Following ready posts on software updates on the MM I checked and found I missed the battery update when I upgraded to version V1.0.4 on my controller and drone - I missed this because when I connect my drone to the controller and software my phone opens the active fly mode page. I backed out of the software to the DJI Go Fly App home page and there it was the Battery update prompt - Updated first battery the drone shut down, installed the second and third and updated the batteries. I hope this helps someone else.

Always helps to check ABOUT in your app it will always show there.

hallmark007 Posted at 1-8 09:56
Always helps to check ABOUT in your app it will always show there.

Thanks for your wise words

Yeah what I did is go to the main page where it shows the mini image and wait, after some seconds it tells you if the battery needs an update.

Odd you don't get the firmware mis match message like in DJI Go 4.

Go to profile and untick Camera view, then when App starts you should see any updates

stephjant Posted at 1-8 13:03
The more interesting question is why do you only need to do the firmware update for one of the three batteries in the combo pack? I’ve just done the update myself with the first of my three batteries. When I put the second and third batteries into the drone and checked for firmware updates and the battery in particular there were none showing in the ‘about’ page in the fly app.  So how did the two other batteries get their firmware update or have they not had them?

Did you restart the Fly App in between battery changes?

DowntownRDB Posted at 1-8 13:05
Did you restart the Fly App in between battery changes?

Yes that’s the way to update the other battery’s

DAFlys Posted at 1-8 12:19
Odd you don't get the firmware mis match message like in DJI Go 4.

Since having a battery firmware mismatch appears to cause the drone to suddenly drop from the sky at around 50% battery level, it seems to me that the app/firmware should not allow you to take off if there is a firmware mismatch.

I wonder how many crashes and losses of these Minis have been caused by this problem.

It would have gotten me if I hadn't been flying indoors when I tried the two batteries that were not in my drone at the time I updated from 1.0.3 to 1.0.4.

This is not a trivial problem, and it really isn't the drone owner's mistake because by default, the video display from the drone pops up on the Fly App as soon as the drone connects, so the pilot gets no warning about this.

I haven't found anything talking about this in the manual, either.  Maybe I missed it?

Battery #1 was updated with my firmware update....  Since the drone powered down, I just popped #2 & #3 in (repowering the drone) and without restarting the App, was prompted to update the batteries in kind.

This was my experience. with the process.

LONG LIVE THE FLOW OF ELECTRONS!

Akirasho Posted at 1-8 14:58
Battery #1 was updated with my firmware update....  Since the drone powered down, I just popped #2 & #3 in (repowering the drone) and without restarting the App, was prompted to update the batteries in kind.

This was my experience. with the process.

this is correct.  when you update the firmware, you update the battery in the drone at the same time.

nobody has more than a half-dozen batteries right?  is it really too much to update those as well?  why does everything have to resort to some sort of gimmick or hidden menus or wizardry, etc?  updating the extra batteries was simple and straightforward and no issues; took only minutes.  there's no trick to doing it.

The Saint Posted at 1-8 17:47
this is correct.  when you update the firmware, you update the battery in the drone at the same time.

nobody has more than a half-dozen batteries right?  is it really too much to update those as well?  why does everything have to resort to some sort of gimmick or hidden menus or wizardry, etc?  updating the extra batteries was simple and straightforward and no issues; took only minutes.  there's no trick to doing it.

    Akirasho Posted at 1-8 14:58
    Battery #1 was updated with my firmware update....  Since the drone powered down, I just popped #2 & #3 in (repowering the drone) and without restarting the App, was prompted    to update the batteries in kind.

    This was my experience. with the process.

The Saint Posted at 1-8 17:47



this is correct.  when you update the firmware, you update the battery in the drone at the same time.

nobody has more than a half-dozen batteries right?  is it really too much to update those as well?  why does everything have to resort to some sort of gimmick or hidden menus or wizardry, etc?  updating the extra batteries was simple and straightforward and no issues; took only minutes.  there's no trick to doing it.


It really is quite easy to do the updates to the batteries.  Nobody is complaining about that process.

What IS an issue is this:

By default, the DJI Fly app is set to "Auto Enter Camera View".

This is found in a menu found in: Profile/Settings.  That's found on the main start-up screen for the DJI Fly App.

(From the icon for this menu, I presumed it was some sort of on-line profile or such for sharing your flight data or the like - not something I wanted to mess with - ever).

So by default, when one buys this drone and installs the app, the "Auto Enter Camera View" is set to ON.

What does that default setting do?

It causes the display on your phone to immediately jump out of the normal opening screen of the Fly app (where the "Profile" menu is found AND where the warning/suggestion to update the battery firmware pops up) as soon as the RC connects to your Mini.  So for everyone who has NOT for some reason gone in and drilled down to the Settings menu within "profile" and switched that to OFF, this notification to update a battery's firmware will never be shown or seen.

