Doh. Mavic Pro bathing...

[Davros007]

Doh. Went to the beach today and there were lots of people so I went out on a sand patch they were avoiding so as to take off away from them (30m away in Australia). I took of and just hovered so I could check over before flying off...
Just then, I heard a voice behind me saying, “Oi Mate! You can’t fly here”. I knew I could, but the guy was a Ranger and was just concerned I was gonna fly over the crowd of people (plus now he’d wandered into my 30m area so I needed to abort); he asked me not to and to fly from further away off some rocks: cool no problem.
Sadly, while he was talking about flight rules etc., I landed as he’d asked - the sand was hard-packed - and I was chatting to him. He caught my attention when he warned me a number of people had been assaulted by nut-jobs for flying drones. What I missed was an extra-large wavelet that slopped up to the Mavic, which it greedily slurped up into the cooling fan!! Bzzz.. error.. me ripping off battery!
Ahh! Well, anyway his wishes came true! I took it to the car, rinsed it out with rainwater, home to be rinsed out with alcohol, then stripped it and sprayed it clean inside and out with circuit board cleaner. Cleaned bottom sensor windows etc. Blew dry - LIGHTLY! - with compressed air. Dried out now and all good. started up no issues at all - but I have reset IMU etc. Luckily wasn’t submerged but salt water is death - so wasn’t gonna leave it and wait and see, better off to strip it down. Fingers crossed I sprayed and aired it out from under circuit covers etc.
Anyway. Glad it wasn’t inside the camera. But will be flying with caution and making sure to catch instead of land on beach!

 

[Dakarenduro]

Ugh. That sucks!

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

Hope it works out ok for you and the clean up.
Ranger as in council ranger ?
Amazing he knew the basic rules, but if you were 30m from anyone, why did he bother you in preparation to fly ?
Expecting bad behaviour from you was poor ‘rangering’ and could have cost you your Mavic.

 

[Davros007]

Nah, I think he was worried people were gonna come towards me, as well that I was gonna take off and fly over everyone. Thinks he’s one of those that interpret ‘over’ as ‘close beside’... Anyway he wasn’t a total turkey but I do think he was overall anti-drone... Bet he had a chuckle when the wave went on it. Resisting urge to fly near the Ranger headquarters... it would be legal but would also give negative press I’m sure. Holiday season here so locals are on “high drone alert” - literally: “Facebook - I saw one! It’s criminals checking out your house! Lock up!”. And the children... think of the children!

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

Resisting urge to fly near the Ranger headquarters

Might be National Park ranger by the sounds . . . even if so, it's unusual for them to get involved with such things outside their area of responsibility.
He may own a drone and know the drill, but still approached you in a bad way considering nothing was done wrong by you.

Well, hope the MP functions ok into the future, and you can keep flying.

 

[Davros007]

Might be National Park ranger by the sounds . . . even if so, it's unusual for them to get involved with such things outside their area of responsibility.
He may own a drone and know the drill, but still approached you in a bad way considering nothing was done wrong by you.

Well, hope the MP functions ok into the future, and you can keep flying.

Yep. In WA you can fly in National Parks...

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

Yep. In WA you can fly in National Parks...

Yes, it's great WA changed over recently, when we went through form Nuytsland to the Pilbara up the middle in mid 2018, it was still all off limits in Nat Parks, but I did see quite a few flying in a couple of the campgrounds here and there.
I flew a couple of remote places myself.

About a month or two after returning, I heard the first news of them lifting the ban, so (like QLD) WA is now pretty good for drones in these places . . . following CASA rules, and with a good dose of common sense for other visitors.

I suppose the WA parks service might have given rangers a general overview of CASA rules so they could monitor safe flight in parks.
Not sure if the beach you were on was inside a Nat Pk, most likely it was I guess, and in that case the ranger could have had his concerns about the flight plan.

Was probably just more a case of bad luck / timing he appeared when he did, and perhaps a little bad planning of the take off point.
Waves (even wavelets) can be very unpredictable, every now and then a couple of larger ones can appear, even on a very flat sea.

Keep an eye out for errors and weird flight behaviour, the trouble with any moisture ingress (and as you said especially salt) is it can take a while to corrode solder joints, board pins and all the little parts.
Maybe even take it apart every month for a while and check for this.

Don't want a malfunction and crash at a typical Murphy moment when near something sensitive or people.
Good luck.

 

[SpitFire]

Please let us know if your MP survived your emgerency cleaning procedure. Have heard good and bad results from other pilots that have taken a bath in seawater with their drone.

 

[Davros007]

Please let us know if your MP survived your emgerency cleaning procedure. Have heard good and bad results from other pilots that have taken a bath in seawater with their drone.

So far fine! About four flights in. But really only main lower board copped the worst. Not sunken, more splashed, so not pressure on it, battery off within 5 seconds. Washed out with fresh within 10 mins, methylated spirits after about 30 mins and another fresh wash, then taken apart and sprayed out with circuit board cleaner, then lightly blown out with compressed (filtered) air. This also spun up the fan and span water out. Then dried outside in 30°c/85°F for a few hours.
The only sensors wet were the lower ones - removing the lower cover was critical to cleaning the downward cameras; I really paid a lot of attention to them and the covered components, also spraying the top of the board clean too from the side (didn’t pull it out). Touched up terminal connections I could see with light silicone oil (from a spray). Put some heat sink compound on the right places for reassembly.
Pressure from a sinking or water forced into cameras and other hard to dismantle components would be the worst I’d say. Using high pressure compressed air could do this if you don’t use caution!

 

[Drone-Retriever]

Hey just a heads up there are rescue devices for water events