You can survive water damage...

[Jack Daw]

You can usually get rubbing alcohol that's only 10% water, which in my experience is fine; but if you're worried about it, you can use Everclear, which is 95% alcohol (if they sell it in your state). For some reason, I've never had much luck with WD-40, though I know this is what it's made for. It always seems to gum things up a bit. You may have better luck than I do. Contact cleaner is great, too. Deoxit is the stuff I use for audio equipment and the like. Get the regular, though, not the gold: the latter leaves a film.

Also, my grocery store has some kind of iPhone drying kiosk thing. Don't know if it works, but might be worth a shot.

The most important thing is DON'T TURN IT ON UNTIL IT'S AS DRY AS IT CAN BE. You'll just short something out inside.

 

[CanadaDrone]

You can usually get rubbing alcohol that's only 10% water, which in my experience is fine; but if you're worried about it, you can use Everclear, which is 95% alcohol (if they sell it in your state).

You can actually buy 99% or 99.9% Isopropyl alcohol at places like Costco and Wal Mart, or a lot of drug stores have it too, it's just often kept behind the counter. This is in Canada, but I assume it's even easier to get in the USA.

 

[swooshdave]

Jack Daw noted using rubbing alcohol to help clean and start the drying process. My understanding is that rubbing alcohol is isopropyl alcohol in water. Uncertain of the ratio.

The ratios vary and will be marked on the bottle.

 

[Popemark3]

Was flying over a river and hit a twig... Spiralled into a river as i was holding her to go up and she shot out river just as she submerged. Went to take off as i grabbed her by the bottom and ripped her battery out.(sliced the **** out of me... Dont know where she was going) started it three times before drying..not bright i know.. Taken her apart and ran diagnosis.. Seems her camera is the only thing wrong (goes up and down when it likes) hope this helps. About 230 for the gimbal us.

 

[Pirates4ever]

I am not sure either, but I am planning on sending my Mavic Air to a company that coats entire bird minus the batteries. It would essentially be rated IP67 once done.

Where are you sending it?

 

[RobH2]

All the water around me is either salty or slightly salty. Since it appears you can recover from immersion in salt-free water, I wonder if you could recover from immersion in salty water if you went home and quickly dunked your drone in and out of a bathtub a few times to clear away the salt? I realize this is an extreme scenario. If it's not the water that really damages components but instead the corrosion, if you can get the salty water flushed out with fresh, then maybe do a diluted alcohol dunk so that drying is promoted with your hair dryer or desiccant, you might save one dunked in the ocean.

Has anyone had the unfortunate need to try something like this?

 

[AstroSurf]

Forget the rice people, go to your local hardware store and buy some desiccant/humidity control product, it's usually less than $20. Dri-Z-Air Refill Crystals (anhydrous calcium chloride) is what I use and it's the best consumer available product for removing water and humidity from any electronic device.

 

[oldcelt]

The DTJ Consulting experiment was interesting and I have, over the last ten years or so, dunked several mobile phones in water. Most of the advice given by DTJ Consulting I have followed almost exactly but purely by instinct although I should say I'm a professional engineer. However, in addition to the recommendations given by DTJ Consulting, I've simply buried the device in a container of silica gel for about 24 hours.

No controlled scientific data I admit but empiric data over the years has shown my method to be effective.

Muses: perhaps silica gel is prohibitively expensive in America compared to rice?

 

[Baz]

All the water around me is either salty or slightly salty. Since it appears you can recover from immersion in salt-free water, I wonder if you could recover from immersion in salty water if you went home and quickly dunked your drone in and out of a bathtub a few times to clear away the salt? I realize this is an extreme scenario. If it's not the water that really damages components but instead the corrosion, if you can get the salty water flushed out with fresh, then maybe do a diluted alcohol dunk so that drying is promoted with your hair dryer or desiccant, you might save one dunked in the ocean.

Has anyone had the unfortunate need to try something like this?

There is a very detailed video on YouTube from a guy whose drone was recovered after 3 weeks in saltwater...cant recall his name for a link, but the product he used was Saltaway....of course the battery was useless...but the drone flew perfectly again after very careful treatment.

 

[r_mark]

DJI puts a moisture sensitive sticker in their drones. Never try to send one in for any warranty issue even if it's months later and completely unrelated to the moisture. I flew through rain and my Mavic Pro's fan pulled the moisture in. Months later I had a gimbal issue. DJI (non) service opened it, saw the indicator, condemned it, sent a couple blurry pics of the indicator and a bill for $700 for a new body. (I did not have DJI care refresh)

 

[Rogat19]

Louis Rossman thinks it's a myth.

Considering he does board level repairs I think he may have a better insight into the matter. Rice doesn't get rid of corrosion.

Quite frankly I'd be too scared to fly a water damaged drone.

Fresh water does not create corrosion salt does also poster is not talking about moisture out of phone boards or whatever but the camera

 

[Rogat19]

DJI puts a moisture sensitive sticker in their drones. Never try to send one in for any warranty issue even if it's months later and completely unrelated to the moisture. I flew through rain and my Mavic Pro's fan pulled the moisture in. Months later I had a gimbal issue. DJI (non) service opened it, saw the indicator, condemned it, sent a couple blurry pics of the indicator and a bill for $700 for a new body. (I did not have DJI care refresh)

Did you tell them to get stuffed? I certainly would of if they didn’t ask my permission to action n expensive repair like that

 

[swb_mct]

Well, if it's fresh water...

