Doesn’t take much to confuse me, and I might have the answer all along, but bear with me…
My replacement drone arrived today, a Mavic Mini Fly More package from MPB. All seems present and correct, but there is a peice of kit new to me, the 2-way battery charging thing. Of the 3 batteries, 2 were inside this thing and the third was in the drone, apparenly fully charged since there were four steady lights displayed next to the on-off button when I pressed that, so she’s ready to fly.
As is the RC, with again 4 leds showing. But how do you charged the RC?. The only port I can see that would do it is where the smartphone connection cable plugs in, which is a sort of DJI version of a micro usb socket; the normal usb-micro cable doesn’t fit in it because the outer part is the wrong shape, but of course the smartphone cable (I’m using ‘DJI mirco’ usb-Apple Lightning for an old iPhone 11 which I’m using as my flying smartphone).
Obviously, I have to connect a usb cable to this to charge the RC, and have an adaptor socket allowing me to use a mini-usb to ‘DJI micro’ cable.
Is this right? Should I be charging the RC from the usb socket on the 2-way battery charger?
As regards the 2-way battery charger, I currently have two batteries of an unknown condition in it and it is ‘plugged in’. Only one of the two batteries is charging, the other one isn’t doing anything. I’m guessing that when the one battery is fully charged, the other one will start charging. There is an on-off button which doesn’t seem to do anything. As I say, I am confused; I’ll leave it charging overnight but as I want to test-fly tomorrow and would prefer to start off with three fully-charged batteries, I’m a bit worried that if the third battery doesn’t charge because I’ve done something stupid with it (I’m good at doing something stupid, got an impressive proven track record of it) there won’t be time to do much about it before I go out. Or am I overthinking things?
Push button with on/off symbol on the 2-way battery charger, just above the micro-usb input socket.
That’s so crazy it might just work!
I’ve gone through it, but probably need to do this again a bit more thoroughly!
Tx again for this, gents, I’m a good bit more relaxed about the battery charging now and confident that I’ll have 3 fully charged batts in the morning. I’ve painted 1.2,& 3 numbers on them as I’ve got zero chance of keeping track of them otherwise…
As well as test-flying and practicing seagull avoidance, I’ll try and get a bit of filming in because next weeks weather looks like either too dull/wet for good filming or bright & sunny but a bit blustery; next really good day is Sunday week, unless the forecast changes of course!
I assume you mean the button on the 3-battery-charger thing? Pressing the button will show the battery status of all batteries when not plugged into the wall (means you don’t have to put the battery into the drone to see whether the battery is charged).
The RC can be charged using a standard micro-USB plug … even though the RC socket is more rectangular.
My RCs for my Mavic Pros have the same connector, been using micro-USB to charge them for almost 8 years without a problem.
But, caution. They work perfectly in only one orientation. The wrong way can damage the little tab on the socket. The micro-USB will go in really easily the correct way.
Thanks guys, it makes more sense now. Battery charging is sequential, one battery at a time not three simultaneously, and takes a long time, and the mystery of the DJI micro-usbs is solved; they’re just ordinary micro-usbs that are a funny shape. I will RTFM!
Never needed … I’ve just remember which way the “D” -ish shape of the micro-USB is when I pop it in, and if it seems to be reluctant to go in with normal pressure, I check and turn around if I got it wrong the first time.
As I say - almost 8 years for my MP and it’s still fine.
Sod’s law the plug with the mark won’t be to hand when you need it.
The RC wouldn’t hold a charge and had to go back to MPB in the end, and they refunded me £50 towards a 2ndhand one off eBay, which arrived this morning. This came fully charged, so I’m ready to fly but it’s too windy, should be able to get a proper test flight in tomorrow evening. We’ll get there eventually!
Because of the RC issues, I have yet to test fly the Mavic Mini properly. Got about five minutes of footage out of it before the RC battery died completely, and all seems well so far, but I have not tested the range limitations this wifi connected drone is known for. It ‘feels’ the same as the Mini 2 SE in flight, but has lower wind rating; I’ve set it to 18mph in DJI Fly and UAV Forecast.
Unsuccessful attempt to fly this evening; forgot that I need to pair the new controller and the drone, and the pairing sequence keeps timing out. Also, I think the RC may need a firmware update and I need to find out how to do that.
OTOH, given my recent experiences, any session where the drone comes home in the bag with me and has not been seagulled can@t be counted as a total failure. Wind & rain til Saturday, so plenty time to get it sorted!
