Flying in the rain

[Jack43]

that vertical rain has me puzzled. Have you ever hovered over tall grass? Vortexes...

no I didn´t fly over tall grass, why should I? Vertical rain is the one which comes straight down when there is no wind, as it it today here where I live

 

[Jack43]

Living in the Pacific N.W., we get quite a lot of rain. To save my toys, I have been using a product from MG Chemicals called 419D Acrylic Conformal Coating. You brush it all over your electronics that will be getting soaked. They also have it in a spray can now but I have always used the brush on with excellent results (no shorts). Been using the stuff for 6 or 7 years on RC Cars, trucks, buggys, boats, planes, trains, wings, helicopters, tricopters, quadcopters, radio tx's, fpv goggles, and camera's. Whheew, that was a mouthful. At first I used vaseline and it worked but was messy and it came off eventually. There are some videos on YouTube on the Conformal Coating and the guy, I think it was old Peter Spirol, submerges the quadcopter in a fish tank and runs it with no smoke. Check that stuff out. Here's the link to buy on Amazon:
MG Chemicals 419D Premium Acrylic Conformal Coating, 55 mL Bottle, IPC 830, UL 94V-0 (File # E203094) MG Chemicals 419D Premium Acrylic Conformal Coating, 55 mL Bottle, IPC 830, UL 94V-0 (File # E203094): Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific
Good luck and fun flying!

Thanks for the interesting infos! So you think that I could spray it directly on the motor winding?
good luck too!
cheers Paul

 

[scro]

that vertical rain has me puzzled. Have you ever hovered over tall grass? Vortexes...

and...?

If the rain isn't coming straight down it could start cutting in under the nose of the drone and the camera/gimbal would get wet. If you stand directly under an umbrella on a calm but rainy day you stay dry. If it's windy your legs/body start getting wet too

 

[BokiFly]

Motors are waterproof so you don’t have to worry about them. It’s the internal circuitry that’d fry if it gets wet.

Interesting. So opened and exposed motors on Mini will not have problems if Mini get caught in the rain?

 

[Deleted member 103366]

Having looked at the video, another concern is do the propellor screws clamp down on your plastic discs?
If so I'd keep a check on them incase the plastic squashes under the loads imposed on those screws by the propellors and allowes the screws to become loose.
If the screws do not clamp down on the plastic are the propellor blades still loose enough to swing under the influence of gravity?

 

[Jack43]

Having looked at the video, another concern is do the propellor screws clamp down on your plastic discs?
If so I'd keep a check on them incase the plastic squashes under the loads imposed on those screws by the propellors and allowes the screws to become loose.
If the screws do not clamp down on the plastic are the propellor blades still loose enough to swing under the influence of gravity?

I checked it and there is no problem! The scrwes after the flight were still tightened!

 

[DagDerniT]

Thanks for the interesting infos! So you think that I could spray it directly on the motor winding?
good luck too!
cheers Paul

Hi,
The brushless motors do not need to have a coating but you do need the control board, camera and tx wiring after they are soldered. I'm on lunch and will find the video for you. A visual aid I think will greatly help you make sense of it all. Woot! Woooooooooooot!

 

[DagDerniT]

Hi,
The brushless motors do not need to have a coating but you do need the control board, camera and tx wiring after they are soldered. I'm on lunch and will find the video for you. A visual aid I think will greatly help you make sense of it all. Woot! Woooooooooooot!

I didnt watch the video but heres a link to Joshua Bardwell discussing and doing a Conformal coating.

 

[Jack43]

The brushless motors do not need to have a coating but you do need the control board, camera and tx wiring after they are soldered. I'm on lunch and will find the video for you. A visual aid I think will greatly help you make sense of it all. Woot! Woooooooooooot!

Hi Dag, thank you very much!
Cheers Paul

 

[Frank Windt]

Last month I have to film a wedding and it was raining the whole day... I decided to film. So I filmed 1.5 hours in the rain with no damage and no drip on the lens.
I have also printed out the camera hood for the mavic mini found on thingiverse.

 

[Phantomrain.org]

We of course took the Mavic Mini in the Rain Numerous times the problem is going to be securing the SD card slot , the rest of the drone is pretty bullet proof to the water
but the Wind that sometimes comes with the storm is a huge problem.

