Hot?

[Rich Z]

Well, I've got my brand new Skydio 2 sitting here in the den while I go through the online manual stuff. Installed the phone app, and did an update on the Skydio yesterday. Speaking of which, since I only got this yesterday, shouldn't this have had the latest update already installed on everything? So I paired up the controller and beacon, and they too went through update processes.

So I was done what I wanted to do and shutting everything down when I picked up the Skydio to depress the battery button to shut it down. Youch!! Sucker is HOT to the touch. I happened to have a temp gun sitting nearby, so I scanned it and the body is registering 110 degrees F. Room temp is 79 degrees, and I have a ceiling fan running to move air around. Should this get THAT hot? I restarted the drone just to double check the temps, and it quickly heated up again, and then in about 3 minutes or so (I wasn't really paying attention to the time, so that is a rough estimate), the Skydio shut down itself. Hope that was just a non-activity shutdown and not a thermal overload shutdown.

The battery seemed cool to the touch, and it was pretty much the blue colored mid body area right above the battery.

So is this normal to get that hot?

 

[Lifeisfun]

That shut down when sitting doing nothing is normal.

 

[Starz]

First drone?

 

[skydioconvert]

Well, I've got my brand new Skydio 2 sitting here in the den while I go through the online manual stuff. Installed the phone app, and did an update on the Skydio yesterday. Speaking of which, since I only got this yesterday, shouldn't this have had the latest update already installed on everything? So I paired up the controller and beacon, and they too went through update processes.

So I was done what I wanted to do and shutting everything down when I picked up the Skydio to depress the battery button to shut it down. Youch!! Sucker is HOT to the touch. I happened to have a temp gun sitting nearby, so I scanned it and the body is registering 110 degrees F. Room temp is 79 degrees, and I have a ceiling fan running to move air around. Should this get THAT hot? I restarted the drone just to double check the temps, and it quickly heated up again, and then in about 3 minutes or so (I wasn't really paying attention to the time, so that is a rough estimate), the Skydio shut down itself. Hope that was just a non-activity shutdown and not a thermal overload shutdown.

The battery seemed cool to the touch, and it was pretty much the blue colored mid body area right above the battery.

So is this normal to get that hot?

Do a search for the word "hot" in this forum and you'll see many other posts discussing how normal this is....

It's a not a good idea to keep the S2 powered up and NOT be flying.

Odds are good that future firmware upgrades that add new capabilities will cause even higher temperatures.

 

[Rich Z]

First drone?

No. Third. Not counting the little non-GPS drones I have bought over the years to play with. Your point?

 

[VEGASROBBI]

Yes the metal (magnesium?) body runs hot.

My S2 body would get hot just charging the batteries so I purchased the battery charger. Can't say I've had any issues related to the body running hot but I just wasn't comfortable with it.

I've flown my S2 many days that were over 100° and the outer metal body shell gets hot enough to be uncomfortable to hold. I normally blow the air conditioning on the body during a battery change and to date I've had no failures. I'm pretty sure the computing power required makes the electronics run hot and the outer body shell acts as a heat sink.

I'm not too worried I work in automotive and some of the processors run in engine compartments that can exceed 300° without a problem.

 

[Rich Z]

Well, I don't believe the NVIDIA processor chip was designed to be used in an underhood automotive application. So just for giggles I checked the specs on the NVIDIA Tegra X2 SOC processor, and it appears that the upper temp limit for operation is 203.9 degrees F. Hopefully it doesn't get any hotter than that inside the body. I just hope that longevity isn't being compromised by the cumulative high temp exposures even if it might be just below the failure threshold. I know there had to be design compromises made, so I guess it is what it is. As long as it lasts long enough for me to get my "enjoyment value" out of the purchase price, I guess that will have to do. Nothing last forever, anyway.