I sunk my magic air into about three feet of (clear) river water (smart, huh?). It took me about 30-45 seconds to get it out of the water.

Very first thing: - Try to turn the battery off. Since it didn't in my case, a simpler solution: take it out (see later..)

Then - There's a lot of people on various forums saying the rice trick is a myth. I wonder if they've actually got any experience of this. Here's what I did. Firstly, having already taken the battery out, I got a hair dryer, and set it on its side, pointing at the drone from a reasonable distance. By this, I mean I could hold my hand in the air stream without it being painful in the least. Clearly you do not want to melt your drone. I let it run for half on hour or so on each side in turn. I set the thing upside down, I opened the port for the SD card and USB connector etc etc. After an hour or two of this, I put a fresh battery in and gave it a go. It worked for a short time but the sensor cameras were fogged up. Here's where the rice comes in - I wrapped the drone in a cloth (muslin/cheesecloth kind of thing) and then buried it in a bucket of rice. First put a layer of an inch or so into your container, then the drone, then cover it. The key is patience - 18 hours (for me) later, all that fogging that had been in the sensor lenses was gone. I fired it up, and, after calibrating the IMU, the obstacle sensors, & the compass, everything is fine. Except the battery that was in the machine when it got submerged...

But, I put that battery through the cloth and rice trick (for only about six hours) and it's now fine too.

I think the main things are:
Don't be an idiot like I was.
But, if you do have an accident, act as fast as you can - switch off/remove the battery, get blowing warm air at it/sink it into rice as soon as you can.

And good luck!

ps, I was fairly hopeful about the rice thing since my wife had fixed her iPhone some years ago after a trip into a kitchen sink full of water. Obviously the mavic is a different beast, but for sucking moisture out of confined quarters, rice really does do the job.

 

[swb_mct]

I have used used 92% isopropyl alcohol to flush out all sorts of submerged electronics. Its a fast solution unlike rice.

Isopropyl gets into all the hidden spots and mixes with an evaporates the water quickly . . helped with a heat source. Doesn't work if the water gets into the various layers of a display screen. Would this work with a Mavic ?

 

[Tony56]

I have saved several electronic items by putting them in a vacuum packed bag of rice....since before the smartphone days....one particular incidence comes to mind....when I dropped my " flip" cell phone in a creek while it was still powered on....I did not realize it was missing until 3 1/2 hours later. I had to backtrack to find my phone...I found it submerged in a creek and it had flipped open...when I reached into the water to pick it up...I hit the button on the side with my thumb and it displayed 9:30...I immediately took the battery out....when I got back home I put the phone in a bag with about 2 cups rice and vacuum sealed it....then opened it two days later and it worked fine....I have done this to a few phones and electronic items for other people...this has always worked for items which were done the same day...or within a few hours of the submersion...I must say however...it did not work for an iPod which came off someones armband into swimming pool only to be recovered a couple hours later....of which I was unable to apply the rice fix until until two days later.....and the outcome was as I expected...not working...

 

[RayOZ]

Here's an additional scientific study (not personal anecdote) that actually demonstrated that rice is one of the worst dessicants for water-logged devices:

Rice Myth Busted: New Study Proves Using Rice to Dry a Wet Phone Is Not Effective

“Evaluation of Rice as a Method of Drying Out Waterlogged Cell Phones,” - conducted by DTJ Consulting.

Hmm... report commissioned and paid for by a company that basically advice "Don't use rice, come to us instead". And the experimental setup seems a bit amateur. He placed the 'phone simulator' (not a real phone that was submerged in water) on top of the rice and close the lid. I think most people would cover the whole electronic device in rice, so he should've at least done that.

 

[newt2u]

Anyone ever think TekDry might have a vested interested in this myth busting? Rice does absorb water, the warmer the better. Rice will absorb over twice it weight of boiling water. The article made no mention of scientific method, e.g. how much rice at what temperature, etc.

However, without any salt in the water there is little damage that it will do in the absence of electricity, chips are passivated and completely sealed ditto for other devices. Most contacts on pcbs are gold except where soldered. Also without salt, water does not conduct electricity well. Resistance is proportional to area and inversely proportional to distance between contacts. Pure water is about 20 Mohm cm, i.e. two contacts 1cm^2 in area and 1cm apart, will have a resistance between them in pure water of 20 Mohm, very little current here for ~10 volt! River water brackish might be as low os 200 ohm cm and sea water 20 ohm cm. Tap water is between 1-5K ohm cm, so yes best think to do is rinse with as pure water as you can get then allow to dry in a warm dry atmosphere, it may take a long time but rest assured no damage is being done

I had a Quantum nova that took a dunk in our local river, was in the water for about 4 minutes before I found it, battery was removed, it was rinsed in tap water and allowed to dry naturally in my boiler room. I left it for a week and both battery and quad were fine.

 

[BlackRider]

Do not land on water! It's not amphibious...

 

[Owlpic]

Works on salt water damage too, and will eliminate prior corrosion.

Corrosion-X
Link: http://a.co/9LVNwQW

 

[fishelectronics]

Guys, it was a fun to read debates about the magic of this Chinese food on the tech forum!

Just buy this in advance if you plan fall down to the water and keep it in your Mavic's accessory case all the time.