And, since the battery that you have in the drone at the time you do the firmware update of the drone ALSO gets updated at the same time, transparently to the user, the user never sees any indication that this is being done, or has any way to know that it is necessary!

Even in the manual for the Mini, there is no mention of the idea that a battery will need to be updated.

So sure, for those of us who now know that this is necessary, it's not much work to update the batteries.

But for anyone like me who had no idea that this was required, and who had not for some reason switched the "Auto Enter Camera View" to OFF, we would never see any indication whatsoever asking for a battery to have its firmware updated.

This is terrible (and very dangerous) user interface design.  For something that can and will cause your drone to crash, how hard would it be to simply prevent take-off if the battery in the drone has non-matching firmware?

Nobody's complaining about the tiny bit of time or effort it takes to do the update.  We're just pointing out that the necessity to do this should (at the very least) be mentioned somewhere in the documentation, and preferably be something that is positively displayed to the user (not hidden by default as it is now).  Even better, matching firmware should be a requirement before you can take off.

We get warnings about all kinds of other things far less consequential.  Why leave out this critical tidbit of information?

As the OP's title for this thread says:  Battery Software Upate - Hidden

^the drone is not going to crash without the battery update and the drone should not be grounded until the update is completed. what is wrong with this place lately?  

The Saint Posted at 1-8 18:50
^the drone is not going to crash without the battery update and the drone should not be grounded until the update is completed. what is wrong with this place lately?

I guess you didn't read my posts about what happened with my Mini after I updated everything except two of my batteries.

Long story short:

At 50% power, the drone loses almost all power, and drops straight down.  I was lucky, and was flying indoors.  The drone went to within 1 foot of the floor where it was able to barely hover (probably due to ground effect), but could not rise with any amount of "up stick".

I'm not going to write the whole thing out again, you can find those posts if you wish.

Suffice it to say that a LOT of Mini "Dropping from the sky" events are likely due to updating to 1.0.4 while your batteries are at a lower revision level.

No warning to update the batteries, no way for people to know it's necessary, and dropping out of the sky at around 50% battery level.  Not cool.  

Its. shame the drone doesn't cache the firmware for the battery and just install it as needed.

@Sigmo I actually kind of agree with The Saint on this one. The evidence pointing to the battery not being upgraded being the cause of the altitude loss is anecdotal at best. There is no clear pattern of it. Furthermore, there are people reporting the altitude loss issue with the drone on .03.

Sigmo you laid the process out clearly. I wish we were all as clever as the other know it all's on the DJI forum, then we would spare ourselves the unnecessary verbal abuse. I would rather ask ten stupid questions as perceived by the know it all's and learn from knowledge and experience of the other dummies that use the site for what it is.

Ice_2k Posted at 1-9 01:50
@Sigmo I actually kind of agree with The Saint on this one. The evidence pointing to the battery not being upgraded being the cause of the altitude loss is anecdotal at best. There is no clear pattern of it. Furthermore, there are people reporting the altitude loss issue with the drone on .03.

I agree that certainly not all of the incidents people have with their drone dropping unexpectedly are due to this battery firmware mismatch problem.  There are so many variables at work here, and none of us take proper notes or control the variables, etc., well.  We're just trying to fly and have a good time.

What I observed for myself doesn't even tie things up as neatly as I'd like.

But here's what I experienced:

When I first got the drone, when I first powered it up, it wanted to do a firmware update to 1.0.3.  So I did that.  I updated the RC and the drone, and of course, if it was necessary, I assume that it also updated the one of my three batteries that was in the drone at that time.

Because by default, the app on my phone was set to automatically switch to the camera view as soon as the drone connects, I never saw any indication that any battery needed to be updated.  So I have to think that I now had two batteries with a version previous to 1.0.3 OR there was no update needed at that point.  But I can't know.

I flew mostly indoors with the prop guards in place and a couple of times outdoors when it wasn't windy.  I never experienced any sudden drops in altitude, and I did use all three batteries several times each.  I did experience low battery life and the Mini struggling when I was flying with the prop guards in place, but I am at a bit over the 1500 meter elevation limit recommended for use of the prop guards, so really, that doesn't seem unusual to me.

Outdoors (which again, I've only been able to try twice), I felt like the Mini did just fine.  Nothing odd, no loss of altitude, and it seemed to fly well and for reasonable lengths of time.  Not the battery life people report in the on-line videos, but I'm guessing that most of those folks fly near sea level where they get more lift with less motor RPM required.

So I didn't suspect anything was wrong other than wondering if my drone came with the new "good" props, or perhaps had the old-stlye type that don't give enough lift at higher elevations.  My hope was that maybe I did get the old-style blades, and when I replaced them, I'd get more lift and better battery life.  But that was just complete speculation and wishful thinking.

Anyhow, I flew indoors 20 or more times and twice for fairly long flights outdoors, and didn't see anything I'd consider scary or odd.