Most of what People Worry about does not exist:

Problems:
Loose Props come off way to easy, Wet Suit Prop Covers keep them tighter.
Reflection Problems can cause the drone to auto land, Surge Mask on the bottom protects the sensors from Reflections.
Compression band keeps the battery lid tight and SD card slots protected.
Colors make it look no so ugly. lol


Phantomrain.org
Gear to Fly you DJI in the Rain

 

[lowellton]

Living in the Pacific N.W., we get quite a lot of rain. To save my toys, I have been using a product from MG Chemicals called 419D Acrylic Conformal Coating. You brush it all over your electronics that will be getting soaked. They also have it in a spray can now but I have always used the brush on with excellent results (no shorts). Been using the stuff for 6 or 7 years on RC Cars, trucks, buggys, boats, planes, trains, wings, helicopters, tricopters, quadcopters, radio tx's, fpv goggles, and camera's. Whheew, that was a mouthful. At first I used vaseline and it worked but was messy and it came off eventually. There are some videos on YouTube on the Conformal Coating and the guy, I think it was old Peter Spirol, submerges the quadcopter in a fish tank and runs it with no smoke. Check that stuff out. Here's the link to buy on Amazon:
MG Chemicals 419D Premium Acrylic Conformal Coating, 55 mL Bottle, IPC 830, UL 94V-0 (File # E203094) MG Chemicals 419D Premium Acrylic Conformal Coating, 55 mL Bottle, IPC 830, UL 94V-0 (File # E203094): Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific
Good luck and fun flying!

thanks i’ve been lookong for this one. Right on target

 

[lowellton]

Hi,
The brushless motors do not need to have a coating but you do need the control board, camera and tx wiring after they are soldered. I'm on lunch and will find the video for you. A visual aid I think will greatly help you make sense of it all. Woot! Woooooooooooot!

i will wait for you vid. Excited. Thanks again

 

[Jack43]

Last month I have to film a wedding and it was raining the whole day... I decided to film. So I filmed 1.5 hours in the rain with no damage and no drip on the lens.
I have also printed out the camera hood for the mavic mini found on thingiverse.

Hallo Fank, 1,5 Stunden mit dem Mini im Regen? Wie weit ragt der Lenshood über die Nase des Mini hinaus?
Gruß Paul

 

[Jack43]

Phantomrain.org
Gear to Fly you DJI in the Rain

thanks for the info!

 

[Phantomrain.org]

Having looked at the video, another concern is do the propellor screws clamp down on your plastic discs?
If so I'd keep a check on them incase the plastic squashes under the loads imposed on those screws by the propellors and allowes the screws to become loose.
If the screws do not clamp down on the plastic are the propellor blades still loose enough to swing under the influence of gravity?

The Props do not need to be loose to fly,
The Prop Covers on the Wet Suit were designed to tighten the Props so they were not so loose in the wind.

 

[Jack43]

Having looked at the video, another concern is do the propellor screws clamp down on your plastic discs?
If so I'd keep a check on them incase the plastic squashes under the loads imposed on those screws by the propellors and allowes the screws to become loose.
If the screws do not clamp down on the plastic are the propellor blades still loose enough to swing under the influence of gravity?

hi Philius
no problem with the propellors. They are lose enogh and they can swing as if there were no plastic discs!
cheers Paul

 

[Deleted member 103366]

Paul, good to know
Phantomrain re "The Props do not need to be loose to fly, " Whilst strictly speaking this may be correct there is surely a point where not loose is too tight? In that too tight could interfere with the blades taking up the correct positions, perhaps resulting in their not being symetrically positioned and causing vibration and or dragging the retaining screws loose.
I think it would actually be quite interesting to see a video of how these blades change position during motor accelerations/deccelerations and possibly with motorspeed.

 

[Jack43]

Hi Philius,
actually I do not really want to fly when it´s rains. I had the idea to get the mini waterresistant and in case that one day I really have to shoot a "rain-shot" I know that basically it´s possible
Thank for your comments!
have a nice Sunday!
cheers Paul