New Skycontroller 3 issue

[theclaw37]

I've just got my Anafi, and naturally i've plugged my drone and controller in USB-PD chargers (my pixel 2 xl) to charge. I tried connecting my phone to it after about 30 minutes or so through the cable to check it out for a bit.

When I open the controller, the LED on the front flashes a lot of colours. White, amber (some kind of white-red-ish), and blue sometimes. Sometimes it even flashes red, but not every time i try to connect to it. The phone reports 5% battery on the controller. I leave it in for another 20-30 minutes or so, and the phone now reports 7-8% battery, but then drops to 5% again in like a few seconds. I left the charger connected to it and connected my phone as well to try and update it and somehow manage to do the update.

After the update, the phone showed 100% battery on the controller. But I take the phone cable out, put it back in the controller, now it says 5% again, and red light flashes.

I'll leave it overnight to charge and see if there's any difference. But seriously, am I missing anything ? Why the hell does this not (really) go past 5% battery in a USB-PD charger ? Or if it does, it definitely doesn't report it. Is there something wrong with my skycontroller ?

 

[Landbo]

I've just got my Anafi, and naturally i've plugged my drone and controller in USB-PD chargers (my pixel 2 xl) to charge. I tried connecting my phone to it after about 30 minutes or so through the cable to check it out for a bit.

When I open the controller, the LED on the front flashes a lot of colours. White, amber (some kind of white-red-ish), and blue sometimes. Sometimes it even flashes red, but not every time i try to connect to it. The phone reports 5% battery on the controller. I leave it in for another 20-30 minutes or so, and the phone now reports 7-8% battery, but then drops to 5% again in like a few seconds. I left the charger connected to it and connected my phone as well to try and update it and somehow manage to do the update.

After the update, the phone showed 100% battery on the controller. But I take the phone cable out, put it back in the controller, now it says 5% again, and red light flashes.

I'll leave it overnight to charge and see if there's any difference. But seriously, am I missing anything ? Why the hell does this not (really) go past 5% battery in a USB-PD charger ? Or if it does, it definitely doesn't report it. Is there something wrong with my skycontroller ?

It smells of a bad battery in your controller, get it replaced by the warranty. Personally, I would not let the controller be charged overnight because of the fire hazard !!!

A small chance of it may be a cable problem. Have you tried to use another cable between the charger and the controller?

Regards Leif

 

[Kilrah]

I don't think the controller supports PD, only the aircraft. Try a basic USB port with A to C cable.

 

[theclaw37]

It smells of a bad battery in your controller, get it replaced by the warranty. Personally, I would not let the controller be charged overnight because of the fire hazard !!!

A small chance of it may be a cable problem. Have you tried to use another cable between the charger and the controller?

Regards Leif

Coming back after letting it "charge" overnight. Didn't know that could be a fire hazard. I thought it had protection against overcharge like all my other devices. It behaves the same. No charge whatsoever. The LED on the back is still green though as if it's already charged. I've never seen that one turn red.

@Kilrah: before using the PD charger I even tried a normal USB output from a PC, and it behaved the same

 

[Kilrah]

Looks defective then.

 

[theclaw37]

Yeah. I'm speaking to amazon customer support at the moment. I'll get it replaced I guess. Not a very nice first experience.

 

[IM35461]

Indeed, the controller only charges from a 5 volts source.

 

[theclaw37]

I'm getting a replacement tomorrow. Unfortunately I missed this weekend. It's a real shame.

PS. Can anybody describe their first steps with the Anafi ? Like, when you get it out of the box, do you plug both the drone and controller straight and wait for 100%, or connect to phone and update first .. etc ?

 

[Dirk_ANAFI]

I charged both Anafi (USB-C PD), controller (USB A) and smartphone to 100%.
Connected smartphone and controller with USB cable.
Then made FW updates of both and calibration of both outside without any metal or magnetic things nearby.
First takeoff outside with much place around and with both GPS icons green.

