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[Solved] Tello not starting, not charging, blinking blue light

TiltedTello

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Hi guys,

I bought a Tello around a year ago and had some good fun back then. Then it pretty much stayed in storage for several month until today I decided to take it for a spin.

However I'm having trouble charging the battery. When plugging the USB charger in the Tello I get the following sequence:

LED turns GREEN - blinks RED quickly a few times - blinks BLUE slowly around 6 times - steady BLUE for 2-3 seconds - blinks BLUE slowly around 6 times - steady BLUE for 2-3 seconds - and this keeps going forever.

Video: Tello charging issue - Streamable

After 2 hours or so of charging, I tried unplugging and starting the drone, but the LED stays off.

What I have tried so far:
  • Updating firmware (successfully, but it did not fix my problem)
  • Trying different power sources and USB cables, same results everytime

Is my battery dead? :/
Any other ideas?

EDIT: After leaving the battery charging for a full night, seems it is fixed. However the battery life has decreased. Have ordered 2 new batteries.
 
Last edited:
I seem to be having the same issue. I decided to dust off my Tello and start flying it again. I'm using an external charger to charge up my lipos. Either I've let the batteries die on me (none of them had been used for the better part of 6-8 months) or something else is going on. The LED is blue and flashing at the rate of about one flash per second. Per the book, slow flashing is fine, rapid flashing indicates "charging error" (but nothing else is spelled out).
 
You may be right-time to get some new lipos, I guess. Oh well, live and learn!
 
This brings up another question-where are folks going to buy replacement batteries? Who's got the best pricing out there?
 
@radioguy

Amazon.com - around $15 per stick currently
Thanks...by the way, just for fun, in spite of the fact that my Tello LED never stopped blinking while charging, I took the bird up for a couple of flights. The battery indicator on the app showed full charge, and the Tello flew just fine. I was only able to test 2 of my 3 lipos, but I imagine the other one will work just as well. OTOH, I probably will buy some extra batteries to be on the safe side.
 
Nice. How many minutes did you get out of each battery?

Probably err on the side of caution with fresh batteries as you don't want to see that fuel gauge go from 100 to 10 over you or your neighbor's pool. :)
 
Nice. How many minutes did you get out of each battery?

Probably err on the side of caution with fresh batteries as you don't want to see that fuel gauge go from 100 to 10 over you or your neighbor's pool. :)
I didn't time the flights (basically, hovering in place fighting the wind). If I had to guess, I'd say 6-7 minutes. But that gives me an excuse to charge them up again and try it tomorrow. When I do I'll report back.
 
I had a similar issue where I insert the battery into the charging hub and it gave me a solid red. I put the battery into the tello and charged it from there. It started blinking blue steadily indicating charging. Now after 5 - 10 mins, move it back to the charging hub and the battery should start blinking green indicating charging.
 
I had a similar issue where I insert the battery into the charging hub and it gave me a solid red. I put the battery into the tello and charged it from there. It started blinking blue steadily indicating charging. Now after 5 - 10 mins, move it back to the charging hub and the battery should start blinking green indicating charging.
This solution is really works!

I had exactly same situation. Deeply discharged battery refused to charge in the hub resulting a RED indicator however attempt to charge it inside of tello resulted in blinking BLUE indicator, and fallowing your advice I kept in on charge for 5-10 minutes after that removed it from tello and put back in charging hub, so now it's charging as normal
 
At least partially good news. Even though you could reanimate it, I would expect such a battery significantly degraded after such a deep discharge.

Would be interesting to see, how much flight time you can get from such battery now.

My recommendation is to keep the batteries outside Tello when you do not use ot for a longer period of time. This should reduce the risk for such a deep discharge.
 

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