board quicker.
 
how did you try to reset them? did you do the RST on the motherboard? Same issue here. As you drain and recharge the board will adjust. It seems to take a while. I wonder if I used a larger pack first if it would adjust the board quicker.
I did the "hold the power button for 30 seconds" method. I wish there was some info available about how exactly the battery control firmware works.
 
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read in another forum :(

Unfortunately, just received a response from Max Amps RC Batteries Rep. that they were unable to size out a replacement battery for our X-Star Premium Drones.

Thank you for choosing MaxAmps for your RC needs. We recently received an older Autel battery to try and swap out the old cells for new. Unfortunately after getting the battery pack in house and testing out all of our current cell types we do not have a viable cell to fit the existing battery space. We work with a pool of existing cell types and unfortunately this specific size is not something we have a viable replacement candidate for.

If we were to attempt a replacement it would be about half of the capacity using the current cells available. While we would like to have a solution for you, it looks like we are not likely to have a viable replacement in the near future.

Josh Barker
PR and Marketing Manager
 

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