Swolllen Batteries - Both!

[Larry Mohr]

A couple of days ago I pulled the main H battery out of the charger and inserted it into the H with some difficulty. Upon inspection, it appeared slightly swollen. Still workable, but suspect. Less than 10 hours on a stock Yuneec POWER4 battery. About 2 years old. It was usually left in the charger during the flying season. (my bad, till I got smarter.)

Then two days later when testing the main battery, the ST16 wouln't inialize. It worked two days earlier. I had put the ST16 back on the charger. Went to pull the ST16 battery and found it had swollen too and was showing 3.2v instead of the 3.6+ on my spare. The ST16 initialized with that and the H tested fine.

So now my charger is suspect too.!

Have a new Venom Pro 2 Duo and multiple batteries in route. Will use Storage mode between flights. But what about the ST16 battery?

 

[Steve Carr]

It's unusual for the ST16 batt to puff, but they can go bad. Since those are Li-ion they can be left at full charge while in storage. When fully charged it should read 4.2v. When shipped they are at 3.7v.

 

[CraigCam]

Any chance your gear was exposed to prolong heat? I puffed up 5 batteries by accidentally leaving my big case in the car and hot interior for too long. They were all GiFi 8050s and three are acceptable but the other two actually split the case open.

 

[Steve Carr]

Any chance your gear was exposed to prolong heat? I puffed up 5 batteries by accidentally leaving my big case in the car and hot interior for too long. They were all GiFi 8050s and three are acceptable but the other two actually split the case open.

Whoa...........good to know. I'm careful about leaving the backpack in the car when it's hot, but didn't realize the batteries would be that sensitive.