I'm at a loss now, recently my P2 started going into low battery warning and auto land vertually as soon as I took off. So far I've changed the main board, cleaned the battery connector and checked the continuaty of the smart connector pins. I've also changed the main flight controller and bought a new battery, it's a third party battery as I can't locate anyone selling genuine DJI ones, I have 4 DJI batteries anyway and would think it very unusual that all of them would go down at the same time and they all check out OK in the DJI Assistant software. Although I'm nowhere any no fly zones I'm wondering if that could be causing the problem i.e. that's how they make it land by making it think it's got a critically low battery (I seem to remember that they put some no fly zones in one of the updates but not sure). When it lands the battery symbol on screen from the mini iosd goes back to normal, the gps ok green lights come back on and you can take off again, it will of course go back to critical battery level again as soon as you take off again. It doesn't seem to do this if I fly atti; which is why it makes me think it may be down to a no fly zone problem as if I'm in atti it doesn't go into low battery as it's not using the gps, or does the gps still function in atti but the phantom simply doesn't act on the info from it?

Hi there, it looks like the aircraft issue. Please send it in at your earliest convenience and repair: https://www.dji.com/support

DJI Susan Posted at 2017-12-22 01:37
Hi there, it looks like the aircraft issue. Please send it in at your earliest convenience and repair: https://www.dji.com/support

It's an old P2 and not worth the money DJI would charge to look at it, after fitting a new flight controller it still did it. All the testing up to now has been done in my back yard and that's where I first discovered it was doing it: but today I took it with me down to the flying field and it was fine on all batteries. I've flown it in my yard with no problems before but not for over a year now, I'm thinking it may be down to the increased use of wi-fi in my area. I'll be doing further tests down at the flying field before I class the problem as dealt with. Thanks for your reply though.

fans34c123ba Posted at 2017-12-22 16:22
It's an old P2 and not worth the money DJI would charge to look at it, after fitting a new flight controller it still did it. All the testing up to now has been done in my back yard and that's where I first discovered it was doing it: but today I took it with me down to the flying field and it was fine on all batteries. I've flown it in my yard with no problems before but not for over a year now, I'm thinking it may be down to the increased use of wi-fi in my area. I'll be doing further tests down at the flying field before I class the problem as dealt with. Thanks for your reply though.

Thanks for getting back to us. Generally, the local team will do damage assessment and check whether there is any repair value and offer you the corresponding solutions. Good luck!

Doesn't sound like an NFZ problem.  To be sure:  

Watch the rear lamps on the boot up.  When the AC senses the compass working properly, it will flash green 20x quickly.  A bit later when it acquires the sixth satellite, it will flash green 20x quickly again.  If you are in a NFZ, it will then flash RED 20x quickly, which indicates you are in an NFZ and the motors won't spin up.  

Have you checked the batteries with the Vision Assistant?  If you stored all four incorrectly, all four could be bad.  

Now I think about it I don't think my wi-fi theory holds up as my version uses 2.4 Ghz and not 5.8 Ghz. I'm getting (after all the compass checking and GPS lock ons) is the three green flashes (OK to fly with GPS) followed by 2 red flashes, I can't find that combination of flashes in any DJI litrature. Checked all the batteries in the assistant software and all check out OK.

Well it now looks like it was in fact a battery problem, I guess I didn't want to accept that all four of my batteries had gone down together and it was going to cost me a fortune to replace them, still strange that all four went down together? I ordered a new third party battery as I couldn't get hold of a DJI battery, it turned out that the battery I was sent was in a worse state than my original batteries. I found a suitable Turnigy battery from HobbyKing that had the same rating and cell size, swapped the cells over and wha-la! back up and running again with no early battery warnings. Going to order three more at £20.00 each and swap out the other three. Problem solved!

Well done. I had a similar problem with one of my P2 batteries this week. When put on charge, the faulty battery appeared to charge very quickly (around 15 mins) - a good sign the battery is bad!

You might like to consider uploading some pictures of what you do when you replace the cells in the other batteries - it may help others with the same problem.

Good to know you managed to solve the battery problem even when P2 batteries apparently aren't manufactured anymore (after just 3.5 years).

I maybe will need to do something about it soon, too.

Well it's bad news again, flew the modified battery down to 65% on the first flight and had no issues so thought it was fixed. Second time out with it fully charged it went into premature battery failure at 55% and auto landed, I tried one of the older batteries that was showing fully charged and it simply shut down 2 seconds after taking off, the Phantom just dropped out of the sky, luckily it had only got to 3 foot off the floor so no damage, I'm about to throw the damn thing in the bin and stay clear of DJI products in the future. I tried conditioning the battery with the new cells in but it completely shut down at 50% so I can't run it down to the required amount to condition it?

How cold was it outside?  Are you sure your batteries were adequately warmed before launch?

