Help. Water Damage.

[Ian [P13]]

I did this chart a while ago to explain the flight modes, you can understand why I chose the image I did for Acro...

 

[Trevor]

I did this chart a while ago to explain the flight modes, you can understand why I chose the image I did for Acro...

View attachment 911

ahahah

 

[Trevor]

UPDATE: Everything had been sitting since early last saturday, so i thought it was time to test. unfortunately there is still an issue. solo "turns on" however the normal chime (during diag) does not complete and does two low dings. solo also only keeps the leds in green. i called support and they suggested to remove the motors to see if thats the issue. unfortunately the same thing. so i believe its something internal. at this point i guess the only option is to send it back from Toronto to California for further investigation. does anyone have any experience with this at all with 3dr? i am thinking i would have to pay for the replacement item(s) or a new solo just by itself? thanks to everyone for the input.

Trevor

 

[Ian [P13]]

First thing, do you have house contents insurance which you can try claiming on?

Can you post a YouTube video of what you're seeing just in case we can suggest which component is causing the failure?

 

[Ian [P13]]

If it's a serious fault 3DR are likely to suggest selling you a refurb Solo, if it's serious save yourself the shipping cost of sending the dead one in and see what deal they can do on just replacing the Solo.

 

[Trevor]

First thing, do you have house contents insurance which you can try claiming on?

Can you post a YouTube video of what you're seeing just in case we can suggest which component is causing the failure?

i do, but for something like this i dont think its worth claiming. i can post a video after work this evening.

 

[Trevor]

If it's a serious fault 3DR are likely to suggest selling you a refurb Solo, if it's serious save yourself the shipping cost of sending the dead one in and see what deal they can do on just replacing the Solo.

i may do that. issue is that it could be something small or not right. i wonder what a new solo by itself would be?

 

[Ian [P13]]

i may do that. issue is that it could be something small or not right. i wonder what a new solo by itself would be?

Whatever is it, I bet it's cheaper than the cost of a Pixhawk 2, main board and Sololink bought separately... (albeit they don't yet even sell these seperately).

 

[Trevor]

what about electrical contact cleaner? alot of people recommend high % iso alcohol. if that doesnt work im sending it to california.

 

[Dunginhawk]

I had a similar issue... i got it back to 100% perfect working condition after a water crash water/mud

 

[Trevor]

I had a similar issue... i got it back to 100% perfect working condition after a water crash water/mud

do you mind sharing your story? i am still throwing an error message. i am going to try and use some electrical contact cleaner before i send it off.

 

[Trevor]

UPDATE: The electrical contact cleaner seems to have allowed the solo to restart again after cleaning all the plugs. i havent had much time at all to test but i noticed in the two min i did that it was taking alot longer than the already long time to find satelites on gps. will decide after the results this weekend whether i send it in or not.

 

[jhbass]

Stumbled across this thread after pulling an involuntary Captain Sully w/my Solo this AM but instead of birds I thought that I could clear some treetops. I had to wade out in chest deep water (3 times!) in order to recover it, the water mind you was probably in the upper 30Fs to low 40Fs and the ambient temperature was 42F this AM. But "luckily" it went down close to shore and I saw it go down but the water wasn't very clear and I as walked through it I would stir up silt and then I could see nothing. By the 3rd time I was beginning to contemplate just leaving it there but I knew it was there and I wasn't leaving without it. I had taken off my shoes and was in my socks (so my feet wouldn't get cold which didn't matter because I couldn't feel my toes after a couple of mins). I started feeling around with my foot and was able to find it. I pulled the battery out while I was still in the water and started to make my walk of shame back to the car (thankfully no one was around to witness my shame and embarrassment).

While it seemed like it was submerged forever it was only in the water for a few minutes; one prop was gone, another was broken and other than that there wasn't any other physical damage. As soon as I got home I pulled the gimbal off and started into it w/a blowdryer. After a few mins of that and after I showered (hot) and threw it all back into the car ad went to the local hobby shop and got some
Performance Plus 4 motor spray and gave everything a could spray right there on the spot. Then I sprayed everything again after about 30 mins. Once I got home I removed the GPS and battery cover and sprayed everything again. I removed the copper GPS shield and sprayed the GPS unit, after it dried I reassembled it w/a small piece of cardboard btw the antenna and the shield. Sprayed the GoPro down and threw that into a Ziploc bag w/some rice.