Now, a few days ago, I updated my phone app, the RC firmware, and the drone firmware to 1.0.4.  That also updated the battery I had in the drone at the time (my #3 battery), although I wasn't aware that this had happened because again, there's nothing in the manual, and no visible indications that this happens or is required because I had my app set to the default mode of switching immediately to the camera view when it connects to the drone.

So I now had, presumably, one battery with 1.0.4 firmware, and two other batteries.  Perhaps with 1.0.3, and perhaps with something earlier.  Or maybe one battery with 1.0.3 and one with something earlier.  It all depends on which battery I happened to have had in the drone when I did that initial update to 1.0.3.  But we know for sure that I had only one battery with 1.0.4 in it.

So, because I had done the update process with my battery #3 in the drone, I took it out and put it in the charger to top it off.  The other two were already fully charged, so I used them for my first test flights with 1.0.4 and the new app version.

With the first battery (#2 or #1), the drone flew in my office the same as it usually does.  Nothing really different other than now I have intermittent glitches in the received video on my phone while flying.  I never had that before the 1.0.4 update (but that's a different issue, so we won't worry about it right now).  The drone flew normally, and I flew around in the various offices just to play, practice, and get a feel for things.

BUT, when the battery level reached about 50%, the drone dropped down from whatever level I had it, and almost touched the floor.  I tried to raise it up, and no amount of up-stick made it move up at all.  It was able to stay about 1 foot above the floor, but that was it.  All other controls worked fine.  I could spin either way with the left stick (yaw) and move side to side or forward and back with the pitch and roll control.  It was right above the floor, but I could fly around where I wanted to go, but only stay about 1 foot up, just skimming the floor.  It might have been a bit less than a foot, actually.

Because this was odd, and the battery still indicated 50% or so power, I decided to just fly it that way until the battery got low, and then land.  It flew in that way for another 6 to 7minutes (just guessing) until the battery got down to 20% or so and I got the warning to land.  So I did.

I then put in the other battery that was already charged (#1 or #2) to give it a try.  Everything went the same way.  It flew fine until it got down to 50% or so, and then dropped to floor level again.  Again, I flew it that way until the battery got down to the warning level, and I landed it.

Very odd!

Next, I changed two variables at once, for which I'm sorry now, but which I didn't realize I was doing because at this point, I had no idea that there was new firmware needed in the batteries AND the one I was about to use already had that new firmware (battery #3)!

I put on a complete new set of prop blades out of the ones that came with the Fly More Combo kit.

And I put in Battery #3, which I now know has the latest firmware in it because it was the one that got its update (without my knowledge) when I updated the Mini itself.

With that battery and the new blades, the mini flew properly for the full normal time (considering the elevation here and that I have the prop guards on any time I'm flying indoors).

So battery 3 and the new prop blades flew fine.  At that time, I attributed the success to the new prop blades, thinking that maybe, for some reason, one of them had completely died, conicindentally, right when I changed the firmware.  (Stupid, I know - For I know better than to believe in coincidences when troubleshooting anything).

So which change actually fixed it?  At that point, I wasn't aware of the battery firmware issue.  And at that point, all of my batteries needed to be recharged, so I was done for that night.

Sometime later, I found something that said that the batteries also need to have their firmware updated to match that in the Mini.  I believe this was in a YouTube video that I watched.  Again, why is there no indication that this is needed anywhere else?

So I did the updates on them both (which was a troubleshooting mistake as well - I should have updated only one of the two)!  Later, when I've flown since that time, the drone flies fine, and for the full expected battery life normally, with all three batteries.  And I've come to firmly believe that the "fix" had nothing to do with the prop blade swap, and everything to do with me updating the firmware in my other two batteries.

Consider:

1.  I NEVER observed that (drop to the deck) behavior before updating the firmware, and these were the same blades I've had in place all along - the ones that came with the drone.   Something happened at the time of the firmware update.  Because that's the only variable that got changed when I first observed the "drop to the deck" happening.

2.  What sort of a coincidence would it be that this  "drop to the deck" would happen so suddenly, and ALWAYS at 50% power from the batteries?  That's just too much of a coincidence.  If the old blades were somehow depleting the batteries too fast, I'd expect to get poor battery life and bad performance, but NOT have it fly just dandy and then all of a sudden drop to the deck, and always at 50% battery level.

To me, this indicates that there's some sort of communication between the batteries and the drone that is fouled up with mismatched firmware.  And that miscommunication somehow is telling the drone that the battery is all of a sudden completely dead and power must be reduced immediately.  That's really the only rational explanation I can come up with for what I observed with my Mini in my situation.

Does that mean that anyone else has had this problem?  No.

Does it provide a reasonable scenario that may well explain quite a few crashes and losses?  It sure seems plausible to me!

To test this, I want to "downgrade" one of my batteries to 1.0.3 or earlier and then do another indoor test flight.  This would be with the new prop blades, of course, and with 1.0.4 installed in all of my other equipment.  To me, that would be the smoking gun.

