P3P Survived the winter in the mountains

[AlexLim]

So.. in December I had a brainfart while flying one of my birds and didn't check my route well enough while flying backwards... and lights out, caught a tree, battery ejected, feed went black, etc.

I had last known GPS and searched for hours, but it was in 3 ft of fresh powder in the mountains, and since my P3P went silent at about 100 ft up and 35 mph, there was a reasonable search radius it could have ended up.

Long story short, I went on a retrieval mission last week and found it. From where it was (a WELL searched spot) and how it was sitting, I think it was caught in one of the trees and fell out at some point during the winter.

Here she is after spending about 5 months in nasty winter conditions, snow, rain, melt, etc. None of the props were damaged, gimbal, camera, all fine. Just a bit dirty, and a few screws were a bit rusty! Took her home, SD card is perfectly fine, the motors had some rust so they needed to be swapped (only 3 actually). I was worried the motherboard/internals would have rust, but none that I can spot.

I have to say I was pretty surprised, I thought I could salvage some bits and pieces and do a re-build, but so far she's good as new!

Not really much to discuss, just thought I'd share...

 

[Trackman1]

That is amazing. You might as well swap out all 4 motors if you are doing 3 anyway.

 

[chessman]

She's been in cryogenic suspension

 

[CCDD]

Glad to hear you got her back in one piece!!

 

[alokbhargava]

You should check and clean the moving parts like motors, Gimbal and look minutely for any cracks...

Best wishes

 

[Serenity]

Whoa that's amazing, congrats on a great find and a fun yarn.

 

[seanjkil]

Put it back for another 6 months and then retest. Will give the folks in the thread something to look forward to.

 

[skyhighdiver]

I can tell you I had my p3a go down in a lake a jackass on a paddle board threw there paddle at it.
Long story short they kept the bird and wrote me a check. A week later I get the check back no funds.
4 days after that I get in contact with jackass who has had the bird in a plastic bag with some rice inside and I get bird back and
with just over 3/4 cash money to cover new one.
I Pulled out the battery which was dead,
took apart and sprayed everything with corrosionx
a few rust spots were visible on screws and misc motor windings but threw a battery in her and has over 9 hrs flight and not a issue so these things can take a swim and still keep running.

PS I even got a free replacement battery from DJI for the one that went swimming.
Message me if you have this problem and I will tell you how.


Photo of lake she went down in