Battery charging lights wondering

Drbgaijin · Oct 28, 2019

When I first bought the Anafi the battery would charge until all 4 lights were green. Then after a short period they would all switch off and I knew that the battery was completely charged.
Now I have 5 batteries.
The oldest one (about 1 year old) charges very slowly and the 4th light blinks occasionally as if it is still in the process of charging.
Another battery acts as I have come to expect. All four lights then after some time they go out showing me it is fully charged.
The 3 others charge until all 4 lights are green, but they never go out - even if I leave them charging for a much longer time.
All 5 batteries came from the same official Parrot source.
Anyone have similar charging differences?
Anyone have an explanation as to the differences?

Chasbro · Oct 29, 2019

How does the battery capacity look? I dissected my original batt and my other one shows 94% and lasts about 18 minutes.

zandoli · Oct 29, 2019

Drbgaijin said:
When I first bought the Anafi the battery would charge until all 4 lights were green. Then after a short period they would all switch off and I knew that the battery was completely charged.
Now I have 5 batteries.
The oldest one (about 1 year old) charges very slowly and the 4th light blinks occasionally as if it is still in the process of charging.
Another battery acts as I have come to expect. All four lights then after some time they go out showing me it is fully charged.
The 3 others charge until all 4 lights are green, but they never go out - even if I leave them charging for a much longer time.
All 5 batteries came from the same official Parrot source.
Anyone have similar charging differences?
Anyone have an explanation as to the differences?

Battery indicator lights

The battery indicator lights no longer go off on two of my batteries when charging. No matter how long they are kept on the charger. Max capacity of these batteries was in the mid 70%, today they're at 85 and 90%. My other battery's max capacity was in the mid 90%, today it's at 100%. The...

parrotpilots.com

The batteries are dying.
None of the batteries keep a charge right now. They are at about 50% by 2 days after charge.
I had my first drop 4 days ago at 32%.

Dirk_ANAFI · Oct 29, 2019

Do you have the same and newest FW running on all your batteries?
Actual FW: 1.0.9.0

rsvibhadaniya · Oct 30, 2019

Dirk_ANAFI said:
Do you have the same and newest FW running on all your batteries?
Actual FW: 1.0.9.0

How to check battery firmware ???
And how to update battery firmware !!! Because in each update only one battery can be installed on anafi same time

Jagerbomb52 · Oct 30, 2019

rsvibhadaniya said:
How to check battery firmware ???
And how to update battery firmware !!! Because in each update only one battery can be installed on anafi same time

You can watch the battery FW update status on the ANAFI Webserver page:
Connect your PC or tablet to Anafi's Wifi access point (SSID: ANAFI-xxxxxx)
Open your browser
Enter the IP 192.168.42.1
On the page shown open the "Info" tab.

Each time you insert a new battery when powered up it will flash a very fast red LED. This means it is taking the update. If your not looking right at it then it is very easy to miss.

Sent from my LG-H873 using Tapatalk

zandoli · Oct 30, 2019

Dirk_ANAFI said:
Do you have the same and newest FW running on all your batteries?
Actual FW: 1.0.9.0

All 3 of my batteries are on the current 1.0.9.0 firmware.

Jagerbomb52 · Oct 30, 2019

Drbgaijin said:
When I first bought the Anafi the battery would charge until all 4 lights were green. Then after a short period they would all switch off and I knew that the battery was completely charged.
Now I have 5 batteries.
The oldest one (about 1 year old) charges very slowly and the 4th light blinks occasionally as if it is still in the process of charging.
Another battery acts as I have come to expect. All four lights then after some time they go out showing me it is fully charged.
The 3 others charge until all 4 lights are green, but they never go out - even if I leave them charging for a much longer time.
All 5 batteries came from the same official Parrot source.
Anyone have similar charging differences?
Anyone have an explanation as to the differences?

Douglas

I find it hard to believe you would be having a problem with all of your batteries except the one. I am wondering if it could be related to your charger? Perhaps try a different charger to see if anything changes. I have four batteries and have not experienced anything like that. Even one of them that spent the cold winter up in the spruce tree last year still has 97% capacity and charges fully.

Dirk_ANAFI · Oct 30, 2019

zandoli said:
All 3 of my batteries are on the current 1.0.9.0 firmware.

If you are using the newest drone FW, then the battery FW will be updated to 1.0.9.0 as soon as you use the battery with your drone. So you cannot see, whether your one battery with problems had an older FW before causing the other behaviour.
Now you'd have to check again if your one special battery behaves like the others with FW 1.0.9.0 or not.

Drbgaijin · Nov 1, 2019

Gentlemen, (If applicable include Gentlewomen too!)
Thank you all for the information and tips.
I have been off on a couple of days holiday and have just returned.
I'll get around to doing the FW updates etc this weekend and will then let you know what happens!
Regards
Douglas

mrajic · Nov 2, 2019

I can report experiencing the same behavior as described by Douglas with one of my three batteries - the forth light blinking occasionally as the battery is still charging while the other two batteries would turn off lights after fully charged.