 

[theclaw37]

Thank you for the answer. So it should be as simple as that. When you first plugged in the cable into your controller, it showed a red LED at the back right ?

 

[Kilrah]

Yep

 

[Dirk_ANAFI]

Also yep

 

[theclaw37]

Thanks guys. I'll report back tomorrow when hopefully everything will be working fine.

 

[Landbo]

Coming back after letting it "charge" overnight. Didn't know that could be a fire hazard. I thought it had protection against overcharge like all my other devices. It behaves the same. No charge whatsoever. The LED on the back is still green though as if it's already charged. I've never seen that one turn red.

@Kilrah: before using the PD charger I even tried a normal USB output from a PC, and it behaved the same

When a Li-Po or Li-Ion battery does not want to recive power, it usually means there has been a short circuit in the battery and it may short circuit again on continue charging. You will usually see that the battery has become thicker (svollen) or leaky.

Okay, you have tried another cable.

It does not matter if you are using a PD charger on a device that does not support PD. Here, the PD charger sets itself up like a standard USB connector for voltage and power. It requires that there has been a special communication between charger and battery before the charger shifts into PD mode. Read the section if PD is in the link below.

USB (Physical) - Wikipedia

Regards Leif.

 

[theclaw37]

It did behave like a short yeah. I know about the usb pd handshake and all that. What I was trying to say is that I tried various possible power sources and cables, and got the same result.

 

[Landbo]

It did behave like a short yeah. I know about the usb pd handshake and all that. What I was trying to say is that I tried various possible power sources and cables, and got the same result.

Yes, okay. It was just to determine how PD works. Hope others also have read from that link.

Regards Leif.

 

[HighViews]

I had a USB-A connection issue with my SC3. I had over 10 successful flights with the SC3. The trouble started for no apparent reason about 4:30 PM 12/27/18 when the SC3 failed to connect to my phone with two diffrent USB cables so I flew a flight-plan flight with my phone only. Since then I made sure my phone, Redmi 4A, was up to date with its Android system and the FF6 app. I tried connecting to SC3 with 3 different USB cables each of which was verified to work with my computer for both charging and file transfer. I have tried to connect two other up-to-date android devices with FF6 installed (newly installed on one of these) to the SC3 with each of the 3 USB cables; all failed to connect to the SC3. All three android devices connected to my computer with each of the 3 USB cables for both charging and file transfer.

I believe the SC3 USB-A connection had failed prematurely. I worked with parrot support and they replaced both anafi and the SC3.
Here is a link to a video of the issue. https://photos.app.goo.gl/KMn6KpeaUbpvuqj89

The new SC3 connects to my phone just fine now.
One thing I going to do differently with my new SC3 is that I will unplug the USB-A cord from the SC3 when not in use. I tended to just leave the USB-A end of the cord plugged in to my old SC3 all the time which could not have helped the connection issue.

 

[pmh1nic]

My issue may or may not be related but the charging issue some mimics mine. Connected the controller to do the initial update and got a message that the controller didn't have enough charge to do the update so I plugged the controller into my PC USB port. The light was initially red but after a few minutes turn green. I left it charging for about an hour believing there was no way it could have fully charged in ten minutes. After disconnecting the controller from the USB in won't power up. I returned it to the vendor, got another controller and the same thing happened, a second controller that shows it's charged (green led) but will not power up.

I've contacted Parrot support and should be hearing back from them on Monday. As soon as I hear from them I'll report back but I am wondering if there is some interaction between the PC and controller when it's plugged into the USB on a PC that is disrupting the controller function.

 

[Dirk_ANAFI]

You should not charge the controller with a PC USB-A port!
Use a standard smartphone charger or a USB-C PD multi port charger.

 

[pmh1nic]

You should not charge the controller with a PC USB-A port!
Use a standard smartphone charger or a USB-C PD multi port charger.

I could not find any warning in the owners manual that says you can't charge the controller via a PC USB port. Did you read this somewhere or were you advised by their tech support that this couldn't be done? If yes, what are the consequences of charging via the PC USB-A port?