Keep in mind that I've troubleshot various systems for a living since 1976.  And I've made a good living at it.  I have a LOT of experience with this sort of thing even if it's not this particular drone system.  I write control system programs, design laboratory instruments, design data acquisition, telemetry, and remote control systems, etc.  I'm an old fart, but this is the sort of thing I've done all of my adult life.  My excuse for the poor troubleshooting procedure and logic is that I was not setting out to troubleshoot anything. I just wanted to update my firmware.  And then, when I had the "drop to the deck" effect, I mistakenly decided to swap props - because I had no way of knowing that the batteries needed to have their firmware updated.

What do you think it is that I'm missing or misinterpreting?

I'll try to find a way to downgrade one of my batteries and give this another try.  That, to me, would be pretty conclusive evidence that a battery firmware mismatch causes a sudden drop in available power to the motors, without warning, at around 50% (indicated) battery level.  And if that's the case, it is a very serious issue, and a reasonable way to "fix" it would be to set up the firmware or app to prevent flight if there is a firmware mismatch.

Droneflier Posted at 1-9 04:40
Sigmo you laid the process out clearly. I wish we were all as clever as the other know it all's on the DJI forum, then we would spare ourselves the unnecessary verbal abuse. I would rather ask ten stupid questions as perceived by the know it all's and learn from knowledge and experience of the other dummies that use the site for what it is.

verbal abuse?  check out the [lengthy] post after yours if you want to see verbal abuse.  


sorry, not intending to verbally abuse anyone; there's really no way to add context to the post so hopefully it doesn't come off that way.

Sigmo Posted at 1-9 17:27
I agree that certainly not all of the incidents people have with their drone dropping unexpectedly are due to this battery firmware mismatch problem.  There are so many variables at work here, and none of us take proper notes or control the variables, etc., well.  We're just trying to fly and have a good time.

What I observed for myself doesn't even tie things up as neatly as I'd like.

I'm not sure on the battery downgrade, you might be able to do that, but you could get some loc-tite for the screws and put the old blades back on. Unless you trashed them that is. That would resolve the "was it the blades" question. Or at least I would think and it wouldn't be terribly difficult to do.

JodyB Posted at 1-9 17:46
I'm not sure on the battery downgrade, you might be able to do that, but you could get some loc-tite for the screws and put the old blades back on. Unless you trashed them that is. That would resolve the "was it the blades" question. Or at least I would think and it wouldn't be terribly difficult to do.

I kept them.  They don't look damaged and I can't see any difference in the shapes of the "new" blades NOR would I necessarily expect a different style to have been included in my Fly More Combo than what was on the drone to begin with.

I'm going to try to downgrade things using the "help" program that runs on a PC.  I think you can roll back firmware with it.

Sigmo Posted at 1-9 17:27
I agree that certainly not all of the incidents people have with their drone dropping unexpectedly are due to this battery firmware mismatch problem.  There are so many variables at work here, and none of us take proper notes or control the variables, etc., well.  We're just trying to fly and have a good time.

What I observed for myself doesn't even tie things up as neatly as I'd like.

Nice explanation! It is indeed a curious string of coincidences, makes you think....

Sigmo Posted at 1-8 18:24
Akirasho Posted at 1-8 14:58
    Battery #1 was updated with my firmware update....  Since the drone powered down, I just popped #2 & #3 in (repowering the drone) and without restarting the App, was prompted    to update the batteries in kind.

Fully agree with your statement!
After updating to new firmware I was not aware the installed battery also got updated during this process.
No problem for those with single battery, but what about fly more combo owners?
What about the other 2 batteries?
If not reading posts on this forum, I would not have thought about this prior to next flights.

hallmark007 Posted at 1-8 09:56
Always helps to check ABOUT in your app it will always show there.

It does not show status for battery firmware, only for Aircraft and transmitter...

OK.  I WAS WRONG

Not about the fact that it hasn't been made clear that batteries need to have their firmeware updated.

BUT, I just tested a bunch of stuff in a methodical way, and my conclusion is that it was the propeller blades that made all of the difference, NOT the fact that I had two batteries that had firmware that didn't match that in the drone.

Here's what I've tried tonight.

I put the DJI Assistant 2 on a laptop.

Using that, I rolled back the firmware in my Mini to 1.00.0200.  Presumably that put 1.00.0200 into the battery that I had in the Mini.


Next, I inserted a different battery into my Mini, and updated the firmware of the Mini to 1.00.0300.  Presumably that put 1.00.0300 into that battery.

Next, I inserted the third battery into the mini and updated the drone up to 1.00.0400.

So now I had one battery with 1.00.0200, and another with 1.00.0300, and the last one with 1.00.0400.  And the drone was back to 1.00.0400 as well.

My batteries are labeled, and I added small additional stickers to make sure I kept them all straight.

At that point, I had the "new" prop blades installed.  I put the prop protectors on the drone, and was ready to test.   Remember that I'm at about 5150 feet above sea level here.