The battery is shot as far as I am concerned and I ordered another this AM, I've been meaning to get a couple of extra ones but I am going to wait until I am certain that this thing flies OK after this little mishap. Once it arrives my plan is to just let it hover until the battery is almost dead. I'll do that at least a few times and if I can come up w/a say to safely tether it I'll do that so it doesn't freak out and fly off on me.

The new battery won't be here for about a week so in the mean time I'm just going to let it sit over a furnace vent. If we make it through this I'll christen it "Zombie".

On a serious note; if there is anything that I should do that I haven't done please let me know.

Thanks!

 

[vmaniqui]

good call. i will do just that. thanks for the info.

patience is a virtue......

 

[Hefe33]

Rice is a myth

I run a business repairing computers and Cell phones (17 years as of tomorrow :yay: )
Rice can not magically remove the minerals left behind by the water that was in your devices

Please do not propagate the myth about Rice

this website does a decent job explaining the myth and why it really is a silly effort

Rice is for dinner, not saving electronics.

Rice can ONLY dry water .. (and it does a poor job at that)
Water can not hurt electronics
the minerals in the water do the damage.. not the water itself
pure (distilled) water doesn't even conduct electricity
so if you dry the water, the bad stuff remains... and shorts out the components

99% Isopropyl Alcohol is a great way to clean all that gunk off
and it helps displace the residual water.

the "correct way" is to FULLY DISSASSEMBLE it and get the board in an ultrasonic cleaner
with a mixture of distilled water and Branson EC (electronic cleaner)
then submerge in Alcohol, then FULLY DRY


there are all sorts of nerdy reasons why rice doesn't work... but rest assured it does not repair damaged electronics

 

[Eric Sheehan]

I quarantined mine (the disassembled parts) after dumping it in the swimming pool, in a large Tupperware like container with a drying agent purchased from Lowes. Everything did recover, less one motor pod, but I did not open the box for about 7 days. Gimbal works to this day, mishap was over a year ago.

 

[Hefe33]

for anyone interested...
there is a guy on YouTube that explains it pretty well

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louis is very knowledgeable when it comes to this stuff

moral of the story, if rice (or a drying agent) "fixed" your problem... you didn't have a problem

edit:
he swears alot

 

[Hefe33]

I think I'd like to have a look at someone's water damaged solo main board..
sourcing bad parts might be a pain, but I deal with MUCH smaller electronics repair daily

 

[Cansolo]

Hey guys,

So I did the same thing yesterday at my cottage, landing on the dock the solo was wandering quite a bit and assume due to not enough satellites, anyway it bounced off the dock Into the lake, was in there for maybe 3 mins, go pro hero 4 works fine thank god, dried it first with a hairdryer,

So I also have the same 4 green light issue with abnormal chime when turned on,

So having said all that i have a spare solo that I crashed heavy after a fly away, are there parts I can swap from the crashed one to this one if it doesn't sort itself out, the crached ones internal parts are all fine, just the plastic housing is destroyed,

I'm going to dry drying and spraying like mentioned above as well first but wanted to ask if it's a big and hard job to start swapping parts like the main board or whatever,

Thanks in advance for any suggestions

 

[Cansolo]

Hey guys,

So I did the same thing yesterday at my cottage, landing on the dock the solo was wandering quite a bit and assume due to not enough satellites, anyway it bounced off the dock Into the lake, was in there for maybe 3 mins, go pro hero 4 works fine thank god, dried it first with a hairdryer,

So I also have the same 4 green light issue with abnormal chime when turned on,

So having said all that i have a spare solo that I crashed heavy after a fly away, are there parts I can swap from the crashed one to this one if it doesn't sort itself out, the crached ones internal parts are all fine, just the plastic housing is destroyed,

I'm going to dry drying and spraying like mentioned above as well first but wanted to ask if it's a big and hard job to start swapping parts like the main board or whatever,

Thanks in advance for any suggestions