Auto Landed in river, now found is it worth paying reward?

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About 2 weeks ago I crashed my + into the river.... I had wrote it off as a total loss, and now have a new one...
I got a call from a fisherman today, he was trolling the river and hooked it.... I had a sticker on the bottom with my # and said call for reward...
Question is after being in the drink for 2 weeks is there anything left worth salvaging? He says he wants $50 for it....

The images on the card are worth it to me, but do you still think they are retrievable?

Thanks for any insight...
 
Re: Crashed in river, now found is it worth paying reward?

Fresh or salt water? If fresh, it may be worth getting it back and giving it a thorough dry out for a several days, you never know. Even the plastic body is worth close to $50 anyway.
 
Re: Crashed in river, now found is it worth paying reward?

I would go for it. You have also spare parts.
If it was fresh water than it could be revived when lucky, only when you take it completely apart and let it dry well for @ least a week.
If the water contains any salt then rinse the taken apart items with plenty of fresh water.
If your lucky and do it well you will end up with 2 working V+ birds.

Also seen a completely destroyed V+ taken from salt water with clearly huge damage being sold on ebay.
http://www.benl.ebay.be/itm/DJI-Phantom ... 27e7252301
 
Re: Crashed in river, now found is it worth paying reward?

The images on the card should still be ok, as long as the card is still in the camera. SD cards are waterproof and even washing machine proof.

It's definitely worth the price of a used non-functional Phantom 2. If only for the spare parts. You can sell it on EBay for more than $50.
The plastic parts if not broken are worth at least $60
The black ribbon cable on the Camera and Gimbal is worth at least a couple hundred dollars if it's still intact because you can't get that part anywhere without buying a whole new camera unit for $600.

I assume the river is fresh water. After only two weeks, the motors may be salvageable if they haven't started rusting yet.
If the battery somehow came out or otherwise turned off quickly, other parts might be salvageable.
I'd open it up and leave it to dry for several weeks before attempting to test any electrical parts.

I've wondered how hard it would be to create a small automatic water triggered circuit breaker for the Phantom. So that if it goes in the water the battery is automatically cut off quickly.
That would help prevent electrical damage and make salvaging from fresh water more likely.
 
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Re: Crashed in river, now found is it worth paying reward?

Two things occur to me:
1. You may be able to salvage some of the parts, including the SD card, and
2. You did promise a reward if found. In writing. On the thing you lost.

Do the right thing and honour your promise and give the guy $50. Remember, if word gets around that you didn't pay out on a finder's reward and you lose another one that's found, I wouldn't expect to get that one back.
 
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Re: Crashed in river, now found is it worth paying reward?

Thanks for the responses.....

Yes the river was freshwater.... The unit wasn't crashed.... It went into auto land cause the battery was at 10%, so there should be little to no damage...

The Ebay option is a good one.... And I agree, it does say reward if found, so I will honor that....

I will wait for 2-3 weeks before powering it up then test it...


Thanks again !!

Jer




'
 
Re: Crashed in river, now found is it worth paying reward?

Jeremyconk said:
I will wait for 2-3 weeks before powering it up then test it...

'

Thats not enough !
Take it apart so the water drys out fast.
When in the water there is less oxygen so corrosion is minimal.
Now when it will dry ( if it will dry completely that way if not opened ) some water will stay in and the barrier between water and air is creating the ideal situation for corrosion. The only situation to counteract that is to open everything that holds electronics and get the water out as fast as possible. The longer drying is to let the resting humidity evaporate, that takes time.
 
Re: Crashed in river, now found is it worth paying reward?

Maybe put it in a bag of rice!

Was this the one crashed in Houston?
 
Re: Crashed in river, now found is it worth paying reward?

Not Houston... This was crashed outside Portland Oregon....
 
Re: Crashed in river, now found is it worth paying reward?

ToThePoint said:
Thats not enough !
Take it apart so the water drys out fast.
When in the water there is less oxygen so corrosion is minimal.
Now when it will dry ( if it will dry completely that way if not opened ) some water will stay in and the barrier between water and air is creating the ideal situation for corrosion. The only situation to counteract that is to open everything that holds electronics and get the water out as fast as possible. The longer drying is to let the resting humidity evaporate, that takes time.
+1.
Open the shell at least and blow it out with compressed air if you can.
Then put the whole thing into a big bag of rice or at least pour bag of rice into the lower half of the shell around all the electronic components.