You probably bought a crappy aftermarket battery because you were looking for the best price possible.  Low price is a not a good reason to buy an aftermarket.  I currently have eight P2 batteries and they all fly.  Four of them are aftermarkets.  My most reliable ones are the legit DJI ones, of course.  I also have maybe four retired P2 batteries, three of them crappy aftermarkets, the good DJI one cracked in a crash.  Point is, if you're going to buy aftermarket, try to get one that has good reviews and then be willing to spend some money for it.  I think you'll have better luck.  

There are some advantages to flying the P2 series ACs - the main one being there are far less headaches when it comes to restricted zones, NFZs, TFRs, etc.  Also there are no new FW headaches.  No surprises.  Just launch and fly.  

So maybe don't give up so easily...

Good luck

"Give up so easily" I've fitted new esc's, a new main board, new motors, new receiver. I've tried to get a genuine DJI Phantom battery but in the end I had to go for a 3rd party one as no one in Europe seemed to have them and one's from the US were too much P&P, I've even gone to the trouble of replacing the battery cells in one of the batteries and thought I'd cured the problem: but to no avail. It was cold to be sure, but the batteries had come out from a warm house, they had been carried to the flying field in a warm car and had only been out in the cold long enough for the Phantom to cycle to the ready to fly situation. I've flown in cold weather before with no trouble so something has happened somewhere and I still suspect a battery fault, I will endeavour to source a genuine DJI Battery. Thanks for your input Mark.

I have a P3 Pro and I have the exact same issue with the addition of a "motor' warning that they are overheated or similar. I used 4 different batteries, when it is on and not flying it seems fine. But soon as I start flying I get the warning critically low battery (at 50%) and it lands and shuts off. The motors don't seem warm and it seems to fly okay but unstable, drifting usually to the left. I also get all kinds of other warnings till now I'm at the point it's too big a pain in the ass to mess with. Really flaky software that I'd be terrified to fly it anywhere but on my property. Too bad, when I first bought it a couple years ago, it was nearly flawless, now it's not much more than a doorstop. Apparently, DJI doesn't bother to support this bird's firmware anymore, annoying.

You might consider cleaning the battery contacts with a Q tip and alcohol, and then doing an IMU and compass calibration before you give up on it.

Mark The Droner Posted at 2018-3-28 18:21
You might consider cleaning the battery contacts with a Q tip and alcohol, and then doing an IMU and compass calibration before you give up on it.

Thank you, I will. It can't hurt.

Update: The warning is "Warning Motor Overload- Landing" and it does. I'm wondering if one or more of the motors are binding a little. I've always treated it gingerly never flew it around sand or excessive dirt. I've had it for about 3 or 4 years but haven't flown it that much especially the last year or so. Question, do the motors wear out, is this consistent with that and can they just be lubricated? How can you tell which motor might be failing? Thank you.

Well I finally managed to get hold of a good battery and it's definitely proved the problem was the battery all along, had a good 20 minutes flight out of it.

Update: The warning is "Warning Motor Overload- Landing" and it does. I'm wondering if one or more of the motors are binding a little. I've always treated it gingerly never flew it around sand or excessive dirt. I've had it for about 3 or 4 years but haven't flown it that much especially the last year or so. Question, do the motors wear out, is this consistent with that and can they just be lubricated? How can you tell which motor might be failing? Thank you.

I've never heard of a motor wearing out from general use without a crash or other problem.  Obviously any motor will eventually wear out, but from reading posts over the years, it seems the motors will outlive the AC.  So my guess is something might be in the motor.  Turn each motor with your fingers and see if you can find one that is more resistant than the others.  If you find one you think might be a problem you can blow it out easily enough.  I'd remove the bolts underneath.  There will be a little slack in the ignition cables allowing you to tilt it.  You can then use compressed air to blow it out from the bottom and out the top.  You can buy compressed air in a can.  Good luck.

I fitted four new motors to mine but found one to be faulty, after about five minutes flight time it would heat up and cut out (or the ESC would). Mine is a none vision so don't know if the DJI app would have given me a warning similar to yours or not? After lots of head scratching I found my faulty one by simply feeling the motors, the faulty one was much, much hotter than the other three.

rstasel Posted at 2018-3-28 19:31
Update: The warning is "Warning Motor Overload- Landing" and it does. I'm wondering if one or more of the motors are binding a little. I've always treated it gingerly never flew it around sand or excessive dirt. I've had it for about 3 or 4 years but haven't flown it that much especially the last year or so. Question, do the motors wear out, is this consistent with that and can they just be lubricated? How can you tell which motor might be failing? Thank you.

I found, on another thread comments about the battery being charged all the way when starting the P3. After charging my batteries up to 100% cleaning the battery contacts, restating everything and redoing the compass, things seem to be working much better. Not sure what did it, but so far so good.