I tested with the 1.00.0200 battery and with the 1.00.0300 battery (with the drone, RC, and phone at 1.00.0400).  The drone flew fine until the batteries got down to the warning level of 20% whereupon I landed.  This is all flying indoors because it's still nasty outside AND that's how I'd done the flights the other night when this mystery begain.

So those tests proved that with a mismatch from 1.00.0200 or 1.00.0300 in the batteries, versus 1.00.0400 in everything else, there really was no problem.

Next, I put my old set of blades back on the Mini.  These are the blades I flew with for a month or more previous to swapping them out just the other night.

By then, the battery with 1.00.0200 in it was recharged and I could test with it.  With the old blades, the drone did not do exactly what it had done a few nights ago, but it was close enough.  It flew fine, but as the battery got down to around 44%, it started to have problems maintaining it's height when just hovering, and couldn't fly upwards very fast, etc.  Basically, it seemed that the poor thing just didn't have enough power. And as the battery got down to 40% or so, it couldn't hold itself above about a foot of height.

I then tried it with the old prop blades and the battery that had 1.00.0400 firmware.  Again, it behaved about the same as it had with the 1.00.0200 battery.

I also noticed that with the old blades, the drone's ability to climb upwards was reduced even with a fully charged battery as compared to how it had flown with the new prop blades.

So this calls into question what the heck happened that was coincidental with my update to 1.00.0400 the other night.

What I found upon close inspection of the blades was that a small split exists in one of the blades.  It may be that a nick in that blade decided to propagate from the stress riser from the nick, and the blade actually split enough that it deforms when in use, and loses a LOT of lift.  The drone is able to maintain its attitude, but only by reducing the speed of the other three motors to compensate for the lack of lift from the one with the bad blade.

It's probably spinning the motor with the bad blade as fast as it can, and as the battery dies, it just doesn't have the battery power necessary to spin that one motor as fast as would be necessary to make that bad blade give enough lift, and it throttles the other three motors back to maintain attitude.

It didn't drop as fast or at as high of battery charge level as it did before, but it still behaved in a similar way.  Perhaps when I flew the other night, there were two damaged blades paired together on one motor, and this time the damaged blades were separated so that there wasn't one "really bad" corner.  And while that still caused a problem, it wasn't as pronounced as it had been.

So I don't think the battery firmware mismatch caused anything catastrophic, and I'm sorry for spreading that idea.

I'm sure it's still a good idea to update all of our batteries any time we update the drone.  But I don't suspect the mismatch to be the cause of any crashes.

What I DO suspect now is that it's a good idea to inspect one's props carefully, and if there is any damage at all, replace at least that pair at once.  If a small ding creates a stress riser that can propagate suddenly, THAT could cause a crash, for sure.

And without a complete undamaged set of the original blades that came on my drone to compare against, I can't even say that there's any difference between the sets of blades that came on early drones and the blades being supplied right now.  It may be that the original blades that came on my drone are a slightly different design as well as now being damaged.  But I don't have any way to test that now that I know that at least one is damaged.

So check your blades and replace any with any visible damage.  And if you're having problems with the ability of the drone to fly well, you might try putting all new blades on, no more than they cost.

I'm not going to do the test with the old blades and the 1.00.0300 battery because I think we know what would happen.  It'd fly the same as with the other two batteries, and it wouldn't be good.

I've got the new blades installed again and I'm going to update the two batteries that have old firmware in them  But I'll have to wait until everything is charged up again.

Sorry, everyone!

Sigmo Posted at 1-10 02:32
OK.  I WAS WRONG

Not about the fact that it hasn't been made clear that batteries need to have their firmeware updated.

Can you please add a picture of the damaged blade?
We have to be carefull when pulling the Mini out of the transport case.
I have a nice strong case that fits the drone perfect.
But the foam inside is different from the original dji case.
When blades on the underside are not properly folded they can stick in the foam and get damaged when pulling out the drone...

fans461cbed1 Posted at 1-10 11:32
Can you please add a picture of the damaged blade?
We have to be carefull when pulling the Mini out of the transport case.
I have a nice strong case that fits the drone perfect.

Here are some shots of the blades.

I believe that two of the blades were on one corner of the drone when it took a tumble a while back.  The prop guards were in place, but those two still got some dings in them.  It hadn't appeared to me that those dings were big enough to affect the aerodynamics of the prop much, so I never did change them.

And up until the night I did the update to 1.00.0400, the drone flew just fine with them (and all of the others) in place.  I had never changed any blades whatsoever until that night (after I encountered the "drop" problem.

But it's possible that the split in the one blade happened all at once that night for some reason.  I still can't really see how I got away with over 30 flights with these same slightly damaged blades, and then, all of a sudden, with the update to 1.00.0400, the drone couldn't fly well with these same blades in place.

