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Typhoon H abnormal battery warning alert

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Hello all!
I'm new posting here! Just wondering if some one Typhoon H pilot here has ever received a warning alert saying AIRCRAFT BATTERY VOLTAGE LOW while your ST-16 telemetry readings display an enough amount of charge on both the aircraft and the radio transmitter? I made two short flights yesterday after having quit flying my H for about 3 consecutive years and as soon as I took off I immediately received that warning. However the flight commands response of the H were all pretty normal with the exception of the retractable landing gear which have never failed before, and this time simply didnt responded to be lifted, nor the RTH function either. On 1rst flight the H arm lights began flashing all together and after this happened, the aircraft switched to AUTO MODE and landed on its own! If any one here would like to share his opinion or suggestion on this, I will be more than happy to here it from you! Thanks a lot in advance! Jesus.
 

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Your battery is no good. After sitting for 3 years it has probably got a bad cell. There was another thread just posted from another user that had a similar problem. A response was given that you should read to understand why your battery needs to be replaced - Click HERE

Ultimately, LiPo batteries are consumables, like car tires - they don't last forever and when they get near the end of their life they're not that good. ;)
 
Your battery is no good. After sitting for 3 years it has probably got a bad cell. There was another thread just posted from another user that had a similar problem. A response was given that you should read to understand why your battery needs to be replaced - Click HERE

Ultimately, LiPo batteries are consumables, like car tires - they don't last forever and when they get near the end of their life they're not that good. ;)
I see. I'll take a look at that other post. Thanks for your input! Regards! :)
 
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Yep, it's a bad battery. I had that just happen to me last week when I was pushing a 4+ year old Q500 battery. It went from showing full voltage to zero in less than 10 secs of flight. No low battery warnings from the controller for it all happened too fast. I just got that red warning banner on my display like you show in the photo. I was able to land and not brake anything for I was only about 12 ft of the ground.
 
Yep, it's a bad battery. I had that just happen to me last week when I was pushing a 4+ year old Q500 battery. It went from showing full voltage to zero in less than 10 secs of flight. No low battery warnings from the controller for it all happened too fast. I just got that red warning banner on my display like you show in the photo. I was able to land and not brake anything for I was only about 12 ft of the ground.
Well, I'm glad to hear that from you, since it was kind of confusing to me to see a low battery voltage warning while on the other hand the telemetry readings were showing up a different story. I just hope to have good luck when getting a new battery and get the typhoon back to fly! 😊
 
Well, I'm glad to hear that from you, since it was kind of confusing to me to see a low battery voltage warning while on the other hand the telemetry readings were showing up a different story. I just hope to have good luck when getting a new battery and get the typhoon back to fly! 😊
OK, I went back and took a closer look at your photo. I can see what you say about the confusing info you were getting. You may have had somewhat more power left to your battery than what I had in my situation.
The following is just what I'm thinking happened to me. As stated I got no early alarms that things were going south. I got the "red banner" warning as I was climbing from my take-off. At about 12 ft off of the ground all telemetry from the A/C that showed on the ST10+ went blank. The flight battery indicator went from blue 12.2 volts to red zero volts like a rock. The ST10+ showed good readings for all functions that are generated by the controller battery which was good and charged. All readouts from the A/C simply disappeared. I was in "pilot" mode and able to use the sticks to get it to land quickly. I think that all telemetry shut down to allow whatever power I had left to control the A/C for an emergency landing. This maybe a failsafe feature built into the system but, I'm not really sure.
In your case you may have had enough power that telemetry did not go blank, but, was low enough to activate that red warning banner.

Also, since your A/C has been down for some years... when you get your newer batteries, charge everything back up. Then turn on your ST16 and the A/C(do NOT arm the motors) and let them sit in an outdoor location for at least 1/2 hour to soak up newer GPS info from the satelites. Just sitting at idle the A/C should not use much battery power.
 