My real concern is that the battery showing this behavior is the one I was using when Anafi "dropped dead" at ~25% battery charge. Thanks to Agustine, I was able to find out the FW of the battery to be the latest - 1.0.9.0.

I decided not to fly this battery for now.

IM35461 · Nov 4, 2019

On the subject of batteries does the 97% on this screen dump indicate that battery now never has 100% capacity or what the battery had at last take off? I seldom if ever have 100% from any of my batteries at take off.

IM35461 · Nov 4, 2019

I can answer my own question. The 97% must be the value when the drone took off.

I have just recharged that battery (my newest of my three) and it only reports 98% rather than 100%

Not the end of the world I guess...

rsvibhadaniya · Nov 4, 2019

IM35461 said:
I can answer my own question. The 97% must be the value when the drone took off.

I have just recharged that battery (my newest of my three) and it only reports 98% rather than 100%

Not the end of the world I guess...

View attachment 2982

Its the maximum battery capacity of the smart battery it means it shows the health of your battery.
As you use battery it will decrease. And as it decrease battery will not last long.
If you fully charge battery now it will charge 97% only

rsvibhadaniya · Nov 4, 2019

Hey every one my one battery is blinking 4 red led only , now that battery is not usable in drone ,even battery is not charging.
Is there any way to make battery usable again ?

Jagerbomb52 · Nov 4, 2019

IM35461 said:
I can answer my own question. The 97% must be the value when the drone took off.

I have just recharged that battery (my newest of my three) and it only reports 98% rather than 100%

Not the end of the world I guess...

View attachment 2982

What your looking at is this. Think of it as buying brand new tires for you car or truck. When new they are at 100%. You drive on them for a month and now they have wear on them and maybe have a value of 80% left before you have to replace them with new ones. This reading you are looking at is telling you the same thing. Just how much that battery has left in it before you should replace it. General its around 80% and they start to fail under load. You might get lucky to around 60% but that is pushing it.

Here is a screen shot of a battery I just charged last night in hopes of getting out sometime today. As you can see it is only at 99% because it has dropped over night just sitting there. It was at 100% last night before bed.

Now looking at the Maximum Battery Capacity it is telling me my battery is new and still has 100% of life left in it. Which it should be as this is a brand new battery.

Hope this helps

IM35461 · Nov 4, 2019

Agustine said:
What your looking at is this. Think of it as buying brand new tires for you car or truck. When new they are at 100%. You drive on them for a month and now they have wear on them and maybe have a value of 80% left before you have to replace them with new ones. This reading you are looking at is telling you the same thing. Just how much that battery has left in it before you should replace it. General its around 80% and they start to fail under load. You might get lucky to around 60% but that is pushing it.

Here is a screen shot of a battery I just charged last night in hopes of getting out sometime today. As you can see it is only at 99% because it has dropped over night just sitting there. It was at 100% last night before bed.
View attachment 2984

Now looking at the Maximum Battery Capacity it is telling me my battery is new and still has 100% of life left in it. Which it should be as this is a brand new battery.

View attachment 2985

Hope this helps

I see your point but most mobile phones and electric cars using the same battery technology report 100% after they have been charged and I assume take into account battery ageing.

Jagerbomb52 · Nov 4, 2019

Yes they do only because the software does not have the option to see the actual Max battery Capacity reading. There is a very good web page devoted to batteries. Lots of reading if one so desires. Or Youtube has many good videos on the subject. Here is a good place to start but you can expand on the performance of batteries for many enjoyable hours of reading.

BU-409a: Why do Old Li-ion Batteries Take Long to Charge? – Battery University

Learn about battery technology, battery maintenance and battery life at Battery University

batteryuniversity.com

crossroad · Dec 23, 2019

I bought 2 extra batteries directly from parrot.
Yesterday in 1 of them I noticed the same thing described by others. That is, the battery leds never went out. (used only once).
Next question :
The batteries were charged normally but the flight was postponed due to the weather and may take place after 5 days of charging.
Do I need to recharge if I notice that the charge level is not 100% but between 70-80% or do I prefer to discharge with the flight?

Agustine said:
You can watch the battery FW update status on the ANAFI Webserver page:
Connect your PC or tablet to Anafi's Wifi access point (SSID: ANAFI-xxxxxx)
Open your browser
Enter the IP 192.168.42.1
On the page shown open the "Info" tab.

Each time you insert a new battery when powered up it will flash a very fast red LED. This means it is taking the update. If your not looking right at it then it is very easy to miss.

I didn't know that !!!
Where does the manual mention it?
This site is very useful.
And your help Agustine is excellent.

Gipsz Jakab · Dec 24, 2019

Charging and condition are not the same. Charging always goes up to 99-100%, even if it's 95% of the factory capacity.
So you always charge it up to 10-100%, but it may not be enough for just 18-20 minutes because only 90% of the total factory capacity is available.
So a 100% charged battery can be 90% of its original state.