endotherm
 First Officer
Flight distance : 503241 ft
Australia
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1. Do I need a new update? I haven't had any sort of updates in a long time. Should I get one?
A new update isn't going to make the aircraft fly any more or less stable. What firmware do you have now? Landing on a car is a bad idea, it acts like a giant magnet, and what do you suppose will happen to the compass in the aircraft that you are relying upon for navigation? You might see it move in the opposite direction from what you expect because it is being influenced by the large metallic mass.
2. I noticed one of my generic battery had an error on the Litchi screen. I'm not sure what that means. Anyway to find out for sure?
What did it say? It could be anything.
3. One of my other generic batteries (I bought them 2+ years ago) is slightly bulging. I flew it for 20 minutes. I took it out because it was low and noticed the small lump. Should I toss it? How long are they supposed to last anyway?
In my experience, generic lithium batteries such as those found in power banks and phone battery replacements are pretty ordinary quality-wise. If they aren't used for a while or stored improperly charged (e.g. fully charged or fully depleted) they will tend to swell.
How "slightly" is it bulging? I probably wouldn't be too worried with a slight bulge, provided I can get it to insert and extract from the aircraft without dragging and scraping the outer package. Any bulge probably isn't a good thing, and is a sign that there is cell damage and things will get worse from here. Some might suggest you retire it and use it for bench testing only, and use good batteries for flight. Do you really want to chance flying an expensive product using sub-standard components with the potential to fail/catch fire? The problem with reserving them for bench testing only is that you will do that very infrequently, leading to further lack of use and potentially more swelling. You need to get into the habit of fully charging them all every six months or so of sitting idle or of being in storage. Intelligent batteries will self-discharge to a safe level for storage.The "life" of them is pretty variable, it depends on how frequently they were used, how hard they were flown and how quickly they were discharged, etc. Good quality batteries should last some time. Much like laptop batteries, I have seen them die after a couple of years, but others are still going pretty strong many years later. The genuine Phantom batteries (and possibly generics) should have a self-reporting/diagnostic mode where they tell you the number of charge cycles and estimated capacity remaining. I think the answer is that they are good to go until they aren't. Not a precise answer but there you have it.
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lvl.3
Second Officer
