Battery Drop - Am I Jinxing myself?

[Squirrel!]

The 1st battery has been replaced by the 4th battery which was replaced by the 5th battery.

 

[Squirrel!]

And the 5th battery, being charged only 4 times, is already at a 95% life level...I'm concerned with #2 & #3 as well...91% life left and only charged a dozen times or so.

 

[ORANGE CRUSH]

Welcome to the world of Autels batteries! Great drone, worthless batteries which will cause a crashed or missing drone one day. I can't even fly any distance fearing my battery will drop along with my bird. I'm BUMMED OUT!!

 

[Squirrel!]

What "distance" do you desire to go? Even with this, I can do everything I bought the drone for, easily.

 

[ORANGE CRUSH]

I fly out no more than 1600', the 3 times i had battery drops, i was out about 800' & 400 agl over very rugged terrain in the mountains trying to get the best shots. When that happens from 35 % to 6% doesn't leave much time to make it back & land safely, luckily i made it back all 3 times with less than 2% left. If it goes down where i fly, chances are i won't get it back!

 

[Squirrel!]

Right. I bought mine for line of sight missions only. Only reason I wanted a bird that will go 1.2 miles is because I wanted the stronger radio so I would have the least amount of possible interference - LOS doesn't really guarantee anything so I want all the redundancy I can have.

 

[ovrszd]

At some point Autel will start refusing to replace batteries. A year from now I don't see them readily doing warranty replacements of batteries.

I'm 10 months into my purchase and have had 3 replaced. I have 2 now that would qualify for replacement.

Are they willing to continue to give me 5 batteries per year indefinitely?

 

[KentA]

I worry that Autel's proprietary batteries may become unavailable in the future rendering the XSP useless.

 

[Jagerbomb52]

If you had a battery drop what was the percentage just before it happened? Mine was around 38% down to 3%.

 

[Squirrel!]

I worry that Autel's proprietary batteries may become unavailable in the future rendering the XSP useless.

Batteries can always be rebuilt...but at what cost?

 

[ORANGE CRUSH]

Agustine, I had one drop at 52% to 6%, one drop at 36% to 5% & one drop at 32% to 5%, all 3 were replaced by Autel over the course of the last 5 months, still worries the **** out of me when i fly though!!!

 

[Jagerbomb52]

Agustine, I had one drop at 52% to 6%, one drop at 36% to 5% & one drop at 32% to 5%, all 3 were replaced by Autel over the course of the last 5 months, still worries the **** out of me when i fly though!!!

Your one battery that dropped at 52% kind of throws my theory out the window.
I have been watching here and on facebook for these battery drop issues and from what I can tell most happen between 40% - 30%.
Most common thing people say that causes this is flying without a fully charged battery. Well for the last two days I have been using my #1 battery, the one that I had the critical drop. Flew three times this morning in the backyard to see if I could get it to drop at different levels of charge. The only thing that happened was I got cold

I would like to get a few log files on the flight from the X-Star from people to see if the telemetry actually shows a drop.
I looked at all my logs from the month of March when I had my drop and could not see any critical drop in the files.

 

[Squirrel!]

These are my 2 DJI batteries that are both 1.5+ years old. I have charged & flown them the same as I charge and fly the XSP.

Never a drop, no abnormal levels...very consistent.

 

[HiloHawaiian]

According to my log sent to Autel, which you are welcome to see, my battery went from 26% to 8% to 3% in 20-30 seconds. I did get the normal low battery warning, and decided to come right home since the terrain was so perilous. I had no chance...

 

[Jagerbomb52]

According to my log sent to Autel, which you are welcome to see, my battery went from 26% to 8% to 3% in 20-30 seconds. I did get the normal low battery warning, and decided to come right home since the terrain was so perilous. I had no chance...

Are those the starlink logs or the X-Star logs? I would need the log from that date from inside your X-Star but I think your x-star went for a swim so that is out.

How to pull the logs from the X-Star

• Connect microUSB->USB cable to jack in the front of your X-Star and place near your PC
• Power up RC, App then X-Star.
• go to Flight Control Settings > Advanced Settings
  • Android-> Click on "Read" next to Read Flight Data
  • IOS->Click on "Enter" next to Flight Data Recorder

• Connect the USB cable to your PC
• Copy the files to another drive.
• Unmount the X-Star from the computer
• Disconnect the X-Star and power it down.

 

[ORANGE CRUSH]

Don't let that 52% to 6% blow your theory out the window, that battery only had 3500 mah fully charged, it was shot!

 

[HiloHawaiian]

I didn’t know that, ty! A friend is thinking about repelling down to try and find my XSP. He enjoys challenges, wants me to video the rescue attempt from my XSP. It’s dangerous, but I told him if it’s not drowned, he could have it since Autel is replacing it. If he does find it, I’ll try to get the logs off it...

 

[Cowcharge]

Has anyone tried just putting together the right number of cells to build their own 'dumb' battery?

 

[Jagerbomb52]

The firmware will not allow aftermarket batteries. You have to fool it somehow to think it is using Autel stock batteries.

 

[Jagerbomb52]

I have tossed this idea around a few times about making my own battery out of the parts from the stock battery case. Old Bama Dude had a dead stock battery that he opened. If you are careful not to short anything out the hard case comes apart fairly easy.
https://autelxpilots.com/threads/tuff-bird.787/#post-6108

What I would like to try is remove the battery part from the case by desoldering the wires to the smart circuit. I would then add one of these high output lipo batteries.
Multistar High Capacity 5200mAh 4S 10C Multi-Rotor Lipo Pack
They are High Capacity Multi-Rotor battery packs. They will give longer flight times for sure. The one problem would be adding external connectors so you can use a aftermarket charger as I don't think the stock charger will charge it and if it did it would not charge it to full capacity.
I have seen this done on P3 batteries but the company that did the conversion is not around anymore.