Recovery from water damage, red light and other problems

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I regret to say that I had an incident with a dead battery over a saltwater pool, and now I have a mostly inoperable drone. When it first went down it was in for about 30 seconds, when it was recovered we used a hair dryer on it and it's inside as well once I got the cover off. I plugged a new battery in to see how bad it was, the light blinked yellow like normal but would not connect to the transmitter (no change in lights)

It's a day later now, I hot boxed it earlier today for a few hours and tried again. The transmitter connected and all seemed normal. I connected it to my laptop to test the motors but it would not connect. Oddly enough the main light turned green like normal, but flickered. After awhile of trying cords and stuff the green light slowly faded out. Now if I turn it on it is always a red light. It blinks red rapidly when transmitter is off, and slower when it is on. connecting to computer shows a solid red light...

I think that the other lights are broken b/c when I leave the remote on for a second no lights come on at all. Strangely all wing lights activate on power activation(plugged in the battery).

I don't know what to do, windows says usb device not recognized on connection. I figure that the bird is fried and will never fly again. But it's worth seeing if you guys have any ideas, other than buying a new one...
 
yeah didn't think about it at the time I was sort of in shock, would it be worth cleaning now?
 
May be tough to clean all the connections but they will need it. Salt really messes them up. Also may short across boards it is coated on.
Not sure what would be good to clean it with maybe some WD40.
Anxious to see what other ideas the members have, and maybe even someone who has done this.

Even then they maybe some component that is failed so no guarantee.

But if it was mine I would give it a shot... It's already broke.

Mike
 
Guess I should add that I would take all the boards, motors and wires out to clean them.
Would not spray anything on the plastic fuselage if I could avoid it.
And rinse WD, or whatever off with some electrical contact cleaner, maybe even blow tray with the canned air for computers.

Mike
 
Well this is absolutely incredible. I just did some more testing and the motors work. I don't know how but they do. One didn't at first and it's light was reversed (came on when motor was off and vice versa). But as suspected the connection to the main controller (Nazam thingy) was blocked by some junk. Cleaned it out and motor is now fine along with its wing light.

Also the 'red' light I was seeing is actually more yellow than I thought earlier. I believe this is a result of damage to the lights and the circuit board inside. Which makes sense as there was water standing in that bubble for awhile.

I have to test the GPS and motors tomorrow to be sure, but this drone is robust beyond belief. I had the motors on the whole 30 seconds in the pool (a result of panic) as well is what's incredible.

The good news is if all checks out I can figure out gps signal and battery voltage danger with the current lights and the only other thing is the camera and gimbal. The camera I still have hope for...the gimbal left a burn mark on the drone and was smoking when we pulled it out..so not so much for it...

But this is amazing! I had pretty much no hope of it ever being airborne again.
 
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I regret to say that I had an incident with a dead battery over a saltwater pool, and now I have a mostly inoperable drone. When it first went down it was in for about 30 seconds, when it was recovered we used a hair dryer on it and it's inside as well once I got the cover off. I plugged a new battery in to see how bad it was, the light blinked yellow like normal but would not connect to the transmitter (no change in lights)

It's a day later now, I hot boxed it earlier today for a few hours and tried again. The transmitter connected and all seemed normal. I connected it to my laptop to test the motors but it would not connect. Oddly enough the main light turned green like normal, but flickered. After awhile of trying cords and stuff the green light slowly faded out. Now if I turn it on it is always a red light. It blinks red rapidly when transmitter is off, and slower when it is on. connecting to computer shows a solid red light...

I think that the other lights are broken b/c when I leave the remote on for a second no lights come on at all. Strangely all wing lights activate on power activation(plugged in the battery).

I don't know what to do, windows says usb device not recognized on connection. I figure that the bird is fried and will never fly again. But it's worth seeing if you guys have any ideas, other than buying a new one...

Well... I'll say this... A bag of rice works for an iPhone... Last ditch effort... Throw the bird in a big bag of rice... Who knows at this point. The hair dryer may have already caked the salt onto the mechanisms... Good luck buddy


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