Spark Remote Controller Endless Charging.

Sparky4222 · Apr 23, 2019

Good afternoon all.

I've had the Spark in the air a couple of times and recharged the batteries uneventfully. On the charging hub they fully charged in a little over an hour. After the last flight sessions (four batteries worth and some goofing with settings while the drone was grounded) I topped off the remote controller. It was down to three LEDs, it charged in about an hour and, as advertised, the LEDs all went off indicating full charge.

Today I set everything up to charge and the batteries charged normally (a little over an hour for the three of them in the charging hub). The controller, which had an indication of three (3) LEDs at the outset went for just about three (3) hours!

It was connected to one of the USB connectors on the charging hub's power supply and the charging pattern on the lights kept going and going! After a while, if I disconnected the charging wire and briefly pressed the on/off button, it showed four LEDs, i.e. it is fully charged but then kept giving a charging indication when re-connected. Strange. It did not get warm to the touch but it seems unusually long to top off a battery that already had a partial charge. At this point it has stopped, indicating that it has a full charge and all seems normal.

Any ideas or suggestions for the ultra long charging period. Has this happened to anyone else?

Thanks.

Len

Andre Levite · Apr 23, 2019

If you intentionally let the RC battery run all the way down it should reset. The next time you charge it don't use the 3-battery DJI hub.

You can plug the micro USB cable into the RC directly to wall power using a standard charging block. You might try a different USB cable than the one you had problem with.

Sparky4222 · Apr 23, 2019

Hi Andre.

It was certainly not all the way down. As a matter of fact I was "topping off" because when I started charging it still had 3 LEDs or roughly 75%. Perhaps in the future I will allow it to discharge somewhat further (certainly not all the way to shut off) maybe to a single LED.

Thanks for your suggestion.

Len

Andre Levite · Apr 23, 2019

Sparky4222 said:
Hi Andre.

It was certainly not all the way down. As a matter of fact I was "topping off" because when I started charging it still had 3 LEDs or roughly 75%. Perhaps in the future I will allow it to discharge somewhat further (certainly not all the way to shut off) maybe to a single LED.

Thanks for your suggestion.

Len

I think you misunderstood my response.

I was not suggesting that failure to let the RC drain down caused the problem...I was saying that letting it drain down could fix the problem.

If you get RC almost totally drained it should reset. Then you can charge again with a different hub and USB cable back to full. After that it should work fine again with your DJI 3-battery hub.

At least that's what worked for me and others on the Forum. I think mine was caused by overheating of hub or power brown out during normal charging

Sparky4222 · Apr 23, 2019

Gotcha!

I had a similar issue with one of the batteries and had to let go all the way down before it started acting normally.

Al the moment all seems well and it is charged and holding the charge. I don't think there will be any further issue. So, we'll see.

Thanks

Akuen_527 · May 7, 2019

For me as a general rule I try not to charge batteries before they reach 50% or so, seems to cause less issues than trying to cram the last 5-10% back into a almost fully charged battery. It's different than topping off your gas tank.