Drowned Drone

Texan4ut · Feb 24, 2016

I have a question. I was flying my P1 with with a supposedly fully charged battery, however not 2 minutes into the flight I saw a red flash indicating low battery, so started trying to fly it back and it went into safe mode and landed itself right into a small pond. I ran as fast as I could to see where it went in and I was toll late to see it hit the water. All I saw was a ripple. The pond was glass smooth no wind that was why I was flying. The property is ours, however I live 5.5 hours away and had nothing with me to try and fish it out. My question is before I make a 5.5 hour trip to try and fish it out will it ever fly again? If no then I am not going to make a special trip to get it, I will wait till I go up in late March early April. I have a gopro on it too so a double whammy. Anyway if somebody has splashed theirs and brought it back to life let me know. Thanks

JKDSensei · Feb 24, 2016

It's a roll of the dice. Sometimes if you recover them quickly and dry them out properly they still work.
How deep is the pond and how cold is the water?

Texan4ut · Feb 25, 2016

JKDSensei said:
It's a roll of the dice. Sometimes if you recover them quickly and dry them out properly they still work.
How deep is the pond and how cold is the water?

Where I think it went in is probable only 2.5 to 3 feet deep, water is probable around 50 degrees. The pond is real muddy so I couldn't see it under water. Thanks for the reply.

Ti22 · Feb 25, 2016

I think it’s gonna be pretty duff’d electronically. Motor windings might survive OK but you’ll need to qualify the bearings? Dunno if NazaM is waterproof or not? Dry everything out, wash with denat alcohol and see?

Obviously the shell will be ok but this sure sounds like a total loss if there ever was one?

Texan4ut · Feb 25, 2016

Thanks for the reply. I am going to try and retrieve it early next week. Hopefully with a little TLC I can bring it back to life.

JKDSensei · Feb 25, 2016

Obviously, the longer it sits in water, the lower the odds are it will work again.

Texan4ut · Feb 25, 2016

JKDSensei said:
Obviously, the longer it sits in water, the lower the odds are it will work again.

Yep. Too bad it is 5.5 hours away. I didn't have anything to try and fish it out with so wasn't much I could do.

Pilot_FML · Feb 25, 2016

You might get lucky and get it working again.... many stories about crashing in water and successful flights later on.

If its not salt water your chances of getting it working again go up a lot.

Completely wash any mud/grime off with clean bottled water, disassemble as many parts as you feel comfortable doing, dry off with a hair blower set on warm, let dry at room temperature for a couple days and then put everything in a sealed container of rice to absorb any hard to get at remaining moisture.

Go slow, be methodical about cleaning and it might very well work well again... good luck.

TheDroid · Feb 27, 2016

Unless you waterproofed it your pretty much yukered. I dunked my Ardrone 2.0 it only went in the water in our pool for maybe 20 seconds. Ended up costing me 150 bucks to replace the main board and nav board. I also have a phantom 1.1 and i will not go near anywater just in case what happened to you happens to any of us flying over water. You might get lucky but i would not count on it.