So after 6 months, I finally had my 1st ever crash with my phantom 3 advanced... and it was unfortunately over water at a lake in my town. So at this moment, my precious baby sits at the bottom of a 25-35ft lake and I'm hoping to recover it somehow because I do have replacement insurance on it, but it must be recovered and sent in first. But I'm asking about metal, because in all my searches on how best to recover a water bound drone, I found a heavy duty marine magnet capable of lifting 80lbs, so im thinking if its that strong, surely it would be able to pick up a little 5lbs drone... provided that a phantom has at least a little bit of metal in it.

Sea Dog Retrieval Magnet


So my plan of retrieval(one of them) is to buy this heavy duty magnet, tie some strong rope to it, take my friends boat out, find the exact bottom of the lake, and just barely drag/skim the magnet around for quite a while, and just see what it picks up.


The only problem I see with this, is that I feel like the Phantom won't have much metal in it anyway, due to the compass being so sensative to metal. But if I have a strong magnet, maybe it just might pick up some part of it and hold it long enough to pull up the drone.

If anyone has any other decent ways of retrieval aside from scuba diving down there to look around, please let me know. I'd be happy to spend around $150 to get it back so I can claim the insurance, but I would just hate to spend another $800 on a new one.

I wonder if a go-pro's link to your phone would penetrate 25ft of water? Then you could search visually without using scuba. Or buy/hire a waterproof bullet cam.
Pay someone else to scuba? It would be the most efficient way I could think of, and 35ft is close to snorkeling depth for someone with a good set of lungs so very easy for scuba.

The only significant metal in a Phantom is in the motors, but they do have very strong neodymium magnets arranged around the outer casing of the motor. I cannot be certain, but you could always test the idea if you have the big magnet and can get someone else with a Phantom to trest it on. In any event, I think it has a good chance of working as the Phantom will be a little more boyant such that it does not have to lift the full weight.

sorry to hear about your loss Mr Smith how about a fishing rod with 5-10 hooks and drag the bottom
If you know the spot it went down just drag it with fishing line (gopro on a fishing line would be a good idea)

Toorboy Posted at 2016-5-18 16:12
sorry to hear about your loss Mr Smith how about a fishing rod with 5-10 hooks and drag the bottom
...

Thanks, that was the other idea i had.. i already made a DIY "grappling hook" with 4 hooks on it out of metal coat hanger ends and duct tapped them all together. I'm thinking about going to Bass Pro and getting one more three pronged hook and attaching it like 2-3 inches under the 1st one just for an extra grab. i have a feeling that would work if i drug it around enough, but the main thing going against me is that my friend believes the bottom of that lake is just all muck... so hopefully its just resting on top of it and hasnt sunk down into it.

Geebax Posted at 2016-5-18 15:58
The only significant metal in a Phantom is in the motors, but they do have very strong neodymium mag ...

Thanks for the reply! Yeah, i guess I could actually test it pretty easily.. haha i have a handful of friends with phantom 3s.

man! that sucs! Make sure u tell us how u managed! May help future users in same predicament!

Mr Smith Posted at 2016-5-20 03:14
Thanks, that was the other idea i had.. i already made a DIY "grappling hook" with 4 hooks on it o ...

Just be prepared if you drag up the odd mobster wearing concrete boots.

Very simple way to do this without messing with someone else's Phantom and possibly messing it up with a magnet.  "Someone" has a boat and a depth finder/fish finder.  Go look for it with that.  When a likely target is found, send the GoPro down and do some looking.  Then you aren't wasting your time trolling around dragging up bodies or '37 Chevys, etc.  Your flight record should show you very closely where it went down.

Mr Smith Posted at 2016-5-20 03:17
Thanks for the reply! Yeah, i guess I could actually test it pretty easily.. haha i have a handful ...

Your strong magnet will lock on to the magnets in the motors if you get it close enough.
The only other magnetic material in the Phantom are the small steel screws.
The motor housings are non-magnetic.

AG0N-Gary Posted at 2016-5-20 06:39
Very simple way to do this without messing with someone else's Phantom and possibly messing it up wi ...

Thanks Gary, we tried to dive for it on Monday with tanks and a metal detector and still had no luck because the visibility was absolutely terrible.. nearly pitch black once some of the silt on the bottom got stirred up. Luckily my dad has a good friend with a fishing boat and a depth finder as well as a large cast net. I think we're gonna try to go out on Friday and see if we can get it back, hopefully it's just sitting right on the bottom and we'll be able to see it with the depth finder and just go straight down from there with the dive tanks again. if not, we'll try the net..

I'll post a reply sometime this weekend and let you guys know how it went. Thanks for all the help!

As AGON-Gary has stated you wont be very popular with your friends if you expose their birds to a high powered magnet or any magnet come to that.

Yessss!!! We found it!!! Went out this morning with my dad and his friend and spent nearly an hour diving in murky water, just feeling around with our hands and feet and towards the end of my dads second tank, he came up out of the water holding it up like the Olympic torch! haha soo relieved that we actually found it and I don't have to spend another $800, now I just have to start the claims process with Drones Plus. Thanks everyone for any advice that you shared, from now on I'll definitely be using either a Getterback or some kind of floatation device for whenever I fly over water.

Mr Smith Posted at 2016-5-27 18:00
Yessss!!! We found it!!! Went out this morning with my dad and his friend and spent nearly an hour d ...

CONGRATS  glad you got it back!!!   What was the original cause of its swim?

memory cards hold up pretty well with water.   happen to get any videos from it?    also pics how it looks after its swim.  just curious

So happy to hear of the happy ending. Congrats, I would like to look into insurance. I've heard that State farms has a good policy for very cheap!

G_MEZ_G Posted at 2016-5-28 06:46
So happy to hear of the happy ending. Congrats, I would like to look into insurance. I've heard that ...

I actually bought my insurance at Drones Plus at the same time that I bought my Phantom. I am pretty certain their plans are setup through CPS(Consumer Priority Service), and its only coverage for repairs or replacement. Not like liability coverage for if you accidentally crash into someone else's property, I'm willing to bet that is the kind of insurance the State Farm is going to be offering. Either way, both are good to have.

quickpoint Posted at 2016-5-28 06:10
CONGRATS  glad you got it back!!!   What was the original cause of its swim?

memory cards hold up ...

Thanks, I'm so glad we found it! I think my biggest mistake was leaving the VPS on when I went flying low over the water.. I had just changed batteries(thankfully the one I lost wasn't the brand new one I had just bought the week before) so I think when I turned everything off then back on, it turned the VPS back on as well and I just forgot to turn it off again. But I was basically flying a few feet above the water and made sure I wasn't really low before I left the shoreline, but as I got further out, I think the VPS somehow brought it closer to the water, and as I was catching up to the boat I think one of the smaller waves from the boat caught me and just took it straight down. I was already going at least 30mph when it crashed, so I think it was a quick death

Yeah, most of those micro SD cards are waterproof, so I have all the footage that I shot that day as well as all my other stuff on that card, but the file of the crash video says its corrupted. I havent tried to play it yet on VLC, but maybe that will work... It would be interesting to see what hapened just after it hit. Here is an idea of what the lake looked like though and the spot I lost it had to be around 200ft straight out from that little bridge on the right.

Mr Smith Posted at 2016-5-28 16:58
Thanks, I'm so glad we found it! I think my biggest mistake was leaving the VPS on when I went fly ...

if the phantom wasn't dead you start up the drone and it can possible finish and fix the file.    don't really think it will be starting any time soon