Hey there fellow Droners,

I’m new to the forums so my apologies if this has already been covered. I'll try to make a long story short.

December 2016

Bought a Phantom 4, two extra batteries and a battery charging hub at their 1666 Broadway, NYC store. Took it to my second home where I intend to fly the drone in the summers because the winter weather is so severe at that location. I put the drone and batteries away and didn't open the boxes until...

June 2017

... where I learned the hard way that if you don't keep the batteries charged above a certain percentage they're toast. I called DJI and got no love at all, I believe the batteries were past the warranty point. Okay, my bad, I should have done my research and educated myself on battery life. Still it sucked to open brand spanking new product and find it dead. Maybe they should have told me that at the store?

So, because I want to fly my beautiful Phantom 4 Pro so badly, I purchase an extra hub and batteries from a preferred vendor in NYC. I now hove 6 brand spanking new batteries and two charging hubs. All is well in drone land.

September 2017

Close up the house for the winter but make sure that my six beautiful healthy batteries are in their hubs set to STORAGE mode because I did my research and mamma didn’t raise no fool… right?

December 2017

Head back to that home for Christmas only to find four of my six baby batteries still alive. Hmmm, okay, maybe I got two lemons. I try to get an answer from DJI, no love again. However, my NYC vendor was kind enough to send me two replacements even though the warranty had lapse. Phew! Two new batteries in the hub set to STORAGE and I’m good. See you in July lil’ Phantom 4 Pro!

July 2018

WTF?!?! Two dead batteries, three batteries that the app is warning are “Broken Cells” though they seem fully charged and one that seems to be fine for the moment. That's $845 worth of bricks! Call DJI, speak to a rep who listens intently to my situation and tells me someone above him will be calling me within 15-30. That was almost 6 hours ago!!!

So for those of you who I haven't bored to death and are still with me, four questions

1- Am I doing something wrong?

2- Is anyone else having these problems with the batteries?

3- Any know fixes for this issue?

4- Is DJI’s customer support this bad or do they just hate me?

Thanks in advance.

Sounds like your cells went irreversibly dormant again.

While it’s great you charged them to storage mode you’re still going to want to discharge the batteries every 2-3 months and then recharge them to storage.

Thanks for the quick reply and  info. By discharging do you mean letting them run on the drone? I thought that's what the hub was supposed to do for long storage periods?

I charge my batteries to 100% at least every 6 weeks and then discharge them back to 50% usually doing updates on firmware or just doing a few flights.  As long as you are not flying in single digit temps you should be ok.  It doesn't have to be high altitude flights but just practice on basic skills such as figure 8's or flying in a circle.  This cycles the battery to keep it healthy as you have found out it is not good for a battery to sit very long without the charge and discharge cycle.
Phantom 4 Pro Intelligent Flight Battery  Refer to page 3 under Battery maintenance

Sounded to me like Joe Q was doing all the right things - maybe not ?
My batteries/drone are going to be out of action for about 6/8 weeks.  mmmmm,  must remember to cycle them after 4 weeks and at  that time as posted previously,  it's an opportunity to do any updates.   That's something else that always makes me nervous !   

Manxmann Posted at 2018-7-17 01:29
Sounded to me like Joe Q was doing all the right things - maybe not ?
My batteries/drone are going to be out of action for about 6/8 weeks.  mmmmm,  must remember to cycle them after 4 weeks and at  that time as posted previously,  it's an opportunity to do any updates.   That's something else that always makes me nervous !

When all is said and done, just remember the golden rule:

NEVER LEAVE BATTERIES UNATTENDED!

(Especially when connected to charger and/or hub wether in charge or maintenance mode... and at a faraway location you won't visit for 4 or 6 months).

Thanks Antonio, clearly this must be the case. In all fairness I was led to believe that the this is what the charging hubs were for. If you can't tend to your batteries (as I would have if I had been present) then the hub, I assumed (you know what they say about people who assume), would preserve them while I was away. Clearly this is not the case, so fair warning to those as ignorant as I.

Has DJI made a point of stating this fact? If they have maybe they should make a BIGGER point of it so folks like me don't end up losing as much money on their product as I just have.

So I guess the only alternative I have for a situation where the batteries will be unattended for 6 and 3 month spans is to bring them with me and cycle them.

Oh and still waiting from that call from tech support.

Joe Q Posted at 2018-7-17 06:59
Thanks Antonio, clearly this must be the case. In all fairness I was led to believe that the this is what the charging hubs were for. If you can't tend to your batteries (as I would have if I had been present) then the hub, I assumed (you know what they say about people who assume), would preserve them while I was away. Clearly this is not the case, so fair warning to those as ignorant as I.

Has DJI made a point of stating this fact? If they have maybe they should make a BIGGER point of it so folks like me don't end up losing as much money on their product as I just have.

"Has DJI made a point of stating this fact? "

Have a read of their 'Intelligent Flight Battery Safety Guidelines' from Here

There's lots of good bits on that web page.

Edit:- Item number 2 under 'Battery Maintenance' near bottom of guidelines.

Aardvark Posted at 2018-7-17 09:02
"Has DJI made a point of stating this fact? "

Have a read of their 'Intelligent Flight Battery Safety Guidelines' from Here

Good advice indeed.

I guess when you look at in the harsh light of day,  the batteries have one helluva life & sure as hell work hard. ......  build me up,  knock me down,  build me up,  knock me down.
That being the case,  we need to do all we can them through -- especially at the price of replacements.

Joe Q Posted at 2018-7-17 06:59
Thanks Antonio, clearly this must be the case. In all fairness I was led to believe that the this is what the charging hubs were for. If you can't tend to your batteries (as I would have if I had been present) then the hub, I assumed (you know what they say about people who assume), would preserve them while I was away. Clearly this is not the case, so fair warning to those as ignorant as I.

Has DJI made a point of stating this fact? If they have maybe they should make a BIGGER point of it so folks like me don't end up losing as much money on their product as I just have.

One thing to bear in mind is that the batteries also have a 'hibernation' stage. Have a read of DJIs guidelines for more information.