Crashed drone-need help

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Hi, I'm in need of help/information.
Ok a quick backstory first, my bird went down from about 3 meters landed upside down in the wash of the beach. Was only in the water for 5-10 seconds and wasn't fully under just got hit by a small wave just before I reached it. Within less than 5 minutes of the crash it was flushed with fresh water and used air duster to get out what I could, drove home ( about 10 minute drive ) then blew it out with my bigger blower ( not petrol blower just a small battery one ) then used more air duster to get out all the water I could. Placed it in my food dehydrator on low to dry it out then placed it on rice for a few days. When I picked it up from the wash the lights and battery lights were still on so I shut it down straight away and removed the battery ( battery has now been disposed of ).
I have tried to fire it up three times since the crash and the following is what happened.
1st time: it started up without the little start up tune, had lights on (red and orange/yellow ), connected to the controller and dji go, had camera view, could move camera via controller, tried an Imu calibration but failed, couldn't do a compass calibration, had on screen warnings saying gimbal can't connect, and it was beeping. So I shut it down and restarted it, same thing but without the gimbal warning but had two other warnings, topology and esc warnings so I shut it down and tried more research.

2nd time: about a week later I started it up this time I got the start up tune but no lights, beeping, would not connect to the controller so I don't know about warnings, tried linking the two but didn't work. Downloaded dji assistant 2 hooked it up, did a factory reset and tried calibrating sensors but only got to the second stage before it said failed.

3rd time: started and restated about six times, sometimes get the start up tune sometimes didn't, beeping, no lights, no connection to controller and no connection to dji assistant.
So I am need of information on what to try next before I contemplate opening it up and looking inside. Below is a video of the beeping.
Oh yes and the crash was completely operator error.

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Did you shake your drone after getting water on it? Based from my experience after doing blower, air etc. Water can still get stuck inside. I got lucky when I noticed it on day 2 when I shake it out of curiosity and found so much water stuck inside. It saved my drone. I only had to replace 4 motors. They only recommended 1 motor replaced but I wanted to replace them all because it was cheap.
 
The problem with salt water is even after it dries it leaves salt residues behind which continue to attract moisture providing for ongoing corrosion and conductive paths.

It will never be an good, at best it will be unreliable and prone to failure.

Your only hope in these circumstances it to completely and thouroughly wash all circuit boards and connections with fresh water followed by IPA. Probably to much time has passed now, the damage is done.
 
Another hard rule when any electronic device comes in contact with water is to remove the battery(ies) immediately. I was told that the reason for this is to reduce the chance of internal components of being shorted out. Good luck!


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I don't think I would ever trust my P4 if it got swamped with seawater. Fresh water I'd be ok with trying to salvage it but not salt.
 
I don't think I would ever trust my P4 if it got swamped with seawater. Fresh water I'd be ok with trying to salvage it but not salt.
That's why i fly my drone away from people and property. So far its been running good for 2 months after swimming in the water for 3-5 minutes. I was even able to fly 5000 feet dsitance for the first time which I was afraid of doing when my P4 was still new. I keep silica gel on my p4 24/7.
 
That's why i fly my drone away from people and property. So far its been running good for 2 months after swimming in the water for 3-5 minutes. I was even able to fly 5000 feet dsitance for the first time which I was afraid of doing when my P4 was still new. I keep silica gel on my p4 24/7.

Yeah I've read a lot of folks get lucky with fresh water and I'd do what you are doing to regain confidence. After a salt water experience I may try to flush but if anything odd happened after that I'd just trash it I think.
 
Yeah I've read a lot of folks get lucky with fresh water and I'd do what you are doing to regain confidence. After a salt water experience I may try to flush but if anything odd happened after that I'd just trash it I think.
Mine went to salt water. I flushed it 3 times. So far it runs 100%. We'll see how long it will last.
 
Electrics and water don't mix to well, you could of shorted out component's internally with the water ingress and being salt water will eat away at the printed circuit boards delaminating the fine copper circuits.
You may be lucky but if it does fly again I don't think I would trust it
 
Thanks for the replies, sounds like it's over for my toy. Might just pull it apart have a look and use it as a learning curve. Now I have to decide if I go p4 or a p4p.....


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Thanks for the replies, sounds like it's over for my toy. Might just pull it apart have a look and use it as a learning curve. Now I have to decide if I go p4 or a p4p.....


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Send your drone to drones made easy. When my P4 fell in salt water i contacted pretty much all repair shop even DJI. DJI told me I can send it but more likely it is over and the rest they didn't even bother to reply. The only placed who contacted me back was drones made easy. It is in LA.
My drone now flies 100%. I always keep silica gel with P4 on storage.
 
Send your drone to drones made easy. When my P4 fell in salt water i contacted pretty much all repair shop even DJI. DJI told me I can send it but more likely it is over and the rest they didn't even bother to reply. The only placed who contacted me back was drones made easy. It is in LA.
My drone now flies 100%. I always keep silica gel with P4 on storage.

I'm in Australia so drones made easy is not an option, I will have a look and see who does repairs around my area. I have always had silica gel packs when in with my drone since the day I got it.


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I'm in Australia so drones made easy is not an option, I will have a look and see who does repairs around my area. I have always had silica gel packs when in with my drone since the day I got it.


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Ahh too bad. Well good luck.
 

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