Fogging

[Bopson]

My MaVic pro camera has a problem. It's fogging inside . I have tried placing it in temperature box blow it using hot air . Tried replacing a new camera. It was gone for sometime now it has come back . What to do

 

[AeroJ]

I guess this happens when it's cold outside ? If so, what works for most people is to let the drone sit outside for 10 minutes before turning it on so has time to acclimatise to the lower temps.

 

[Bopson]

Ok it also does in normal temperature also

 

[UAVNV]

get some bulk dessicant from ebay and keep in your storage to prevent in the future (replace every 3 months)

 

[jimbob3job]

I have been struggling with this same problem for almost a year but finally I have found a solution. It has been the most frustrating thing given that I bought a Mavic Pro (for a lot of money I might add, Mavic 1, not the Mavic 2 Pro with the Hasselblad camera) based on the great reviews and the fact that I should have been able to fly and take great footage straight out of the box.

I have trawled all the forums and tried every suggested solution out there with no success, so if you want to know what did and didn't work for me then read on (scroll to the bottom for my solution if you don't want to read the whole post).

My problem began after only a few flights. I live on a tropical island, therefore very high humidity and high temperature. I have seen many suggestions that the cause of the problem is somehow environment related. It is not acceptable in my opinion that such an expensive machine would have a fault that renders it useless in certain environments, if that were the case we should all be made aware of this before handing over our money. In any case I have seen many reports of this happening in climates hot and cold, so it is not a climate or temperature related problem.

Here are the suggested solutions I found and what happened when I tried them, and some I came up with myself:

1. Store the machine (and carry bag) in a sealed bag with dessicant for several days (tried silica gel packs and rice). Result - no improvement at all, camera still fogging.

2. Drill very small vent holes in the side of the camera case to allow moisture to be drawn out by the dessicant or to ventilate during flight (was already at a dead end by this point so nothing to lose). Result - dead camera. See attached photo of a dismantled camera, very tightly packed and I'm assuming I contacted something inside with the drill bit.

3. Buy a new camera - I bought five replacement used cameras (quite cheap on ebay). Result - the cameras arrived in greatly varying condition, only one didn't have any scratches on the lens, one didn't work at all, another had a shattered lens inside, three worked properly, of which one I'd describe as being in excellent condition. Of the ones that worked, all were fine fogging wise to begin with, but after a few flights every single one of them then developed the same fogging problem. I therefore came to the conclusion that this is a fundamental flaw in all Mavic cameras, and the problem is guaranteed to appear sooner or later in certain environments.

All Mavic cameras are not well sealed, and once moisture gets in it's very difficult to get it out, and even once dry the problem will come back again sooner or later. I decided I wasn't simply going to keep buying replacement cameras and then throw them away once they started fogging after a few flights, so I dismantled one of the disfunctional cameras to see what was going on inside (see attached photo). There is a seal under the circuit board which clearly is not fit for purpose.

4. Seal a replacement camera around the edge of the circuit board with silicone before it has a chance to fog. Result - dead camera. I'm not completely sure why, but looking at the attached photo you can see some of the blue silicone actually seeped through the seal under the circuit board (yes the one that's supposed to stop individual water molecules getting in, it couldn't even stop a large blob of silicone getting in!). I'm assuming the camera didn't like silicone where it eventually got to inside.

5. Put the entire machine in the oven to dry it out. Are you crazy!!? I've seen this suggested a couple of times, but there's no way in hell I'm putting my whole machine in the oven, plastic and all. Based on all my experimentation, this would be a guaranteed way of quickly killing your investment. Feel free to try but it's actually very easy to remove the camera and attempt to dry it out separately.

6. Dry the camera in the oven. I only have a gas oven, and gas gives off moisture. So I suspended the camera from a wire in a pan and covered it to create a mini oven on the hob. On the lowest heat possible I left it for a couple of hours. Result - dead camera. Obviously the temperatures in cooking appliances are too high and will kill your camera.

7. Staying on the cooking theme, here is the only thing that has worked for me:

Equipment
1 x medium baking tray
1 x heat gun

Ingredients
Appox. 1kg dry basmati rice

Spread the rice out in the tray about 1cm deep. Slowly run the heat gun over the rice until it is too hot to pick up and hold but still cool enough to touch (not sure exactly what temperature that is). I'm sure a hair drier would work just fine too, it would just take a bit longer. Remove the camera from the machine and place it on top of the rice, then take handfuls of rice and pile it in a mound on top. Leave that until the rice has cooled, it will stay warm for an hour or two. This has the effect of both gently heating the inside of the camera to drive the moisture out where it is then captured and wicked away by the very dry rice. I did this five or six times and then left it overnight in the mound of rice. Result - no fogging!!!!! The camera worked perfectly so the temperature was obviously hot enough to drive out the moisture but not too hot to kill it. I did three consecutive flights with crystal clear footage, something I have not achieved since the problem first appeared. I don't know yet how long it would take before the problem appears again, but I intend to store the machine and carry bag in a sealed bag with my 1kg of ultra dry rice to delay the onset as long as possible. I'm also waiting for a couple more replacement cameras, which I will subject to the same treatment, so the worst case scenario is I have to quickly swap cameras if the fogging returns at an awkward time.

