DJI drone battery repair using Arduino - 2024 method - super easy (MAVIC, SPARK & OTHERS)!

[@mjlegnar]

Hello, I didn’t used my Spark for two years and of course the batteries were broken. After some searching I came across your video. I gave it a chance and bought a Nano and followed your instructions. After some trial and error, it finally worked and the batteries are charging again. Thank you so much for sharing this video. 👍🏼🚀

[@thecircuithelper]

Awesome, so glad to hear you got it up and flying again… Just give it a few gentle test flights to make sure the battery behaves as you expect and holds its charge etc!! Thanks for watching! 👍👍👍👍

[@SkyDomeVIZE]

I recently did this to an mavic air battery. I had a few Arduino Nanos' laying around. Thanks. - make sure you know about basic electronics. - if your cells don't have any voltage, I won't recommend to do this or expanded. Discharge and throw away. - I had to charge each cell to 3.94 volts @ .5 amp or less ( basically balance them) then total charge it to ~11.75-12 volts @ 1 amp. - than I downloaded the files needed and run it and "let it be lights." - turn off and continue to charge via the proper battery charger at least half way not full. - update your battery and fly while checking your battery cells in the app. Best of luck.

[@thecircuithelper]

Nice one, glad it worked!! I should have mentioned in the video that it is a very bad idea to do this if the battery is swollen, it would be pretty dangerous and even if it was possible to unlock and charge the battery sooner or later it would probably end in fire!

[@oscarsanchez882]

hello, i bought the supplies but i dont know what im doing wrong, ive followed all the steps but i dont see it working. How do I charge the battery if its completely dead? to give it a boost? please help. Thanks

[@thecircuithelper]

Hi, first you need to find the pin out for your drone battery, you’ll see several +, several - (or gnd) and the clock/data lines shown in the video. Buy a 9 V battery (one of the rectangular ones) and connect the + of your 9V battery to the + of the drone battery and the - of the 9V battery to the - of the drone battery. Once this is done connect the other wires as shown in the video and run the arduino code again. For the Spark, 9V should be fine, but I read that maybe 12V is needed for some Mavic batteries. Good luck and thanks for watching!

[@oscarsanchez882]

Hello, Thanks for all the help. I followed the steps and it did give it juice to the dead batteries. I followed the other steps and I saw where it said " this program will unseal and clear PF automatically for DJI mavic air" but that's all it said. Nothing more so I don't know if it did it or not. It seems to be charging the batteries right now. I will see in a few hours if it fully charges them. Thanks again!

[@oscarsanchez882]

Everything is working. Batteries fully charged. Thanks again for everything!!

[@thecircuithelper]

Awesome! Glad you got it going!!!

[@gadgetman404]

Ok I'm confused I've got DJI spark can't find link/software for DJI spark

[@thecircuithelper]

If you go to www.circuitschools.com/dji-mavic-air-battery-recovery-clear-pf-using-arduino/ and scroll down the page you'll find two links. The first in a zip file containing a binary file, this is the code used by the arduino. The second link is a for a programme called Xloader, this enables you to upload the binary onto the arduino. Even though the code says its for Mavic it works with Spark, I only have Spark so can confirms it works.

[@nyetloki]

It's a safety device. Charging dangerously over drained lithiums can result in fire or rapid discharge and the drone can fall in the sky. As long as you understand that.

[@thecircuithelper]

I certainly agree it is intended as a safety feature, however, there are better and more sophisticated ways of detecting if the cells are actually damaged and not suitable for recharging. Simply locking them forever with software doesn’t seem the best option to me, but your point is very true… LiPo batteries can be dangerous if mistreated, and letting them discharge is certainly mistreating them, so caution is needed when unlocking them. I certainly won’t be flying this drone anywhere it might cause an issue if it crashed (although I did a 15 min test flight and it seemed fine).

[@Brennt-Alles-Nieder]

I think the charger discharged the cells with its own electronics instead of leaving them at 100% with a pulse charge. the dji charger apparently switches off after 100% and do nothing ... i have 18650 cells here and they stay in the charger all year ... no problems. the stupid thing is, i got an fpv drone from dji for christmas and now i'm annoyed about this rubbish ... batteries are still available on alirxpress for 90 euro ... 😅

[@BreckenFergusonBreckenscoolcar]

why does it say i can't open port.

[@thecircuithelper]

Problem communicating between the arduino and your computer… could be quite a few reasons: 1. Make sure your usb cable is for data and not just charging, 2. make sure your computer recognises the arduino when you plug it in, you should see a new com port appear in control panel, 3. test the arduino using one of the example programs in the arduino ide to make sure you are communicating with it ok, 4. Once you know the arduino can be reached, use the Xloader software to upload the binary and connect the battery to the arduino. Hope that helps!!

[@ellf66]

Hello Circuit Helper. I have the sameproblem as you - I haven't used my Spark in years and the batteries are dead/almost dead. Although your video is very clearly outlined with all the steps, I am by no means an expert with electronic - far from it actually. I wondered if I was able to send my two batteries to you, could you repair/charge them for me for a fee? Gratefully yours,

[@thecircuithelper]

Hey, thanks for watching. As for trying to fix your battery, I think there are already quite a few sellers on eBay that offer this service, you’d probably be better trying them as I’ve only done it once on my batteries, those guys have 100’s of positive feedback. Good luck!

