fahreddinaykut/sparkaltbatteryboard — explained in plain English
Analysis updated 2026-05-18
Build a replacement battery interface board for a DJI Spark drone whose original battery is discontinued.
Study a real world example of reverse engineering an I2C or SMBus smart battery communication protocol.
Manufacture the custom PCB using the included schematics, bill of materials, and Gerber fabrication files.
Flash the ATmega328P firmware to emulate a smart battery's real time communication with a flight controller.
| fahreddinaykut/sparkaltbatteryboard | benbreen/recoilengine-applesilicon | bigattichouse/packed-twin-inference | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stars | 12 | 12 | 12 |
| Language | C++ | C++ | C++ |
| Setup difficulty | hard | easy | hard |
| Complexity | 5/5 | 2/5 | — |
| Audience | general | general | developer |
Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.
Requires ordering and assembling a custom PCB, plus flashing firmware to a microcontroller.
This project is a hardware and firmware design that lets you use a normal, off the shelf drone battery pack with the DJI Spark drone, instead of the original DJI battery which is now discontinued and hard to find. The DJI Spark expects its battery to talk to it over a specific communication protocol, so a plain replacement battery pack will not work on its own without something bridging that gap. To solve this, the creator took apart an original DJI Spark battery and used a logic analyzer, a tool for capturing electronic signals, to record and decode exactly how it communicates with the drone's flight controller. They documented this protocol in detail, including the authentication steps and error checking the drone expects. From that research, they designed a custom circuit board that sits between a standard battery pack and the drone, reading real voltage and current from each cell, and reproducing the same communication behavior as the original DJI battery so the drone accepts it as genuine. The board itself uses a small microcontroller chip to run this communication logic in real time, chosen specifically because it reliably supports a signaling technique the drone's controller requires that not every chip handles well. The circuit also includes components for accurately measuring the voltage of each individual cell and the overall current draw of the pack. The repository is organized into clear folders: one for the circuit board design files made with an electronics design tool called KiCad, one for the microcontroller firmware built with PlatformIO, one for a 3D printable mechanical mount for the battery, and one for documentation, including the reverse engineered protocol notes and raw captured communication logs. The PCB design was prepared as something that could actually be manufactured, with a parts list and fabrication files included, not just a rough proof of concept. This is a specialized hobbyist and research project rather than general purpose software. It would appeal most to people interested in drone repair, electronics reverse engineering, or keeping older DJI Spark drones flying once official batteries are no longer available.
A DIY circuit board and firmware that lets a DJI Spark drone use a standard replacement battery by mimicking the original battery's communication protocol.
Mainly C++. The stack also includes C++, ATmega328P, PlatformIO.
Setup difficulty is rated hard, with roughly 1day+ to a first successful run.
Mainly general.
This repo across BitVibe Labs
double-check against the repo, no cap.