I'd worry about corrosion mostly in the motors. I would disassemble all of the motors, thoroughly dry them and definitely replace all the bearings.
http://www.amazon.com/Phantom-Rebuild-U ... B00C4UOQJK

How long has the fisherman had it out of the water?

It might also help to put it in front of an air conditioner or other dehumidifier to help dry it out faster.
 
Re: Crashed in river, now found is it worth paying reward?

If I found someone's property, I would never demand any money for it, regardless of whether or not there was a reward sticker on it. I can't stand people that only think of themselves first.
 
Re: Crashed in river, now found is it worth paying reward?

Unfortunately not everyone is as honest as you.
The point of offering a reward is to give the finder an incentive to return it rather than keep it.
And unfortunately, to create that incentive you need to offer more than they can get for it on EBay.
 
Re: Crashed in river, now found is it worth paying reward?

Wonder where the law stands on that? A stranger holding onto your property and effectively holding it to ransom can't be legal.
 
Re: Crashed in river, now found is it worth paying reward?

cahutch said:
Yeah, but I'll bet there is also some legal precedent for offering a reward and then refusing to pay it.

Ha! I managed to not notice he'd offered a reward. Fair enough, cough up the $50!
 
Re: Crashed in river, now found is it worth paying reward?

Well, from experience with electronics who took a dive in salt water, I usually disassemble, submerge and shake them on alcohol, then distilled water a couple times, for cleaning out the salt water; only then I will leave it to dry for a few weeks.
If it has already developed a lot of rust, leaving it for a while on WD-40 before cleaning with the distilled water helps cleaning it up.
And don't EVER try to turn it on before completely clean and dry. A few mobile phones, media players, and a MIDI controller have been recovered this way :D

Good luck! :)

[ ]'s
 
Re: Crashed in river, now found is it worth paying reward?

I may hold the record of water dunkings. So far my Vision+ has hit the water 5x's and I was able to may a full recovery each time. I did lose one battery, but since then I've been coating my circuit boards with CorroxionX, including the battery boards. I air dry for several hours in front of a fan in the warmest part of my house, the room with the oil burner, then seal in a huge bag of rice for 3 days. One thing I should mention is that I have a styrofoam shell on my Phantom, so it never goes below the surface. Usually it sits upside down in the water (freshwater) until I can get to it a few minutes later. Two weeks in deep water may cause all sorts of problems, but it's worth a shot. I would say, considering the cost of parts, it's worth a 100.00 reward.

BTW, on my last crash into water, after dryout my gimbal was affected and gave erratic movements with no response to inputs. I took the cover off (the one with 3 screws) and sprayed DeoxIT (bought it at Radio Shack) and a day later it came back to life and is now 100%. I don't know how much longer my luck will hold, but since I fly almost exclusively over water, I hope I don't make any more water landings!
 
Re: Crashed in river, now found is it worth paying reward?

Since no one has mentioned this yet I will do so now. ;)
I use this product in case I have a submersion event. It'll be wet but at least I will be able to recover it.
For about $15 it is worth it.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4yDcOgcqzs[/youtube]
 
Re: Crashed in river, now found is it worth paying reward?

srandall25 said:
If I found someone's property, I would never demand any money for it, regardless of whether or not there was a reward sticker on it. I can't stand people that only think of themselves first.

+1 !
 
Re: Crashed in river, now found is it worth paying reward?

My Phantom 1 took a dip in a pool. Killed the gopro, gimbal board and all ESCs. Pretty much anything that had power fed straight from the battery. Got everything taken apart as soon as possible and tossed the components in our food dehydrator for an hour. After that I oiled the hell out of the bearings in my anti-gravity motors and gimbal and hoped for the best.

Ordered new ESCs, gimbal board, a receiver module and a new main board (old one seemed fine, but replaced it just to be safe) and put everything back together. Crossed my fingers and she fired right up. The main thing I was worried about was the NAZA not acting right. To this day I still don't trust it 100%.

The GoPro is shot though. I really need to find a gimbal that will work with the GoPro's housing.
 

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