Hi every body.
I bought my drone 2 weeks ago. This is my first ever drone.
I started flying it over my villa at a rural area. It is a fun drone to fly with.
Last Thursday I tried to fly in a very dens jungle over a small and narrow river. I flew it too far and the image transfer signal was suddenly lost.
I know I made a foolish mistake, and I almost lost it.
Using the last recoeded gameball view before crash, I went after the drone with very little hope to find it, and I found it under water. Its green light LED was on!
After recovering the drone I detached the battery and tried to dry it by a hair dryer. Then I put it above the heating radiator overnight to dry off completely.
In the morning, I put the battery back and turned it on. Unbeleievable! it was working again. Then I flew it for a few minutes to make sure it is really ok.
It seems it is ok. My AVATA truley survived a fatal ceash into water, and even survived being over 20 minutes under water. It is complete chance or it is really water resistant, altough DJI says it is not Water-Proof.

I checked the SD card and found out it had recorder 4 separate videos of almost 5 minutes under water!
AVATA is really durable and good! Thanks  DJI.

Problem is you now don’t know if that water will create corrosion over time and one day you’ll be flying it and it will fall from the sky.   Potentially a ticking time bomb now and certainly something that shouldn’t be flown near people.  

DAFlys Posted at 10-21 05:16
Problem is you know don’t know if that water will create corrosion over time and one day you’ll be flying it and it will fall from the sky.   Potentially a ticking time bomb now and certainly something that shouldn’t be flown near people.

Thank you Captain for your comment. I will be careful.

True pay attantion, corrosion is right around the corner. Good you could recover it.

Hi there. Thank you for reaching out and we're deeply sorry for the incident that happened to your unit. We're glad that you managed to retrieve your unit after the unfortunate accident. If you experience some issues with the unit, please don't hesitate to reach us. Thank you for your valued support.

ARYA68 Posted at 10-21 05:20
Thank you Captain for your comment. I will be careful.

I would definitely disassemble the most of aircraft that your knowledge lets you and check all parts, because rest assure you will have corrosion problems later on, there is sprays for electronics that will repel moisture, google - Spray Lubricant - Corrosion Inhibitor - Electrical Contact Cleaner Spray - Rust Prevention

HDPS Posted at 10-22 19:46
I would definitely disassemble the most of aircraft that your knowledge lets you and check all parts, because rest assure you will have corrosion problems later on, there is sprays for electronics that will repel moisture, google - Spray Lubricant - Corrosion Inhibitor - Electrical Contact Cleaner Spray - Rust Prevention

Thank you dear HDPS for your valuable advice. I will do it ASAP.

DJI Paladin Posted at 10-21 20:50
Hi there. Thank you for reaching out and we're deeply sorry for the incident that happened to your unit. We're glad that you managed to retrieve your unit after the unfortunate accident. If you experience some issues with the unit, please don't hesitate to reach us. Thank you for your valued support.

Thank you dear Paladin.
I bought the unit from DUBAI, but I am using it in IRAN. I would appreciate if you would inform me of your authorized service agent in IRAN, if any.

I had to do this once on a cell phone... Android S7
Remove battery and submerge / splash around a bit it in distilled or deionized water to eliminate the possibility of corrosion. I used a bag of white rice for 2 days and the phone came out OK and lasted me another 2 years. (Be careful with hair dryers or any heaters (use on low) as this could loosen solder points.)

Good to know that there is hope after the splash... I almost lost mine in the water yesterday.

ARYA68 Posted at 10-23 23:48
Thank you dear Paladin.
I bought the unit from DUBAI, but I am using it in IRAN. I would appreciate if you would inform me of your authorized service agent in IRAN, if any.

Thank you for your response. Unfortunately, we don't have an authorized service center in Iran. You can contact our support team to start up a ticket at https://www.dji.com/support . They will provide you with further information on how to send the unit to us. Thank you!

HDPS Posted at 10-22 19:46
I would definitely disassemble the most of aircraft that your knowledge lets you and check all parts, because rest assure you will have corrosion problems later on, there is sprays for electronics that will repel moisture, google - Spray Lubricant - Corrosion Inhibitor - Electrical Contact Cleaner Spray - Rust Prevention

Before a deep disassembly, watch this teardown tutorial and prepare thermal paste too:

celltx Posted at 10-25 11:50
Before a deep disassembly, watch this teardown tutorial and prepare thermal paste too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g0nJQeuIU0

Hi dear Celltx. Thank you for sharing this piec of information.

Mat8861 Posted at 10-21 14:20
True pay attantion, corrosion is right around the corner. Good you could recover it.

Hi Mat8861. Thank you for your comment.

Bob Brown Posted at 10-24 09:41
I had to do this once on a cell phone... Android S7
Remove battery and submerge / splash around a bit it in distilled or deionized water to eliminate the possibility of corrosion. I used a bag of white rice for 2 days and the phone came out OK and lasted me another 2 years. (Be careful with hair dryers or any heaters (use on low) as this could loosen solder points.)

Hi Bob.
Thank you for your advice. I Openned the cove rof the below sensors that contain some of the electronic parts. I didn't see any sign of rust, corrosion, or any solid residue of water or any sediment. Maybe the water my drone was crashed into,  was from a spring origin that has very pure. I am going to disassemble the remaining parts to see if there is anything to worry about.

Probably should suspend sales until it's resolved.

celltx Posted at 10-25 11:50
Before a deep disassembly, watch this teardown tutorial and prepare thermal paste too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g0nJQeuIU0

THANK YOU VERY MUCH. that was very helpful.

I had similar accident a week ago, flew above a quite narrow river and bashed the drone into a branch and then I panicked and ended up in the bottom of the river

I managed to dive it out, was underwater for about 15 minutes and now I'm repairing it, that Madstech video is really helpful!

The esc board was fryed and I've replaced that and the engines. Took apart/dryed/cleaned everything with electric sprays and got it to fly but the camera/gimbal is not working at all so I'll replace them soon. Only thing I'd like to know if there's a spare cpu/pcb chip available for consumers or not but I can't start a thread because I'm still too new in this forum

Hi,

If its been in water then i would defiantly tear it down or return it to DJI for inspection. Corrosion takes time and gradually gets worse, and eventually something may fail which could end up the avata falling out of the sky, and a post will appear i did nothing wrong it just lost connection.....

If you do decide to tear it down, make sure you have access to a digital microscope to look under the chips and around all components to make sure there is the corrosion process has started. Use Isopropyl Rubbing Alcohol 99.9% and a soft toothbrush is best. And clean all boards thoroughly. That's if you are comfortable doing it.

PS salt water is alot worse for corrision than fresh water, they are both not good for electronics, if its working now then a good clean up may work long term. if it was salt water i would just return it without question...  

Hope this helps

Thanks
Ian

I've experienced the same incident and while everything seemed fine afterwhile, the battery slowly started to throw random error messages and became absolutely unreliable and had to be disposed.