My 6 year old drone fell out of the sky in a pond last Sunday

I was out flying over a small pond near my place in Fort Collins when the battery just gave out with no warning. It went from 30% to zero in like 5 seconds and dropped right into the water. Lost the whole thing, about $400 worth of DJI Phantom that I'd had since 2018. Anyone else have a sudden battery death like that or did I just get unlucky?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_kai12h ago

You mentioned it went from 30% to zero in like 5 seconds. That sounds like a cell failure in the battery pack, not just normal wear. Those Phantom batteries are made of multiple lithium cells wired together. If one cell inside shorts out, the whole pack dumps its voltage instantly. I'd check if you stored it fully charged or let it sit in extreme heat. Heat kills these batteries faster than anything else, especially in Colorado summers.

drew_thomas911h ago

My buddy had a Phantom battery do the exact same thing last summer, his 30% turned into a brick in under 10 seconds too lol. @the_kai you're dead on about the heat thing, Colorado summers are brutal for these packs if you leave them in a car for five minutes. I swear DJI batteries are like drama queens, one gets a little warm and they just give up on life instantly. Honestly at this point I'd just treat that battery as a paperweight and buy a new one, not worth trying to fix a cell failure on those things.