@Quadflyer Gary - Your thoughts may be correct, although perhaps other good option would be to analyze the telemetry data itself. I allready took a look at it thru the DashWare on my PC but I am not quite good interpretating that. Any ways I am attaching here the 2 flight telemetry excel files in case you and or anyone else, may wish to take a look at them! Regards! Jesus
 

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Just one more subject that I forgot to mention here, is that when I got back home and wired up the ST-16 with the yuneec battery charger, I was really surprised that the ST-16 battery level was almost dead to 0, having myself flied only 2 times, and with that in mind, now I strongly suspect that the battery power issue actually comes from the ST-16 and not necessarily from the Aircraft battery! By the way if any body knows where could I get a ST-16 replacement battery online, please let me know. I just couldn't find one on Amazon! :confused::)
 

While you may also have an issue with the battery in the ST16, the warning you got while in flight was from the aircraft itself. LiPo batteries that have sat that long unused and not maintained are most likely in a very weakened and unreliable state.

The only way to tell for sure would be for you to upload the flightlogs for your TH. Download the document in this thread
Thread 'Way To Fix Drones project'
Way To Fix Drones project and refer to the attachment for Retrieving Typhoon H Flightlogs. You can upload the zip file in a reply to this thread using the attach files button.
 
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Just one more subject that I forgot to mention here, is that when I got back home and wired up the ST-16 with the yuneec battery charger, I was really surprised that the ST-16 battery level was almost dead to 0, having myself flied only 2 times, and with that in mind, now I strongly suspect that the battery power issue actually comes from the ST-16 and not necessarily from the Aircraft battery! By the way if any body knows where could I get a ST-16 replacement battery online, please let me know. I just couldn't find one on Amazon! :confused::)
I'm not good at interperting the telemetry data and hope others see this info.

I would suggest that you try again to see if the battery will hold a charge for the battery is a Li-ion and not a LiPo. Connect all cables to charge it and let it charge for at least 12 hours. The battery may have a memory problem that can sometimes affect Li-ion batteries but, not always. The battery if needed is available from www.yuneecskins.com for $39 and they currently have a Holiday 15% off sale going till the end of this year. Yuneecskins is the source for most older Yuneec parts... but, they currently have little if any LiPo's for flying currently in stock. LiPo's can be found on from amazon and a company called GiFi makes several for Yuneec drones.
Back to the controller battery... go to the site and click the more tab at the top. Then the yuneec batteries from the dropdown list. The first blue oval button on the left of the page is yuneec batteries, click that. There are 2 enteries on this page for ST16 batteries. One at the top and one near the bottom of the page. Not sure which is for your controller. Call them if uncertain as to what you need.
 

While you may also have an issue with the battery in the ST16, the warning you got while in flight was from the aircraft itself. LiPo batteries that have sat that long unused and not maintained are most likely in a very weakened and unreliable state.

The only way to tell for sure would be for you to upload the flightlogs for your TH. Download the document in this thread
Thread 'Way To Fix Drones project'
Way To Fix Drones project and refer to the attachment for Retrieving Typhoon H Flightlogs. You can upload the zip file in a reply to this thread using the attach files button.
Thanks for the help...
 
@ DoomMeister and Quadflyer Gary, Thanks a lot, both of you Gentlemen! I will take note of all your advice, comments and recommendations! Your help is greatly appreciated!

Best regards!
Jesus
 
I am attaching here the 2 flight telemetry excel files in case you and or anyone else, may wish to take a look at them!
The telemetry shows the battery voltage immediately dropped to below 15 volts just as you launched. Most certainly at least one bad cell.

You can check the internal resistance of the battery using an inexpensive meter. Open this link and scroll down to "Lipo Internal Resistance". https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFbieNfMBg1bGjmp5lxlkmXsAL9Y_RJ8G


Battery for the ST16:
 
There is no abnormal battery warning. It works exactly as expected. Voltage warning 1 threshold is 14.2V and warning level 2 is 14.0V.

