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Need help with Mavic 2 Pro wet issue

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Jun 29, 2020
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Warrenton, OR
So like an idiot I flew my M2P into a very tall tree. I’m not a newbie so I have no excuse. Anyhow, it happened on Saturday, and today (Monday) I paid a tree guy to retrieve it. It “seems” to be intact...however, it got rained on last night. Obviously I won’t try to power it up until I know it’s completely dry. This is where I need some advice. How do I best ensure its dry inside and out? Put it in a container of rice? Buy some kind of desiccant? Blow it out with air? Thanks to you all in advance.
 
So like an idiot I flew my M2P into a very tall tree. I’m not a newbie so I have no excuse. Anyhow, it happened on Saturday, and today (Monday) I paid a tree guy to retrieve it. It “seems” to be intact...however, it got rained on last night. Obviously I won’t try to power it up until I know it’s completely dry. This is where I need some advice. How do I best ensure its dry inside and out? Put it in a container of rice? Buy some kind of desiccant? Blow it out with air? Thanks to you all in advance.

Skip the Rice Ect. Blow it out with air and let it dry for two days in a dry , fire lit room .
Skip the battery for now as that might be the only element compromised.

Put in the New battery and you should be ok, however because of the Crash itself you may end up getting some ESC errors and that will be a different story.

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly your Mavic 2 Pro in the Rain and Float on Water.
 
Drying it out is fine, but may do no long term good unless you dunk that sucker in distilled water. Really.

Distilled water is an insulator (doesn't conduct electricity). Rain water, on the other hand, due to all the contaminants it picks up from the air, including sulfur dioxide, is not and will conduct electricity shorting things and worse.

From the web, "Sulfur dioxide, SO2, is a colorless gas or liquid with a strong, choking odor. ... Sulfur dioxide dissolves easily in water to form sulfuric acid. Sulfuric acid is a major component of acid rain. Acid rain can damage forests and crops, change the acidity of soils, and make lakes and streams acidic and unsuitable for fish." Oh, and drones.

If you don't flush the drone with distilled water, the rain water will dry, leaving behind all the dissolved contaminants on the metallic portions of your drone (think connectors and circuit board traces etc). Humidity in the air will suffice to cause continuing electrolysis and galvanic corrosion.

I would first rinse thoroughly in fresh clean tap water - this should remove most of the bad stuff. Follow that with distilled water. Then shake to remove as much water as possible. Use a fan to direct air onto the front of the drone (air inlets). A warm air outlet from a heater is good (don't overheat). Time is your ally, don't power up until it is completely dry. Desiccant, silica gel, works a better than dry rice.
 
Well there you go, I learn something new about distilled water. When I was much younger than I am today, my dad told me to only put distilled water in the car battery, I knew about the contamination but not about the ions. Thank you for that.
 
There are instructional videos on drying out a drone using alcohol that you may want to consult.
 
So like an idiot I flew my M2P into a very tall tree. I’m not a newbie so I have no excuse. .. Put it in a container of rice? Buy some kind of desiccant? Blow it out with air? Thanks to you all in advance.
As you have seen, there are many opinions on this. I retrieved a Mavic Pro for a friend which sat for thee days in that constant sort of drizzly foggy rain one gets in northern Michigan in the fall. I put it in a very warm room for 24 hours. I sent it back to its owner, @RadioFlyerMan, who tore it down completely to inspect it. The gimbal ribbon needed to be replaced and that was it. Flies like a champ now.
My though is that immersion or full flush with distilled water might invade places which did not get wet in the rain.





 
The circuit boards do have a coating that provides some moisture resistance but there are many vulnerable areas.

Many have successfully recovered wet drones that continued to live so you have an excellent chance, particularly since it wasn't submerged.
 
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Drying it out is fine, but may do no long term good unless you dunk that sucker in distilled water. Really.

Distilled water is an insulator (doesn't conduct electricity). Rain water, on the other hand, due to all the contaminants it picks up from the air, including sulfur dioxide, is not and will conduct electricity shorting things and worse.

From the web, "Sulfur dioxide, SO2, is a colorless gas or liquid with a strong, choking odor. ... Sulfur dioxide dissolves easily in water to form sulfuric acid. Sulfuric acid is a major component of acid rain. Acid rain can damage forests and crops, change the acidity of soils, and make lakes and streams acidic and unsuitable for fish." Oh, and drones.

If you don't flush the drone with distilled water, the rain water will dry, leaving behind all the dissolved contaminants on the metallic portions of your drone (think connectors and circuit board traces etc). Humidity in the air will suffice to cause continuing electrolysis and galvanic corrosion.

I would first rinse thoroughly in fresh clean tap water - this should remove most of the bad stuff. Follow that with distilled water. Then shake to remove as much water as possible. Use a fan to direct air onto the front of the drone (air inlets). A warm air outlet from a heater is good (don't overheat). Time is your ally, don't power up until it is completely dry. Desiccant, silica gel, works a better than dry rice.

Unfortunately this is not the Best Advice when your dealing with just Rain Water.

Submersion in Distilled Water is much more geared towards those Drones that have fallen into a Salt Water Bath in the Ocean.


Rain Water is so less likely to do damage that you are always best to simply Dry the Drone and than get it Restarted.

The Reason why is that you may have a perfectly good drone that would start right up but after you give the Distilled Water Bath blow the ESC module and now you have to shell out $500 buck to replace that.

Both the ESC board on the Mavic 2 and Air 2 do not always take to the Bath well so because of this we advise
to Drench as the last Resort or if you know that Drone was in the Ocean.

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly your Mavic 2 in the Rain and Float on Water.
 
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I ran out of battery on my Mavic Mini a couple of weeks ago and couldn't find the drone. I went to try and find it straight away but couldn't. This week I went to have another search and found the little chap nestled in a hedge by a field. The rain and cold had been fairly awful for the 10 days he was outside. Luckily as the battery was at 0% when it went down there was no chance of power going through it. I took it home, took the battery out and sat it in front of a fan in a warm room for about 6 hours, then put it in a plastic container with rice and silica gel pouches (retrieved from other packages, thanks Amazon). 2 days later, after getting it outside, the thing flew but the camera misted up. Back in front of the fan for the day and voila, all back to normal. The battery is pretty well sealed and charged, after a 2 day wait, perfectly.
 
I had a similar experience recently. When I got home with the recovered drone (Mavic pro 1), I have removed the top cover and blew warm air on it, then let it sit for an hour. When I turned it on, it seemed to be working fine, as it did its normal start up routine, but it was not able to connect to my RC (yellow fast flashing light in the back). I have tried to switch it to wi-fi, but still nogo. I suspect maybe the microswitch RC-wifi could be corroded. Anyway, I hope you are able to repair yours. If anybody has an idea what's wrong with mine, I'll appreciate any comments.
 
I guess drying for just hours is not sufficient. In my opinion should be drying for at least 2 days to make sure everything is completely dry.
 
-UPDATE-
After several attempts, I have tried a complete reset using DJI assistant. When connecting the drone via USB, the Assistant wouldn't detect it, but something happened. The fast yellow flashing light (indicating there was no connection), flashed red once. So I turned on the RC and there was a connection ! All I need to do now, change the damaged blades and give it a try outside. There is hope !
 
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