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Mavic Air crashed and got some water damage

ljoh

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Hey all,

I flew my Mavic Mini and made some stupid mistake and the drone crashed in a puddle of water. Fresh but not clean. It didn't get fully submerged but got some water on the electronics.
So i took out the battery and let it the drone dry off. Later I rinced with alchohol and did a thorugh clean with a soft brush.
There was some noticable blackness to be seen on some parts of the circuitboard that I managed to get clean.

So when trying to fly now there are a few different things happening.

When i start up everything seems fine. But after some a few seconds the LEDs at the back will turn red and I get errror 30064 (Unable to take off). Also LED under the drone no. 3 and 4 blink tree times. When swithing the drone off again there is no off sound and the LEDs do not go from 4 to 1. If I leave the drone on for a few minutes the alarm can dissapear and I'm able to fly. If I hurry to get it off the ground everything seems normal and the drone flies perfectly. And the drone works fine with the green blink and it works perfectly. But after a few minutes the LEDs' turn red in the air. But no alarm will show up until I land. Then I need to power off/on the drone to get off the ground again or wait until the alarm goes away.

Any idea what can be the problem. Is there anything that can be done to save it?

Kind regards,
 
Hey all,

I flew my Mavic Mini and made some stupid mistake and the drone crashed in a puddle of water. Fresh but not clean. It didn't get fully submerged but got some water on the electronics.
So i took out the battery and let it the drone dry off. Later I rinced with alchohol and did a thorugh clean with a soft brush.
There was some noticable blackness to be seen on some parts of the circuitboard that I managed to get clean.

So when trying to fly now there are a few different things happening.

When i start up everything seems fine. But after some a few seconds the LEDs at the back will turn red and I get errror 30064 (Unable to take off). Also LED under the drone no. 3 and 4 blink tree times. When swithing the drone off again there is no off sound and the LEDs do not go from 4 to 1. If I leave the drone on for a few minutes the alarm can dissapear and I'm able to fly. If I hurry to get it off the ground everything seems normal and the drone flies perfectly. And the drone works fine with the green blink and it works perfectly. But after a few minutes the LEDs' turn red in the air. But no alarm will show up until I land. Then I need to power off/on the drone to get off the ground again or wait until the alarm goes away.

Any idea what can be the problem. Is there anything that can be done to save it?

Kind regards,

The blackness would concern me. Was it black over a general area, or was it more like a localized path? How soon after letting it dry out did you rinse the circuit board with alcohol? If it was soon afterward, the blackness might be an indication that there was an unwanted current path that created a carbon trail. If it was longer period of time afterward, the blackness could indicate some sort of corrosion. Neither would be good for the drone.

The fact that the drone works OK after the drone is on for a few minutes makes me suspect that something gets warm and maybe dries off whatever is either still wet or is in some other way conductive.

If it is possible to open the battery case I would check that out as well. There may be some wetness or even corrosion in there, and to be honest, without knowing more about the situation I would suspect that to be the more likely problem.

If the battery is OK I would go back and carefully clean the circuit board again. If there are any connectors, make sure the contacts didn't get corroded.

Do the props spin freely by hand? Make sure no dirt or debris is stuck in the motors. If one of the motors is even slightly slowed down by gunk the control circuitry will sense the extra current draw and will complain about it.

I worked as both an engineer and a manager in the electronics business (semiconductor manufacturing) for almost 35 years and while circuit boards don't like water at all, most electronic components can survive a dip in the water and will work fine once dried and cleaned. The concern is that some components could be permanently damaged by the power being still on while the circuit board was wet and presumably dirty (unwanted current paths), and some components (adjustable coils, adjustable resistors, etc) can be pretty difficult to clean and even dry. It doesn't help that some of the electronic devices in a drone operate at essentially microwave frequencies, which are a lot more unforgiving than for power control circuits.

Best of luck!
 
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Greetings welcome to the forum! Sounds like some of the electronic components got damaged.
 
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