Dirty batteryconnectors vs. falling out of the sky - made some intresting notes today.

[Dart67_SWE]

Hi,
I´ve been waiting for a solid firmware for a while, and now the 1.6.8 seem solid enough so I thought I give it a go.
(Note, I live in Sweden so winter and darkness rules the land for a good portion of the year... so waiting is part of life...)
Have read most of the "falling out of the sky"-incidents on this forum for the past months so there were a little tension doing this.
Today I updated my bird/SC3/FF6 also including 3 battery updates. (Told you I've been waiting...)
First the SC3, then the bird with battery #1 attached, no problems at all.
Switched to Battery #2, but the bird did not start up...WTF... 4 green leds when pushing the button, janked the battery abit and then it started up.
Disconnected the battery again...no clue...
Upon closer inspection on the batteryconnector both on the bird and the battery, there were signs of fine dust around those tiny holes.
(Yeah, I know there are dustcaps that comes with the battery, but they all seem to have their own agenda playing hide-an-seek, usually outdoors...)
Used some compressed air to gently clean the bird and the batterys out.
Battery #3 gave me no problems updating.
You know, if you dont have a battery attached to the bird att all time, the batteryconnector on the bird is unprotected.

I'm adding: "Protect and inspect batteryconnectors, always check battery snaps firmly into place" to my preflight checklist.

So, without jumping any form of conclusions, sudden powerdrops/falling out of the sky could "maybe/eventually" be caused by a "dirty" batteryconnector on the bird or battery.

By the way, the bird feels more solid and responsive now, no jittering or so.

Fly safe everyone !!!

 

[MustangPhil]

Thanks for this analysis. It’s true that the Anafi battery protections are poorly designed, and they do have a life of their own ...

To protect my batteries from dust, keep the silicon caps a little longer (I leave them in the bag), and prevent fires in my backpack, I bought cheap Mavic Pro 1 LiPo safe battery bags (where 2 Anafi batteries can fit) and added a little red ‘flag’ that I let ‘out’ after use on the field to remember to charge batteries...
The third battery is always clipped to the Anafi so it protects the inner connexion.
I think the same bags should exist for specifically for Anafi now.

 

[Fab77400]

Hi,
I´ve been waiting for a solid firmware for a while, and now the 1.6.8 seem solid enough so I thought I give it a go.
(Note, I live in Sweden so winter and darkness rules the land for a good portion of the year... so waiting is part of life...)
Have read most of the "falling out of the sky"-incidents on this forum for the past months so there were a little tension doing this.
Today I updated my bird/SC3/FF6 also including 3 battery updates. (Told you I've been waiting...)
First the SC3, then the bird with battery #1 attached, no problems at all.
Switched to Battery #2, but the bird did not start up...WTF... 4 green leds when pushing the button, janked the battery abit and then it started up.
Disconnected the battery again...no clue...
Upon closer inspection on the batteryconnector both on the bird and the battery, there were signs of fine dust around those tiny holes.
(Yeah, I know there are dustcaps that comes with the battery, but they all seem to have their own agenda playing hide-an-seek, usually outdoors...)
Used some compressed air to gently clean the bird and the batterys out.
Battery #3 gave me no problems updating.
You know, if you dont have a battery attached to the bird att all time, the batteryconnector on the bird is unprotected.

I'm adding: "Protect and inspect batteryconnectors, always check battery snaps firmly into place" to my preflight checklist.

So, without jumping any form of conclusions, sudden powerdrops/falling out of the sky could "maybe/eventually" be caused by a "dirty" batteryconnector on the bird or battery.

By the way, the bird feels more solid and responsive now, no jittering or so.

Fly safe everyone !!!

Good point, thank you ! I will pay attention to that.

 

[Hawaii Drone Imaging]

Good point @Dart67_SWE . I've been lucky enough to hold on to my battery covers in the time I've owned my aircraft. Inspect those batts as part of your preflight. Anyway, haven't had any problems as of yet, but then again I have not updated. I'm staying at 1.6.3 for a while until all the software mayhem get figured out.

 

[d95gas]

I have the original battery covers, and I also purchased a few from DirtyJ designs when I ordered my mounts, thought I may as well grab everything as I was paying a high postage cost for shipping to the UK.

And to be honest, the DirtyJ one's are far better than the Parrot one's as they actually latch pretty good, so cannot just fall off.

 

[Jagerbomb52]

Duct tape fixes all LOL

 

[jaja6009]

I am a member of the fall out of the sky club. I use the Dirty J covers on all of my batteries. And after reading this post checked all of my batteries. They are all clean. I am pretty good at keeping the batteries clean. After any battery change the covers would go onto the used battery and the battery would go into the case along with the new to be used batteries cover. Then repeat for each change.