Stupidity and Redemption; Tree’ed then Freed

[HawkDriver]

After a week of family in town for Xmas I needed some alone time so I took my M2P out for a flight. Batteries charged and bag packed, jumped into the truck to find something interesting. Long story short: after flying around for about 15 min I stupidly switched into sport mode and did a vertical takeoff. After what I visually thought was an appropriate altitude for transition to forward flight, I promptly clipped a few branches of nearby trees and sent the acft sputtering and spinning into the treeline. It managed to hook itself on a branch by a front leg about 30’ off the ground. I tried everything I could think of, short of squirreling my non-tree-climbing butt up the side of a 40 ft cedar. No dice. Light fading and rain approaching, I had to leave it in the tree overnight. After reading a few things on this site I came up with my plans. Next morning I went to walmart to purchase:

Slingshot, weights, fishing line, 550 cord. Plan was to shoot a line into the tree then shake or pull to free the drone. By this point I figured the acft was toast but DJI needs the corpse in order to resurrect or replace.



Fishing line and 550 lines created with weights attached.

Made my way back out, and was quickly able to get the fishing line up and over the appropriate branch. A bit of shaking and pulling and the drone was free of the branch. As a bonus, it actually shook ONTO the fishing line so was able to safely lower it instead of sending it crashing down. Close inspection later in the day showed minimal superficial scratches and one cracked blade. The acft is resting comfortably in a ziploc bag with a cup of rice, just in case there was any water intrusion. Will give it a full systems check in a few days to see if it needs work or replacement. Needless to say, my drone kit now has a few more additions: Slingshot drone-recovery tools, and common sense.

 

[dirkclod]

Glad you got it down and with any luck it will be fine when
you check it out. I would keep a eye on the battery and be sure it don’t swell.

 

[Camino Ken]

After a week of family in town for Xmas I needed some alone time so I took my M2P out for a flight. Batteries charged and bag packed, jumped into the truck to find something interesting. Long story short: after flying around for about 15 min I stupidly switched into sport mode and did a vertical takeoff. After what I visually thought was an appropriate altitude for transition to forward flight, I promptly clipped a few branches of nearby trees and sent the acft sputtering and spinning into the treeline. It managed to hook itself on a branch by a front leg about 30’ off the ground. I tried everything I could think of, short of squirreling my non-tree-climbing butt up the side of a 40 ft cedar. No dice. Light fading and rain approaching, I had to leave it in the tree overnight. After reading a few things on this site I came up with my plans. Next morning I went to walmart to purchase: View attachment 89112

Slingshot, weights, fishing line, 550 cord. Plan was to shoot a line into the tree then shake or pull to free the drone. By this point I figured the acft was toast but DJI needs the corpse in order to resurrect or replace.

View attachment 89113

Fishing line and 550 lines created with weights attached.

Made my way back out, and was quickly able to get the fishing line up and over the appropriate branch. A bit of shaking and pulling and the drone was free of the branch. As a bonus, it actually shook ONTO the fishing line so was able to safely lower it instead of sending it crashing down. Close inspection later in the day showed minimal superficial scratches and one cracked blade. The acft is resting comfortably in a ziploc bag with a cup of rice, just in case there was any water intrusion. Will give it a full systems check in a few days to see if it needs work or replacement. Needless to say, my drone kit now has a few more additions: Slingshot drone-recovery tools, and common sense.

I really like the creative solution. I think a lot of folks that have posted on this site might have used your solution to recover what they claimed was stuck to high up to retrieve. Good job!

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

Tree'ed . . . a new word for the drone pilots vocabulary.
Glad your idea worked, it's been done before with various results.

If the rice start sprouting green buds, take the drone out, it's done.

 

[Thomas B]

After a week of family in town for Xmas I needed some alone time so I took my M2P out for a flight. Batteries charged and bag packed, jumped into the truck to find something interesting. Long story short: after flying around for about 15 min I stupidly switched into sport mode and did a vertical takeoff. After what I visually thought was an appropriate altitude for transition to forward flight, I promptly clipped a few branches of nearby trees and sent the acft sputtering and spinning into the treeline. It managed to hook itself on a branch by a front leg about 30’ off the ground. I tried everything I could think of, short of squirreling my non-tree-climbing butt up the side of a 40 ft cedar. No dice. Light fading and rain approaching, I had to leave it in the tree overnight. After reading a few things on this site I came up with my plans. Next morning I went to walmart to purchase: View attachment 89112

Slingshot, weights, fishing line, 550 cord. Plan was to shoot a line into the tree then shake or pull to free the drone. By this point I figured the acft was toast but DJI needs the corpse in order to resurrect or replace.

View attachment 89113

Fishing line and 550 lines created with weights attached.

Made my way back out, and was quickly able to get the fishing line up and over the appropriate branch. A bit of shaking and pulling and the drone was free of the branch. As a bonus, it actually shook ONTO the fishing line so was able to safely lower it instead of sending it crashing down. Close inspection later in the day showed minimal superficial scratches and one cracked blade. The acft is resting comfortably in a ziploc bag with a cup of rice, just in case there was any water intrusion. Will give it a full systems check in a few days to see if it needs work or replacement. Needless to say, my drone kit now has a few more additions: Slingshot drone-recovery tools, and common sense.

Congrats on your ingenuity and the recovery of your drone! Love happy endings.

 

[bumper]

Whenever you get water in an electrical device, it is always a good idea to flush thoroughly with distilled water. Drone goes in the drink, get it out ASAP, remove battery, submerge drone and flush with distilled water. Then thoroughly dry.

Distilled water is an insulator, it does not conduct electricity. When water contains impurities, (rain has all manner of impurities, including acid), the water will conduct electricity, behaving as an electrolyte. Electrolytic Corrosion (Electrolysis) occurs when metals are in the presence of an electrolyte, such as water (moisture) containing very small amounts of acid. The dissimilar metals set up a galvanic action which results in the deterioration of one of them. This does not require a battery be connected to occur, however, the difference in potential caused by a battery will greatly accelerate the corrosion, even between same or similar metals, such as the traces on circuit boards, etc.

Drying can be accomplished by moving dry air (fan), heat, as in placing device on an open oven door set on low (check to make sure it doesn't get too warm, or by using a desiccant (silica gel or dry rice).

If a drone gets dunked in salt water, unless you have distilled water on hand, and enough of it to throughly rinse at least a couple of times, it's probably advisable to rinse in tap water immediately, follow that with a distilled water rinse when available. If you skip the distilled water step, the drying tap water will leave trace impurities behind. Humidity in the air will then promote corrosion over time.

 

[DanMan32]

OP's AC wasn't submerged but rather exposed to some rain. The boards do have coatings on them so between that and only partial to no internal exposure to water, the AC and even battery should be OK.