I would like to share my full story of my mavic incident.
So I went to the beach and tried to use mavic for fishing(bait droppng). First attempt was successful I also caught a fish but small one . Second attempt, disaster happend. I was not paying attention to the remaining fishing line so the mavic hit the limit of the fishing line and yanked. And the mavic dived into ocean.
At this point I thought I lost the mavic but luckily the fishing line was coiled on the one of the motor so at least I could reel in the dead mavic .
As you may know salt water for electro ics are death sentance.
But I just could not give up.
First I got out the battery and props.
I had access to tap water 5 min away.
So I dipped Mavic in the tap water and gently shook out all the debris got inside as much as i could. Probably I dragged mavic on the sea bed when I was reeling in. Also inside the motor there were fine sand grits thats blocking the motor turning.
After this, 30 min driving close to my house I went to coin car wash where I could use compressed air. I blew in air every single hole on the mavic. Especially the vents behind the gimbal and rear.
Went to home, turned on Youtube and searched teardown guide for the Mavic.
I disassembled every single part that youtube shows. And washed them with alcohol.(I was not able to get waterless alcohol locally so I used one that inludes water.)
PCBs.
Using small spoid , gently washed out pcbs. And also gave some soft brushing and rinsing with alcohol. After this I used hair dryer to dry them out.
Important part of it is you need to take apart metal covers on the core board, wifi module, esc board and gps module. Especially, I gave good cleaning for the connectors(they get rusted easily)
Put every part infront of dehumidifier(I live in S.Korea and in summer it gets very humid so luckily I had it. Also sorry if my English is not good enough to understand.. not my primary language.) for about three hours. This dehumidifier delivers mild heat also so it works perfect when drying electronics.
Gimbal
Just poured alcohol all over and dried out. disassembled the PCB and did same thing. Also for the connectors. Camera itself was pretty much water tight so there was not much to do.
However for gimbal motor connectors, I gave same treatment.
Battery
Very challenging to disassemble the battery pack.
But when I disassembled, I immediately noticed the battery is no good. (signs of really bad chemical reactions). I disposed it properly.
Motors
Not much I could do besides pouring alcohol.
But I had to disassemble the front leg to clean out where the antenna and LEDs are hidden
Outershell
With bigger brush soaked with alcohol, gave gently brushing all over.
After three hours(I am not so patient), assembled everything and put in fully charged battery that was not submerged.
Turned on, leds blinked (good sign) and I got the camera signal.
But there was esc status error.(with no motor error)
Googled and I noticed that the ESC is most vulnerable part when you crash in water or the motor is obstructed.
So I purchased ESC board from Aliexpress.
When the package was arrived I disassembled the mavic once again and started to replacing ESC board.
Before all the soldering begin, I painted all PCB components with nail varnish except for connectors (I found the nail polish is not conductive and good with heat)
And assembled everything. Before putting top cover, sprayed thin layer of silicone coating(Wurth).
Turned on, everything works just as usual.
I am flying this thing for about total 20 flights and working as usual.
But I will try not to fly this thing over people or cars because I only trust 90% of it...
Anyway, it survived!
So I went to the beach and tried to use mavic for fishing(bait droppng). First attempt was successful I also caught a fish but small one . Second attempt, disaster happend. I was not paying attention to the remaining fishing line so the mavic hit the limit of the fishing line and yanked. And the mavic dived into ocean.
At this point I thought I lost the mavic but luckily the fishing line was coiled on the one of the motor so at least I could reel in the dead mavic .
As you may know salt water for electro ics are death sentance.
But I just could not give up.
First I got out the battery and props.
I had access to tap water 5 min away.
So I dipped Mavic in the tap water and gently shook out all the debris got inside as much as i could. Probably I dragged mavic on the sea bed when I was reeling in. Also inside the motor there were fine sand grits thats blocking the motor turning.
After this, 30 min driving close to my house I went to coin car wash where I could use compressed air. I blew in air every single hole on the mavic. Especially the vents behind the gimbal and rear.
Went to home, turned on Youtube and searched teardown guide for the Mavic.
I disassembled every single part that youtube shows. And washed them with alcohol.(I was not able to get waterless alcohol locally so I used one that inludes water.)
PCBs.
Using small spoid , gently washed out pcbs. And also gave some soft brushing and rinsing with alcohol. After this I used hair dryer to dry them out.
Important part of it is you need to take apart metal covers on the core board, wifi module, esc board and gps module. Especially, I gave good cleaning for the connectors(they get rusted easily)
Put every part infront of dehumidifier(I live in S.Korea and in summer it gets very humid so luckily I had it. Also sorry if my English is not good enough to understand.. not my primary language.) for about three hours. This dehumidifier delivers mild heat also so it works perfect when drying electronics.
Gimbal
Just poured alcohol all over and dried out. disassembled the PCB and did same thing. Also for the connectors. Camera itself was pretty much water tight so there was not much to do.
However for gimbal motor connectors, I gave same treatment.
Battery
Very challenging to disassemble the battery pack.
But when I disassembled, I immediately noticed the battery is no good. (signs of really bad chemical reactions). I disposed it properly.
Motors
Not much I could do besides pouring alcohol.
But I had to disassemble the front leg to clean out where the antenna and LEDs are hidden
Outershell
With bigger brush soaked with alcohol, gave gently brushing all over.
After three hours(I am not so patient), assembled everything and put in fully charged battery that was not submerged.
Turned on, leds blinked (good sign) and I got the camera signal.
But there was esc status error.(with no motor error)
Googled and I noticed that the ESC is most vulnerable part when you crash in water or the motor is obstructed.
So I purchased ESC board from Aliexpress.
When the package was arrived I disassembled the mavic once again and started to replacing ESC board.
Before all the soldering begin, I painted all PCB components with nail varnish except for connectors (I found the nail polish is not conductive and good with heat)
And assembled everything. Before putting top cover, sprayed thin layer of silicone coating(Wurth).
Turned on, everything works just as usual.
I am flying this thing for about total 20 flights and working as usual.
But I will try not to fly this thing over people or cars because I only trust 90% of it...
Anyway, it survived!
