Hi
I am awaiting the arrival of my 2nd hand Phantom 3 Adv.
I am most likely to be flying in coastal regions so have a few questions relatng to water.
1) If the drone goes into water is there any sacrificail component that will burn out or fuse etc. to protect the remainder of the drone? ........A Nokia phone cooked an SMD in the battery (fresh water) but after drying the phone itself was fine

2) If not, will immersion be lethal for the drone, especially salt water immersion? .............I have seen mention of some drones survivng dips into fresh water but I have not seen mention of proper immersions. Assuming I could recover the drone I would immediately pull the battery and strip and dry the drone for several days. I have seen mention of the camera and gimbal survivng immersion but needing to be thorough dried out before use etc.
3) Is the camera itself water tight?
4) From youtube videos it appears the drone will sink, would there be a problem with filling the shell with expanded polystyrene granuals? I am thinking of blocked airways and heat retention.
5) In preperation for the arrival of my good drone I have been practising with a toy, I have found it useful to use its emergency stop at times to stop it leaving my garden. I think the emergency stop in a phantom is the CSC joystick movment. If that becomes necessary and if there is time can the Phantom be reactivated before it hits the ground? If so how?
6) Would it be a good idea to use tethers as depicted in the hopefully attached drawing for early training flights with the phantom? I tried a ground up tether with the toy and it semi worked but I think the arrangement shown in the drawing would be better as it will confine the drone to a double cone of air space.

The drone is not waterproof - it is highly advisable to keep it, the RC, the batteries etc well way from coming into contact with water at all costs, especially sea water.  

For starters if you are learning to fly your new phantom don't fly over water (no second chances if you crash)..your idea of having a tether on the drone defeats the purpose, you have a fail safe it is called "Return to Home".

Salt water is instant death to electronics, your drone would be toast before you could pull it out.

5) In preperation for the arrival of my good drone I have been practising with a toy, I have found it useful to use its emergency stop at times to stop it leaving my garden.
It sounds like your toy is cheap junk.
Your Phantom is much more sophisticated with precise controls and GPS position holding.
Don't think it will behave like the toy drone.
Re the Q about stopping and starting mid-air .... you *might* get away with it if you were above 600 feet ... and you might not.

6) Would it be a good idea to use tethers as depicted in the hopefully attached drawing for early training flights with the phantom?
It would be a terrible idea and completely unnecessary.
Your Phantom will be much easier to fly than you imagine.
Just do your early flights in a large, open area, well away from trees, buildings and other obstacles.
It's hard to get into trouble if there's nothing to hit.
Flying close to obstacles is one of the major causes of crashes.

A J Posted at 6-2 11:41
The drone is not waterproof - it is highly advisable to keep it, the RC, the batteries etc well way from coming into contact with water at all costs, especially sea water.

That is good advice, I couldn't have said it better.

AJ, thanks but in truth I was aware that  the  drone is not 'waterproof', i.e. water will get in,  however the electronic components may be, I believe the biggest problem that used to be encountered was with capacitors but that is from the days of leaded components. Whether or not it still appiles or is applicable to smd components I do not know.
However my question was "is there any sacrificial component that will burn out or fuse etc. to protect the remainder of the drone?"

Labroides the toy is 'cheap junk' that's its purpose, I wont be upset if it is lost or destroyed.
I appreciate the comment about the phantom being more sophisticated and that my experience with a phantom will be different ( I had begun to wonder about that) and your points in answer to 6). Thanks for the comment about the stop and start, not something for a deliberate experiment.

Mhinc Posted at 6-2 19:47
That is good advice, I couldn't have said it better.

.

Sean-newbie Posted at 6-3 04:53
AJ, thanks but in truth I was aware that  the  drone is not 'waterproof', i.e. water will get in,  however the electronic components may be, I believe the biggest problem that used to be encountered was with capacitors but that is from the days of leaded components. Whether or not it still appiles or is applicable to smd components I do not know.
However my question was "is there any sacrificial component that will burn out or fuse etc. to protect the remainder of the drone?"

There is a sacrificial part ... its called the Phantom 3 ...