Thinking about it, another variable I have not tested is how does the drone fly with firmware 1.00.0300 in everything with these "old" blades mounted versus running 1.00.0400 installed.  Maybe it wasn't the battery firmware mismatch, but was, instead, something in 1.00.0400 that makes the drone less able to handle the old blades.  I haven't tested that condition, but probably should!

Anyhow, here are some pictures, mostly of the damaged pair, but then a couple of shots to show all of the "old" blades.

Hmmm.  Now I guess I should take off the new "good" blades, put the old ones back on, and then downgrade the drone, RC, a battery, and my phone to 1.00.0300 and see if it flies just fine with the old/bad blades in place!  What a pain.  ;)

That is a lot of blade damage...… Golden rule with any aircraft that uses propellers...…. Never use a damaged prop

Bigplumbs Posted at 1-11 00:09
That is a lot of blade damage...… Golden rule with any aircraft that uses propellers...…. Never use a damaged prop

Yeah.  Looking at it in the macro shots, you can really see it.  They don't look so bad to me with the naked eye.  Good stark angled lighting, a macro lens, and some sharpening really brings it out!

And because replacement blades have been unobtainable, I wanted to get as much life out of them as possible.  I do have some spares on order from DJI that may arrive yet this week, but it's been a long time since I made the order, and just now when I checked, the DJI site shows that they're still estimating shipments happening 10-15 days after receipt of order.  So DJI themselves still seem to be behind on supplying the spare blades.

However, I found some on B&H today and ordered more from them.  They showed as being in stock, and that order has already been shipped.  I've been checking Amazon and other places for a month, and nobody has had them until I saw them on B&H yesterday.  I haven't wanted to try the aftermarket blades which have been available.

But no more than they cost, it makes sense to swap blades out any time you notice any damage.  It's just the unavailability of them that's been holding me back.

And the question I still have is:  Why did the drone fly OK with these same blades when I was running  1.00.0300 but can't fly worth a darn running 1.00.0400?

Clearly, there's a difference in the blades between the brand new ones I put on and the old ones I took off.  Otherwise, I wouldn't observe the very different performance.  So it's clear that even the damage I have on this "old" set is enough to change things quite a bit.  That's undeniable.

But why could I fly "normally" with 1.00.0300?  Many years of troubleshooting has made me very suspicious of "coincidences".  They can happen, but it's rare.

I would like to put the "bad" blades back on, and downgrade everything to 1.00.0300, but I can't figure out how to find the DJI FLY app in the old version.  Using the DJI Assistant 2 software, I can put 1.00.0200, 1.00.0300, or 1.00.0400 on the drone and into the RC.  But I'm not sure if there's a way to put the older DJI Fly app itself onto my phone so I can make a test with the old blades with the old firmware and app.  That would be an interesting test.

Obviously I can just fly with the new blades mounted and forget about all of this.  But I'm curious.  And it would be interesting to know if (and if so - why) the older app and firmware somehow handles damaged blades better.  It makes sense that we all want every advantage that we can get, of course.  Firmware/software that's more forgiving of blade damage might be a valuable advantage in a lot of situations.  So I'd like to be able to roll my phone back to the 1.00.0300 version of the Fly app to test this.

If I could, and the drone flew as badly as it does with 1.00.0400, then I would have to believe that the one split blade cracked from the initial damage point coincidentally right when I installed 1.00.0400 on everything.  It's hard to believe, having flown many flights with the same blades, and having had no crashes at all other than that first one that did the damage at least 25 flights ago.  But I have seen coincidences that really made troubleshooting a system difficult before.  Just not often.

This is Scary reading all the fallen MMs here ...i would be so sure to wait for ppl to use the new firmware first , then look at any tips and tricks before flying .

Sigmo Posted at 1-11 00:00
Here are some shots of the blades.

I believe that two of the blades were on one corner of the drone when it took a tumble a while back.  The prop guards were in place, but those two still got some dings in them.  It hadn't appeared to me that those dings were big enough to affect the aerodynamics of the prop much, so I never did change them.

Sigmo LOL your drone should not be flying normal with those blade, the blades are your drones wings. No software will fix that.

Droneflier Posted at 1-11 02:08
Sigmo LOL your drone should not be flying normal with those blade, the blades are your drones wings. No software will fix that.

I know they look bad in those photos.  I really went out of my way to light, photograph, and process the images to emphasize the damage and textures.

What puzzles me is:  Why did it fly fine for at least 30 flights with those damaged blades with 1.00.0300?  

I know they look particularly bad in my photos, but be assured, if I showed them to you with your naked eye, you might not think they're that bad.  Maybe my eyes are just terrible!

I did use harsh lighting and adjusted it for optimum definition of the damage and did a good amount of sharpening of the images (USM after resizing down), because I wanted to emphasize the damage.

If I can find a way to downgrade the DJI FLY app on my phone, rolling it back to 1.00.0300 and also rolling back everything else, I will put those nasty old blades back on and find out if it really does fly better with the old firmware.  It may well behave just the same, and then I'll be satisfied.  