[@ninjagogaming1838]

hello i have a mavic air drone and i used an adrino uno i used xloader but it ididnt upload the code

[@thecircuithelper]

Hmmm… it could be a few different things. I’ve not tried it with the Uno, but I guess it shouldn’t be so different from the nano. Just make sure you have connected the SDA and SCL wires correctly. It might be worth trying with a nano if you have one to hand. If you are certain things are wired correctly then you might need to use an external voltage to enable communication with the battery… I explained how to do this in a few of the comments on this video, it’s really easy.

[@ninjagogaming1838]

Ok I’ll try comeback to you thx lot

[@andrewdonald2770]

Hi, thanks for posting this. Given that I need to use the correct pin out for a Mavic Pro battery, do you know if the software will still do the trick? I have seen on other sites that the batteries seem to be all grouped together as the BMS is common to the different batteries? Thanks for your help

[@thecircuithelper]

It should work fine! The code is written for the Mavic so I was surprised it actually worked on my spark. You’ll just need to find the pin out of your battery and make sure you have the clock, data and ground wires wired to the correct pins on your arduino. If it doesn’t work first time, try applying a low voltage to a vcc pin. Let me know how you get on!!

[@andrewdonald2770]

@@thecircuithelper cheers, wilco

[@AlonsoPena]

@@thecircuithelper can you do a quick tutorial on "try applying a low voltage to a vcc pin" ? I think it's not working for me because the batteries have been sitting for over 4 years and voltage is very low..... I managed to do everything you outlined here but the hex file program doesn't get past the "Unseal/FAS..." stage. Perferably the 9V battery method. Sorry for asking, I'm good at following instructions, but have no idea what you guys are talking about ...LOL

[@thecircuithelper]

@@AlonsoPena Hey, don't worry about the batteries not being used for years. Mine also hadn't been touched in 5+ years... no light at all when I pressed the button. For the 9V battery what you need to do is the following: (1) find the pin out for your drone battery, google images will have it for sure. In my case searching for "dji spark battery pinout" gives plenty of good diagrams. (2) On the pinout diagram you'll see some pins marked as '+' and some as '-', (3) Take a 9V battery (like one of those rectangular PP3's), attach the positive terminal of your battery to the '+' on the drone battery, and the negative terminal to the '-' on the drone battery. (4) Once this is connected make sure the SCL and SDA pins are connected to the arduino appropriately and try again! Good luck!

[@holgerhartmann6253]

thank you vor this great helpfull video !!!!!! : )

[@thecircuithelper]

Glad you found it useful!!! Thanks for watching😃👍

[@oscarsanchez882]

Hello, I also have the same drone and just recently tried changing the battery and i experienced the same issue. Are you able to provide the links to the tools you used to make it work again? Thanks

[@thecircuithelper]

Wells you only need an Arduino Nano and a few jumper wires, you can find the code here: www.circuitschools.com/dji-mavic-air-battery-recovery-clear-pf-using-arduino/ thanks for watching!

[@NGUYENPCX]

does this work with mini2 and mini3

[@thecircuithelper]

Hi, yes I think it should work, just check the pin out of the battery and make sure it has clock and data lines.

[@NGUYENPCX]

​@@thecircuithelper it worked with my mini2. But don't change the Baud rate to 115200, Just let it default , change not worked

[@thecircuithelper]

@@NGUYENPCX Really interesting, glad you got it up and running!

[@RunningPotato]

Hi thanks for the great vid! I got everything to work until the point where the "unseal/fas" is supposed to happen. What could be the issue? I assume the arduino nano isnt communicating with the battery

[@thecircuithelper]

That's kind of strange, I think the first thing to check is that the SCL and SDA on the battery are connected to the correct pins on the Arduino (A4 to SDA and A5 to SCL). If you're sure it's wired correctly and it still doesn't work then your battery might be so flat that there's not enough voltage for the internal battery controller to work (this is what the Arduino communicates). In this case you might need to apply ~12V between the + and - terminals of the drone battery whilst running the Arduino code. Hope you get it working and thanks for watching!!

[@RunningPotato]

@@thecircuithelper thanks for the reply! Got it to work - yes the battery was flat, so I connected a 9V Battery to the 2nd and 3rd pin and then it just worked as intended

[@thecircuithelper]

@ awesome, glad you’re up and running!

[@phamoanh9250]

@@RunningPotato hi, I got the same problem, could you help me elaborate on that, I don't understand what I should do.

[@thecircuithelper]

The easiest thing is to buy one of those rectangular 9V batteries (proper name is PP3). Connect a wire from the negative terminal of the PP3 battery to the negative terminal of your DJI battery, do the same for the positive terminal. Once you’ve done this follow the steps in the video (ie connect the other wires) then re-run the Arduino code

[@Brennt-Alles-Nieder]

I wanted to fly my spark again after 2 years. the batteries were only 5 charge cycles old ... plugged in and they were charging ... then christmas came and I left them in the dji charger for 3-4 days ... now they are dead ... DJI is the worst ... 😐

[@thecircuithelper]

Sorry to hear that!! I wonder if the cells are damaged, that would maybe explain them appearing to charge but then being dead again within a few days. If they are damaged, be careful as they are a fire risk! What annoys me is that it’s really difficult to find second hand Spark batteries, I was looking on eBay and a working battery was almost same price as a used Spark! IMO DJI should still sell the batteries at a reasonable price, so many drones unusable because of the batteries!