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2021: Why do my heathy batteries discharge really fast in storage? Maybe to 80% in two days; 50% in 5 days?

tlyons

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I have had my Anafi for 1.5 years of relatively light use. Three batteries are in excellent health at 95%/98%/100% according to the app. I charge only with USB-C; keep the bird, controller and batteries all at current firmware releases. Starting at 100% charge, I get 20-25 minutes of flight time, basically the same as when new. Everything seems healthy.

When newer, the batteries would stay 95+% charge for 10 days or so and then discharge to around 66%, as described in the user manual. Since earlier this year, in storage the batteries discharge very quickly. I typically see around 70-80% charge after 48 hours and maybe 50% after 5-7 days. The batteries are basically dead at 10% charge after 14 days or so.

What the heck? In addition to damage from batteries sitting at 10% charge for any extended period, my time to get flying has gone from 2 minutes to 2 minutes + 40 minutes to charge the batteries. That stinks.

Is there fix for this? Do others see something similar?

Edit: I am becoming super annoyed with this. No way did 3 batteries simultaneously degrade in the same way. No way does a LiPo battery go from 0% discharge/day to, now, 30%/day "coincidentally" and yet still have the ability to hold a full charge. That's not how a degraded battery behaves.

Parrot screwed up the battery firmware and now I need to plan to spend a couple hours recharging my batteries before I fly. Parrot has turned a drone with 74 flights and <8 hours of total flight time into a piece of cr*p. Rather than a photography tool sitting next to my other cameras, it is now pointless. Sunsets, birds, wildlife, and kids are not going to wait 2 hours while I recharge my batteries.
 
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Dont trust the health %!
Mine did the same, they started, ALL in the same time, to discharge alone.
About 10% a day, right, but more 10% of the charge a day. (If I remember that right)
But: The health shown, in the app, shiftet at every charge: 100% fresh charged, one day 97, one day 91, something like that

And: my last flight was a "falling out of the air" with 20+%

They are not reliable, any longer.

Look at the battery topics, a guy from Hongkong did explain that very understandable.
And blievable, too!

It is the guy, selling "refills" for your batteries.
 
Dont trust the health %!
Mine did the same, they started, ALL in the same time, to discharge alone.
About 10% a day, right, but more 10% of the charge a day. (If I remember that right)
But: The health shown, in the app, shiftet at every charge: 100% fresh charged, one day 97, one day 91, something like that

And: my last flight was a "falling out of the air" with 20+%

They are not reliable, any longer.

Look at the battery topics, a guy from Hongkong did explain that very understandable.
And blievable, too!

It is the guy, selling "refills" for your batteries.
After I posted, I did see another thread that discusses a similar issue ( Discharging of the batteries, not just while "in" the Anafi? Did it change with latest batt. update? )

My problem is how much voodoo and superstition there is around batteries. I get it, not everyone is a trained engineer, but putting numbers from measured data helps enormously. Attached is some info generated by lab data. Several things jump out in contrast to common wisdom; a lithium battery loses 20% of its capacity if stored at room temp after a year. OK, don't do that, but instantly discharging to 60% after use will have no meaningful impact vs. auto discharging after 10 days. You are also using up charge cycles so maybe doing more harm than good. You could fix that anyway by storing in the fridge (0c in the table.) but you should let the battery warm up before using or charging it though.

I appreciate the warning but the problem with superstition is that it brings you to wrong conclusions. You made no errors before it fell from the sky (reading the other thread.) Correctly designed and implemented LiPo batteries do not act as described. This is a blame Parrot thing not a blame the user thing.

I am far more suspicious that Parrot changed the battery behavior in 1.6.5, again in 1.6.6 and then again in 1.6.7. (release notes: Release Notes ) Somewhere in there is when my batteries changed behavior.
 

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Dont trust the health %!
Mine did the same, they started, ALL in the same time, to discharge alone.
About 10% a day, right, but more 10% of the charge a day. (If I remember that right)
But: The health shown, in the app, shiftet at every charge: 100% fresh charged, one day 97, one day 91, something like that

And: my last flight was a "falling out of the air" with 20+%

They are not reliable, any longer.

Look at the battery topics, a guy from Hongkong did explain that very understandable.
And blievable, too!

It is the guy, selling "refills" for your batteries.
Can you please post the link to the refill supplier mentioned here
 
They have a discharger built into the batteries, it brings them all down to storage after a couple days
 
They have a discharger built into the batteries, it brings them all down to storage after a couple days
Do you know if that is documented anywhere? The manual (which is very old) talks about the 10 days and then 2 days to discharge. I didn't see any mention of it in the release notes but there were mentions of changes to the battery. At least if I knew what exactly it was I could plan around it.
Thanks.
 
I doubt if the discharge is for a storage option. In any case if anyone know about people selling cells for parrot anafi, wish that you place a link here.

thank you
 
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Can you please post the link to the refill supplier mentioned here

in this topic is his video and lots of info

(And while looking carefully, in some replies, you still find quotes from Solaris, which are deleted from the forum. )

And one more, I used google, plus solaris, plus anafi, got this
The unexplanable crash of Anafi has been answered
(put in google. But it seems, Anafi batteries and skishit is sold out)
 
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After I posted, I did see another thread that discusses a similar issue ( Discharging of the batteries, not just while "in" the Anafi? Did it change with latest batt. update? )

My problem is how much voodoo and superstition there is around batteries. I get it, not everyone is a trained engineer, but putting numbers from measured data helps enormously. Attached is some info generated by lab data. Several things jump out in contrast to common wisdom; a lithium battery loses 20% of its capacity if stored at room temp after a year. OK, don't do that, but instantly discharging to 60% after use will have no meaningful impact vs. auto discharging after 10 days. You are also using up charge cycles so maybe doing more harm than good. You could fix that anyway by storing in the fridge (0c in the table.) but you should let the battery warm up before using or charging it though.

