Hi all,I'm new to the forum so apparently wasn't authorized to post a new thread. I tacked onto another thread about batteries looking for support from DJI to chime in. Hopefully now that I can post a dedicated thread, I'll be able to get some useful help.

The details are at the end of the linked thread, but the summary is this:

I just had two young batteries (less than 30 charges) brick themselves WHILE ON THE DJI CHARGING HUB in storage! This battery system has been ridiculous. I bought a used P4 18 months ago that came with two dead batteries. Fine, maybe the previous owner abused them. I did hours of reading while trying to recover them and started to understand just how fragile they were. So, knowing that, I bought the charging hub to try to keep them safe, as I frequently don't use them for 3-6 months at a time. I also bought two batteries. One brand new from DJI and another used with maybe 20 charge cycles. Since then, I've used them each for about 10 cycles. I left the house in June after having used the batteries and having them work just fine. I put both on the charging hub and put it into storage mode. On the first of both July and August I asked the person who was in the house to switch the charging hub from storage to charging, because I had read that sitting in storage mode for too long can brick them. On the 2nd of each month, he switched the hub back to storage. Now, six weeks after the August 1 full-charge-and-back-to-storage cycle, I arrived to find both batteries still on the charging hub, plugged in, and both completely unresponsive. No lights, no anything. I tried the "get batteries out of hibernation" tips, nothing had any effect.

DJI, can someone please let me know what can be done about this? I purchased the drone to document a construction project in West Africa, and we're now missing important steps in the construction, which we can't go back and reshoot later, as the construction will progress, with no way to get more batteries over here.

Hello, there. Sorry for your inconvenience. if your battery has been damaged and is still in warranty, we recommend you apply for an online repair request and send it back.
Here is the link: https://www.dji.com/service/repair?site=brandsite&from=footer
For the Storage mode of the Phantom 4 Series Charging Hub, Here are some suggestions:
Align the battery rails to insert the battery into the battery port, and the charging hub will discharge the battery with more than 50% charge.
At the same time, charge the battery with less than 50% charge until the battery is stable at 50%. (At this time, the battery light will go out)
The discharge speed is about 1.7W/h, so it takes about a day to fully discharge the battery to the level of about 50%.
In the storage mode, all three batteries need to be charged or discharged at the same time.
Note: when the battery is under the Storage mode discharging, you can choose not to connect to the power supply.
If the charging hub does not connect to an adapter, please turn on the battery. We recommend that connect to the power supply and adapter.  
More details in here: https://dl.djicdn.com/downloads/ ... arging_Hub_v1.2.pdf

DJI Wanda Posted at 9-28 22:10
Hello, there. Sorry for your inconvenience. if your battery has been damaged and is still in warranty, we recommend you apply for an online repair request and send it back.
Here is the link: https://www.dji.com/service/repair?site=brandsite&from=footer
For the Storage mode of the Phantom 4 Series Charging Hub, Here are some suggestions:

Thank you for the reply. What your note describes is exactly what I did, and the lights on both the batteries and charging hub followed precisely what the manual said would happen. The charging hub worked fine, when in storage mode it discharged the batteries to 2 bars and when in charging mode it filled them completely.

So given that I used it correctly, please explain how anything other than a manufacturer defect could cause two batteries which were charged fully on the hub on Aug 1, put into storage mode on the hub on Aug 2, discharging to 50%, and left on the powered hub in storage since, could be completely ruined by Sept 15 when I got to them?

djiuser_vBZr3i4JYSK9 Posted at 9-28 22:34
Thank you for the reply. What your note describes is exactly what I did, and the lights on both the batteries and charging hub followed precisely what the manual said would happen. The charging hub worked fine, when in storage mode it discharged the batteries to 2 bars and when in charging mode it filled them completely.

So given that I used it correctly, please explain how anything other than a manufacturer defect could cause two batteries which were charged fully on the hub on Aug 1, put into storage mode on the hub on Aug 2, discharging to 50%, and left on the powered hub in storage since, could be completely ruined by Sept 15 when I got to them?

Sorry for any inconvenience. Would you please update a video showing us the issue? We still strongly recommend you send it back. After we received the package, we will exam the batteries and help you as possible as we can.  

DJI Wanda Posted at 9-29 00:14
Sorry for any inconvenience. Would you please update a video showing us the issue? We still strongly recommend you send it back. After we received the package, we will exam the batteries and help you as possible as we can.

I need to look for the receipt, but I believe the newer of the two is a week or two past a year old, so not returnable. Neither of them had that many cycles though.

What would you like me to show in the video? No matter what speed or duration you press the buttons on the batteries, they don't respond at all. There isn't really anything to video.

djiuser_vBZr3i4JYSK9 Posted at 9-29 05:47
I need to look for the receipt, but I believe the newer of the two is a week or two past a year old, so not returnable. Neither of them had that many cycles though.

What would you like me to show in the video? No matter what speed or duration you press the buttons on the batteries, they don't respond at all. There isn't really anything to video.

Well, reaching out to support got me nowhere. I originally posted the issued 2 days after the 1 yr warranty expired. Despite the fact that I stored them exactly as support recommends, they weren't willing to make a 2-day exception. Terrible customer service. (Infuriatingly, I tried to post more than a week before, but couldn't because new users can't create topics.)

If DJI has any dronedeploy compatible competition, I'll be the first to jump ship. This is totally unacceptable for a drone system that costs what this does.