I hope this is of help to those of you frustrated by the same issue with seemingly no solution. If you try it and it works for you, feel free to copy and paste this anywhere you choose so that others might actually be able to use what is otherwise a fantastic machine.


Brief update - I have now completed eight full flights with no fogging at all so it would appear I have managed to get rid of most of the moisture in my camera, and now I see my challenge as stopping it building up again.

I've made another interesting discovery in that regard. I've just subjected my DJI carry bag to the warm rice treatment, this time inside a large sealed bag. After only 10 minutes there was a large buildup of condensation on the inside of the plastic bag, and being sealed, the only place that water could have come from is the carry bag. It's basically a big sponge and I suspect much or all of the water in my camera got transferred in there from the carry bag while not in use.

So the last piece of my solution is to completely dry the carry bag by my now much liked warm rice method, and from now on I will be storing everything (drone, controller, phone, carry bag) inside the sealed bag with the rice, and every so often I'll repeat the heating of the rice to make sure it stays completely moisture free.

I really hope this helps others fix this rather ridiculous problem, as you can see it's been a very long and frustrating process for me. If reading this helps anyone else not waste their time going through the same trial and error process I did then I can feel happy I've done my bit for humanity.

 

[CarlStarke]

I think that has to be the most interesting post I have ever read.

 

[JSKCKNIT]

Have you tried a hair dryer?

That's what I would use to remove the dew from my telescope mirror before I got dew heaters.

 

[jimbob3job]

Have you tried a hair dryer?

That's what I would use to remove the dew from my telescope mirror before I got dew heaters.

I haven't tried a hair drier (I don't really have enough hair to justify owning one) but I'm pretty sure it would work just as well, a heat gun is essentially a turbo powered hair drier. The main problem here though is that moisture has infested the inside of the camera and even warming before flight to dissipate condensation is not enough to prevent the problem eventually starting during a 30m flight. Completely removing the moisture to 0% humidity inside the camera is really the only solution, hence the prolonged gentle warming and wicking effect of the rice (from my experience with this any direct heating of the camera itself with any sort of tool has always resulted in killing the camera).

 

[Robnoxious]

Glad you got it sorted.....first I have read of this problem. Note to self....do not drill camera.....

 

[dwolfe002]

My MaVic pro camera has a problem. It's fogging inside . I have tried placing it in temperature box blow it using hot air . Tried replacing a new camera. It was gone for sometime now it has come back . What to do

My brother does a lot of general photography and with a camera that cost as much as our drones do, he has to allow his camera to warm up or cool down to the outside temps, if there is a significant difference, prior to taking photos because of the humidity so I don't think this would be just a drone camera problem.

 

[Canuk]

I was having a fogging so I bought a new camera barrel. I found a supplier on flea bay that sells dji ones . I didn’t want copy cat parts .

 

[jimbob3job]

My brother does a lot of general photography and with a camera that cost as much as our drones do, he has to allow his camera to warm up or cool down to the outside temps, if there is a significant difference, prior to taking photos because of the humidity so I don't think this would be just a drone camera problem.

I understand why this solution is suggested so often, it makes sense that ambient levels of moisture inside a camera will condense on a cooler surface, and allowing the temperatures to equalise will prevent condensation with most photography equipment.

This does not work with the Mavic camera however, for two main reasons:

1. There is a miniscule volume of air inside the camera and relatively a far larger quantity of water, presumably liquid water progressively building up over time and being held within the material of the seal behind the circuit board.

2. When the camera is powered on the circuitry quickly heats up and evaporates much of that water into the tiny volume of air leading to probably 100% humidity inside, which is also then warmer than the outside air temperature and therefore also warmer than the glass on the front of the camera case. As we all know, warm moist air contacting a cooler surface = condensation.

This is exactly what I and everyone else that has this problem has described as far as I can tell. Shortly after powering on the fogging appears, and the fogging quickly dissipates immediately after powering off. The heat generated by the electronics inside the camera will always negate any temperature equalisation attempt as soon as the machine is switched on, which will always result in fogging unless all that moisture is first driven out of the camera.