This is why non intelligent batteries suck and it's the weakest part of the H package IMO. DJI use smart ones, Autel use em Yuneec use.....oh yeah. Given that duff battery = fall from sky i'm still surprised that Yuneec chose dumb batteries AND did not ship with a fully functional charger that will discharge etc.
Not directed at you Nicholas, but applicable to all;
If people put just a little effort in understanding systems and components they could save themselves a lot of money. It was only a couple years ago that "smart" batteries were the exception and used only by one manufacturer. That manufacturer did not create them to make flying safer, but to lock people in to buying only one brand of battery to increase company profits. Those batteries are not any better, but do sell for roughly 3+ times the cost of a standard battery.
Monitoring batteries is not at all difficult, but it does require a user to "be involved" and maintain a basic level of awareness. I doubt that most using smart batteries perform any kind of performance tracking, don't have a clue for the number of charge and discharge cycles, trusting a technology intended more for extracting the most $ from their wallets as possible to protect them from themselves. With a smart battery, how do you determine if a battery, or the "smart" technology is failing? How do you establish individual cell voltages, IR, a pack's peak voltage degradation, cell balance, and other factors that establish battery condition? A series of lights only tells you a battery currently meets or fails a programmed minimum standard level.
We have all the tools, technology, and information readily available to effectively take care of our batteries. We have a constant voltage displayed on our control screens to monitor battery state, something many choose to ignore. We have a system in the H design that requires active engagement of the user yet people insist on being disengaged or trying to exceed the system's design limitations, and each carries a price to be paid.
We make choices when we purchase and use different systems. Those with the intelligence make those decisions based upon factors they determined best fit their needs and desires. During that decision making process we decided we were willing to be more than a passive participant, or not. We decide if we are willing to take and maintain control of our systems or trust that companies who's primary goal is to sell as much product as possible are putting our interests in front of theirs. Taking that a step further it's not difficult to discern that Yuneec's charger is designed more to assure people don't burn their house down when charging batteries. It's not designed or intended to do more than the minimum necessary to allow a user to use the aircraft while protecting the manufacturer from liability induced by, forgive me here, stupid, uneducated users. Could the charger be better? Sure it could but two things come to mind; users would have to learn how they worked and the package would cost more. It's been well documented that many users are lazy and refuse to learn much more about their systems than what switch to flip or "button" to push. We also know that people like to think and act "cheap" with "lowest price" being the prime qualifier in their decision making process.
What's interesting in all this is that a good battery has a very low probability of failing when reasonably cared for, yet the battery, or the system, is always blamed when the user failed to perform their "due diligence." More often than not, failures occur because a user is ignorant, lazy, cheap, or ignores warnings and instructions. At least one of those factors was involved in the incident initiating this thread. Actually, more than one was present.
We don't need over priced "smart" batteries, but we do need smart users. As said earlier, the tools are available. A good programmable, multiple chemistry charger costs $100.00-$150.00. A battery adapter runs $15.00-$20.00. An adapter just for checking batteries costs under $20.00. If standard batteries were used instead of a proprietary shell to assist in protecting users from themselves an adapter would not be needed at all. After that all that's needed is a brain. We all have one. We only need to use it.