ScreenshotSchnellanalyse_91.pngScreenshotSchnellanalyse_92.png

The problem is the too high internal resistance of the battery. Voltage drops when power is consumed and will go up when current goes down to idle.
Remember: U = R * I

Note: We never know the remaining capacity of the battery. Typhoon H has only a sensor for voltage and transmit only the value for voltage. From voltage the ST16 firmware tries to estimate the capacity. But this only works if the discharge curve of the battery is known. Each battery has its own discharge curve and this changes over time depending on the age of the battery. I real life this estimation is very inaccurate and completly invalid for defective batteries. Let's say, the indication of the battery capacity in percent only on the basis of the voltage is pure nonsense.
The conversion rule voltage to capacity is very simple. The firmware assumes that it is a new battery, which is not the case here.

Conclusion: As said above, the battery is done.

br HE
 
The telemetry shows the battery voltage immediately dropped to below 15 volts just as you launched. Most certainly at least one bad cell.

You can check the internal resistance of the battery using an inexpensive meter. Open this link and scroll down to "Lipo Internal Resistance". https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFbieNfMBg1bGjmp5lxlkmXsAL9Y_RJ8G


Battery for the ST16:
Thanks a lot for your input and help Sir!! In fact I have searched and found that ST16's battery link before on Amazon, but unfortunately it is not currently available on Amazon. Anyway I already was provided with another battery sale link (yuneecskins.com) from another kind gentlemen here, DoomMeister.
 
There is no abnormal battery warning. It works exactly as expected. Voltage warning 1 threshold is 14.2V and warning level 2 is 14.0V.

View attachment 27130View attachment 27131

The problem is the too high internal resistance of the battery. Voltage drops when power is consumed and will go up when current goes down to idle.
Remember: U = R * I

Note: We never know the remaining capacity of the battery. Typhoon H has only a sensor for voltage and transmit only the value for voltage. From voltage the ST16 firmware tries to estimate the capacity. But this only works if the discharge curve of the battery is known. Each battery has its own discharge curve and this changes over time depending on the age of the battery. I real life this estimation is very inaccurate and completly invalid for defective batteries. Let's say, the indication of the battery capacity in percent only on the basis of the voltage is pure nonsense.
The conversion rule voltage to capacity is very simple. The firmware assumes that it is a new battery, which is not the case here.

Conclusion: As said above, the battery is done.

br HE
Well, this is a quite useful information for me lo learn from you all! I'm glad those telemetry files that I have attached here before were enough to provide such useful information! Thanks a lot indeed for your valuable time and help; @ h-elsner!! Have a great Sunday you all!! Warm regards! Jesus
 
@jsfun2012

Sorry for missing the telemetry you had included earlier. Not sure how I missed seeing it.
 
@jsfun2012: If you provide FlightLog data please use the original files. Do not save it by Excel or something like that. External applications may have impact on data format that makes it hard to analyze it.
I was lucky because I have the source code of the analysis program and could adapt it with a small change to read your data. Others that want to help could not.
From point of view of data consistency Excel is a plague...

br HE

Edit: Here is the chart from above with comments for better understanding:
ScreenshotSchnellanalyse_91_1.png
 
Last edited:
@jsfun2012: If you provide FlightLog data please use the original files. Do not save it by Excel or something like that. External applications may have impact on data format that makes it hard to analyze it.
I was lucky because I have the source code of the analysis program and could adapt it with a small change to read your data. Others that want to help could not.
From point of view of data consistency Excel is a plague...

br HE

Edit: Here is the chart from above with comments for better understanding:
View attachment 27142
Oh I see. It's good to know what you're advising me! Thanks a lot for this additional graphic information you are providing to me! By the way, I downloaded those two files from my ST16, from an app that I have installed called UAV Tool Box and this app by default generate those excel and GPX format files. Perhaps next time I will better download the FlightLog file directly from the ST16's File Manager / Directory / Flightlog Folder? As for i have read online, that FlightLog file contained within the FlightLog Folder provides better and more intact information than the excel files data that I attached earlier here. As I stopped flying drones almost 3 years ago now, and have just got back to it a couple of weeks ago, I am currently very outdated from a lot of new information related to this activity! :rolleyes::)
 
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