I crashed the drone (with the prop guards in place) on what was almost my first flight with it.  Since then, if I remember what the DJI Assistant 2 showed me yesterday, I've made 35 or more flights.  All with those damaged blades.  And at no point has it done the thing where it loses power and can't fly more than 1 foot above the floor.  That is, until the very moment I updated everything to 1.00.0400.

It could be a coincidence, with that one blade cracking starting at the ding in it, right as I first took off with 1.00.0400.  But what are the chances?

I've not crashed or even had a hard landing, etc., since that first crash that did the damage.  I don't believe in coincidences when it comes to troubleshooting.  I have seen a few, I mean really about 2 or 3 times in 40 years of industrial electronics troubleshooting.  So they can happen.  But it's rare.  Very rare.

But it's not the first thing one wants to pursue when troubleshooting any system.

Anyhow, if anyone knows how to put the DJI Fly app, version 1.00.0300 on my phone, I want to give that a try with the old blades mounted.  Just to satisfy my curiosity.  It'll probably lose power just like with 1.00.0400, and be a complete waste of my time.  But man.  I just can't reconcile why this issue only cropped up after installing 1.00.0400.  Then again, I don't know what they'd have changed in the firmware that would cause this, either.  So there you have it.  I'm stumped.

I may have to just accept that this was a coincidence.  The one blade may have been dinged, but not split, and that split formed just as I began flying with 1.00.0400.  Or maybe there's another explanation.  But I can't think what it might be.

The testing I did last night proved that the new blades allow it to fly just fine regardless of what firmware is in the battery (with 1.00.0400 in everything else).  But I still need to find a way to test with 1.00.0300 loaded into the drone, the RC, and my phone.

I guess it's not all that critical, but I'm curious.  Those blades won't be on my Mini when I fly outdoors, I can guarantee that!  

Very interesting subject and i am now really curious to know if blades are to blame for all those drops and landings in water. Thank you, Sigmo for all that investigation. I encourage you to continue
Maybe here you can find old app:
https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/dji-technology-co-ltd/dji-fly/dji-fly-1-0-3-release/dji-fly-1-0-3-android-apk-download/
If you have any trouble downloading, i did it and can send you.

I believe DJI is trying to get all they can get out of the batteries to claim 31 minutes flying time, let your battery run down to 35% on your MM and try the following and see if you get the same result.

Take your drone to around 1 meter height above the ground
Make sure you have 10 meters open area around your MM
Give the MM right stick full revers control for 1 sec release the control completely
Now give the MM left stick full  forward control for 1 sec release the control completely
Repeat this a couple of times

At about 30 % battery life my MM on the forward motion once the stick was released initially doped about 200 mm  and as the battery charge depleted the drop increased until the charged dropped to 22% the MM almost hit the ground

I think if you want to do any fancy flying, film risky action footage and fly in a mild breeze with the MM battery charge below 50% this is where the main risk starts with the MM. DJI should change the 31 minute claimed flight time to 20 minutes and the battery charge display be re-calibrated to set a higher voltage at 20 to 30 % battery level or alternatively supply a stronger battery to meet their claims

Eka Posted at 1-11 02:48
Very interesting subject and i am now really curious to know if blades are to blame for all those drops and landings in water. Thank you, Sigmo for all that investigation. I encourage you to continue  
Maybe here you can find old app:
https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/dji-technology-co-ltd/dji-fly/dji-fly-1-0-3-release/dji-fly-1-0-3-android-apk-download/

Thank you for that!  I downloaded the 1.00.0300 version of the Fly app from there and stashed it on my phone.  Then I uninstalled the fly app (v1.00.0400), rebooted the phone, and finally, installed the 1.00.0300 version.  That went perfectly.

I made sure to put 1.00.0300 onto the RC, the Mini, and one battery.  That all looked fine, too.

I then did the test.

I'm going to reply to both you and Droneflier so you'll both be notified that there's a reply in this thread.  See my next post for the details of what I found.

And thanks again!

Droneflier Posted at 1-11 07:02
I believe DJI is trying to get all they can get out of the batteries to claim 31 minutes flying time, let your battery run down to 35% on your MM and try the following and see if you get the same result.

Take your drone to around 1 meter height above the ground

Hi, there.

I think you're right about DJI trying to get as much as possible out of these batteries so they can claim a very long flight time.

At my elevation (5150'), and with the prop guards in place, I'm stressing the poor little mini and it's batteries very hard!  I'm sure at sea level, and without the prop guards, and with no wind, etc., you could squeeze out around 30 minutes of flight time.  But not here, and certainly not with the prop guards in place.

When I'm done flying (because the battery is down to 20%) when doing all of this indoor testing with the prop guards on, the batteries come out of the drone too hot for them to begin recharging when I put them in the charger.  It takes a while for them to cool down enough for the charger to allow them to begin being charged.  So you know I'm hammering the poor batteries pretty hard, likely drawing current out of them at a rate that may be above what they're really meant to supply.