I appreciate the warning but the problem with superstition is that it brings you to wrong conclusions. You made no errors before it fell from the sky (reading the other thread.) Correctly designed and implemented LiPo batteries do not act as described. This is a blame Parrot thing not a blame the user thing.

I am far more suspicious that Parrot changed the battery behavior in 1.6.5, again in 1.6.6 and then again in 1.6.7. (release notes: Release Notes ) Somewhere in there is when my batteries changed behavior.

I am still looking for the topic, that the guy started after in THIS topic
his video got posted.
Watch the video, scroll through it, you may not fly your bird lower to 45ish% batterypower, any longer.
Your batteries are toast, I'd say!
By experience, unreliable, just before the fall I flew a battery down to 10%, no trouble.
So you can't know, when they will fall under 6 Volt and shut down the bird!
And yes, it is a parrot problem, just parrot is not really interested, to admit that.
My guess: The Anafi was the Beta test series for the anafi USA ;-)
 
Do you know if that is documented anywhere? The manual (which is very old) talks about the 10 days and then 2 days to discharge. I didn't see any mention of it in the release notes but there were mentions of changes to the battery. At least if I knew what exactly it was I could plan around it.
Thanks.
The last manual 6.7.0.1 is from 10/2020 and not soo old.
On page 37 the hibernate mode is described and didn't change since the beginning.
 
I have had my Anafi for 1.5 years of relatively light use. Three batteries are in excellent health at 95%/98%/100% according to the app. I charge only with USB-C; keep the bird, controller and batteries all at current firmware releases. Starting at 100% charge, I get 20-25 minutes of flight time, basically the same as when new. Everything seems healthy.

When newer, the batteries would stay 95+% charge for 10 days or so and then discharge to around 66%, as described in the user manual. Since earlier this year, in storage the batteries discharge very quickly. I typically see around 70-80% charge after 48 hours and maybe 50% after 5-7 days. The batteries are basically dead at 10% charge after 14 days or so.

What the heck? In addition to damage from batteries sitting at 10% charge for any extended period, my time to get flying has gone from 2 minutes to 2 minutes + 40 minutes to charge the batteries. That stinks.

Is there fix for this? Do others see something similar?
I have a battery that does the exact same thing as yours, it started a little over a year ago
As far as i could tell the health of battery appeared to be fine and don't believe it's an issue with cells
I'm assuming the problem is within the circuity connected to battery - just constantly draining itself
I retired the battery- never did get around to opening it up to see if I could find the issue
 
Do you know if that is documented anywhere? The manual (which is very old) talks about the 10 days and then 2 days to discharge. I didn't see any mention of it in the release notes but there were mentions of changes to the battery. At least if I knew what exactly it was I could plan around it.
Thanks.
Anafi user guide page 37

I'll have to download and read that!

Wow I didn't know they updated the user guide! I still have v2.6
Good on them for making updates and addendums to guides
 
Increase in self-discharge is normally related to age of the cells and general wear of the cell.

While it is safe to use batteries like this ( I do ! ), you do need to be mindful that an increase in self-discharge can go hand-in-hand with high internal resistance - so watch your battery voltage while flying (especially in situations which require high power bursts which could cause a brown-out and critical battery landing!!).
 
I charge the night before fully. There are times I charge them full but run out of time in the next day to actually fly

I use a 12v incandescent lamp to get the batteries down to ~65-50%
 
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I have a battery that does the exact same thing as yours, it started a little over a year ago
As far as i could tell the health of battery appeared to be fine and don't believe it's an issue with cells
I'm assuming the problem is within the circuity connected to battery - just constantly draining itself
I retired the battery- never did get around to opening it up to see if I could find the issue
would you like to send the batteries by post.
 
I have a battery that does the exact same thing as yours, it started a little over a year ago
As far as i could tell the health of battery appeared to be fine and don't believe it's an issue with cells
I'm assuming the problem is within the circuity connected to battery - just constantly draining itself
I retired the battery- never did get around to opening it up to see if I could find the issue
Ok, if only ONE battery is doing it.
But if 3 starting at around the same time, ....?
Used in rotation, so all of them have "the same" charge cycles on them, just the difference in %, how down "you" flew them?
Which is not really a big one, assumingly not more then 10-15%, every flight/batterie?

Oh:
And mine started also "a little over a year" ago, all 3, just were fine, even the second last one did well.

I'd say you did the right thing: Retired it!

To : "no issue with cells"

If a LiIon cell "jumps" below 3 Volt, but the Voltage before was good enough, to let the Parrot software show 20/30/40+ %, it seems NOT ONLY a cell problem!
There is ALSO the problem, that the FF6 and the bird CAN't check on the health of these cells!

Which is proven, I think, by the difference in health status, after every charge. 95% or 90%, next time 96%, that is as unreliable, as it gets

Just my2c
 
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