Drone fallen in water: fresh water, sea water, and the hours that count
Fished out with a net, dripping. What happens next depends on the water, and on what you do within the hour.
A drone is full of unprotected electronics: main board, ESCs, gimbal, camera, sensors. Water gets in everywhere. What makes the difference is the water's conductivity and the time under power.
Right away
- Remove the battery immediately, without trying to switch the drone on.
- Remove the microSD card.
- Sea water: rinse the drone with fresh water (yes, really), shaking it to get the salt water out. Salt is worse than water.
- No hair dryer, no sun, no rice.
- Send or bring it the same day, battery separate, in a bag with the drone still damp rather than dried with the salt inside.
At the workshop
Complete strip-down, ultrasonic cleaning of every board, corrosion removal under the microscope, controlled drying. Then board-by-board testing: main board, ESCs, gimbal, camera. What is dead is replaced; what is saved is kept.
What you should know
Fresh water, within 24 hours, gives very good odds. Unrinsed sea water, after several days, often leaves an unrecoverable main board. In that case we tell you and you pay nothing. Sea-water damage is quoted after diagnosis, because only after cleaning do we know what survived.
A battery that has been in water must never be reused or recharged: we check it and, if necessary, recycle it.
Also worth reading
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“IMU error”, “compass interference”, drone sliding sideways in a hover: sometimes a calibration fixes everything, sometimes it is a sensor or a board. How we tell the difference.