And that all brings up another variable.  Perhaps getting the batteries hot can cause the drone to try to protect the batteries by reducing the max power it can put to the motors.  Just an idea.


When I've been doing these tests, I've been purposely trying to give the Mini a serious workout to get the batteries run down from 100% to where I see problems flying, and then to run them down to 20% from there, too.

To achieve that, I fly up and down as fast as possible (in Position Mode), and zip back and forth as fast as possible horizontally in the office where I'm doing these tests.  I'm trying to wear the battery out as fast as I can.

As I fly, I can tell when it starts to slow down in its vertical ascent, so that's a good clue that something is reducing the maximum speed of the motors.

I can't fly outdoors due to the high winds we've been having, and are projected to have, for at least the next seven days (if the weather forecasts are accurate).  A friend told me it was my fault that we're having constant winds here because I bought the Mini, and that's "jinxed" us!   And indeed, the wind hasn't let up much since I got the Mini.





Oh, I see that the wind has died down significantly tonight.  Still, it's too much wind to fly in.  Last night when I drove home, the wind gusts at that same weather station were over 70MPH.

Anyhow, all of this testing has been taking place in my office.  But at least that controls some of the variables, like wind, temperature, etc.

So, what did I find out tonight?

The drone acted about the same with 1.00.0300 as it does with 1.00.0400 with the damaged prop blades in place.  That means that some characteristic of the blades must have changed right at the same time as I updated from 1.00.0300 to 1.00.0400 when I first noticed this behavior.

I don't see coincidences like that very often.  In fact, they're extremely rare.  But that must be what happened.

This also means that the main take-away from all of this is to check your prop blades and replace them if they show any signs of damage, just like I've been told by several of you folks!


So now I've put all of the latest firmware and app back on my phone, the Mini, the RC, and all of the batteries.  And hopefully I've taken the bad set of props off for the last time!

Because I've removed and replaced the blades so many times, I put a bit of fresh thread locker on the screws for the "good" blades.  The stuff that comes on the blades is very good.  It's obviously "reusable", and that's just what we want.

The stuff I added is called Vibra-TITE VC-3 Threadmate.  I've used it on small screws on guns and other devices subject to high vibration and accelerations, and it's proven to be very good, easily removable, and indeed, reusable.  Whatever DJI already has on the screws seems to be "reusable", too.  I know the Loctite folks also have a similar product.  I'd avoid using any of the stronger thread lockers.  These are very small screws, and you might get away with purple Loctite, but anything stronger, and I think you'd ruin the motors' threads trying to remove the screws.  I wouldn't even use the purple stuff, actually.


Normally, you will never remove and replace any of the blades, so you can just throw the used screws away.  And that's what you should do.  In this case, I've had these blades on and off a number of times.  If you DO decide to add this VC-3, I'd recommend this procedure:

Get some MEK (Methyl Ethyl Ketone) at a hardware or paint store.

Thin the VC-3 to a much more runny consistency than what you get right out of the bottle.

Use a toothpick to transfer a tiny amount of the VC-3 to the threads of each screw.  Don't let any get anywhere except in the threads, and even there, just a tiny amount.

The MEK evaporates FAST and it's highly flammable.  Use extreme caution with it.  And add more MEK as needed to keep the VC-3 thinned well.  If it gets thick, you won't be able to put a small enough amount into the threads.  This is critical.

Let the VC-3 dry for 30 minutes before using the screws.  Check the screws to make sure you didn't get any VC-3 on the screw shaft.  If you did, use a different screw or carefully scrape it off.  You want it ONLY on the threads, and not very much there.  You don't need to fill all of the threads.  Just a tiny bit on one side of the screw, and not going up too close to the fatter part of the shaft is dandy.

I probably shouldn't have even mentioned any of this.  ;)

So now, if the wind will just die down here, I may feel confident to go outside and actually fly this thing!

Hi Sigmo, with your beta testing you are carrying out there, DJI should send you all of their new drones for testing before they release them to the public. If the price is right this would be a cool occupation.

I live in Nelspruit South Africa and we have day light with out wind for almost 12 hours a day on average, our temperature in in the mid 30 °C that is in the 110 °F. Our winters are also very mild around 20 °C as a good average with very little wind to. So this is the ideal place to go out and fly almost every day
https://www.google.com/search?q=weather+Nelspruit&oq=weather+Nelspruit&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i59.6654j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 Weather Nelspruit

Very methodical testing, Sigmo. Great that you had inspiration and patience to run through all tests. So after all, seems like it's the damaged blades to blame for flight drops, in your case at least. Thank you

Hello,

I would like to ask, if the battery firmware update is indicated as “battery firmware update” or regular “firmware update”? Fly app prompts an update but it is only 3 MB, is it for battery?