Seriously water and your P3 do not mix ... avoid it at all costs. You may get away with it in 'clean freshwater' ... but I can tell you - my P3Std fell into the freshwater river near my house and it was kaput ! I managed to salvage just the shell and 3 motors out of it all. Rest is junk.

As to the tethers ... please don't even try it ... as others have said - the P3 is a clever machine and will only do daft thing based on pilots daft command !

If you let go controller sticks - it will hover. If you lose sight of it or get worried - hit RTH and let it come home (just make sure you have set RTH altitude high enough).

There is no comparison between a cheap toy drone and the P3 ...

Hi, thanks for the inquiry. We highly recommend not flying close to reflective surfaces such as water or snow, as these types of terrain may affect the performance of the vision system. Only fly the aircraft in environments with good lighting and visibility when the GPS signal is weak. For additional information, for the sake of security, we indeed don’t repair water damaged drone. Because aircraft consists of a large quantity of sensitive electrical components, after it is water damaged, electrical components may be corroded, thus affecting its stability and security. Through the related tests, the repair of water damaged units needs to replace all the relevant components, and it is possible that the cost of repairing a water damaged drone is far higher than buying a new drone. Therefore, we advise that water damaged units are ineligible for repair service. You may refer to the image below for our recommendation.

Ok tether idea in the bin and I get the points about RTH and the P3 being a better machine etc. etc.
Solentlife, re "There is a sacrificial part ... its called the Phantom 3 ... " that was funny, cheers

Sean-newbie Posted at 6-4 02:04
Ok tether idea in the bin and I get the points about RTH and the P3 being a better machine etc. etc.
Solentlife, re "There is a sacrificial part ... its called the Phantom 3 ... " that was funny, cheers

I was trying to make light of what would be a serious matter.

The simple truth is : Water and the P3 / Mavic / Inspire ... whatever DJI you have - Do Not Mix.

Solentlife, you did make light of ..... I really did find it funny. Ta

No worries.

Where in UK are you ?

I'm actually a Brit living out here ..  

Northen Ireland

It's not going in the water if you know how to fly and calibrate it properly.  The main issue would be sand blowing into the controller gimbal stick area and it feeling "sticky".  Always practice taking off and landing in 1st person.  Do not use first-person until you know for sure you can guide the orientation in 3rd perfectly.  A lot of people have crashed because they've lost orientation.  Unless you lose total control, any crashes would be pilot error.  Also, when flying around, if you are above the tallest obstacle where you are flying you won't hit anything.

as a noob my self id stick to learning to fly  over land and stay well away from water for now atb

Well...........it arrived today.
Except for the strength of its downdraft, which would blow the thread away, you could darn near thread a needle with the thing it's so stable...........lol.
Of course it has a lot more mass than the toy so eddies wont budge it as easily but even so I was able to fly under control below the height of the dandilion seedheads on my 'lawn'.

However I do have a problem, I can't get the chuffing "Go"App to work so have no camera and very limited range etc  but I will ask about that in one of the threads I have seen concerning this problem.

HI, 1st, my p4p ditched in a about 2ft of fresh water, upside down, was down about 30s, i pulled the battery, put it in my cooling down oven then once it went too cold, into the airing cupboard over night, it was fine the next day, battery was toast though, that was an expensive lesson.......

As for the app, it could be that the device you are using is not powerful enough?

3rdly, as you are in the UK, like myself and in case you have not seen it, please have  look at the UK Drone code

sorry, one more, dont take off off of concrete,  or near any thing metal not even ya car sunroof   

Cheers Bashy but the Note 4 and S5 are listed  as compatible on some forums and even their immediate ' predecessors, the Hudl is probably pushing the limits a bit.
Yep got a copy of the drone code, 400ft height limit and 50m clearance around houses if I remember correctly. I wonder how many will be unknowingly failing to comply with the latter?????????? With regards to concrete and cars take offs etc. are you thinking of uniformity, heat or magnetic effects etc

Forgot to ask, did you look to see what blew in the battery?

Magnetic interference can cause erroneous readings regards to the compass, i do not comply 100% with all the Laws, but i do comply the ones with regards to buildings and  built up areas, except when testing , then i fail those too but i do keep it under 5ft as the height of my fence is 6ft, its  like any law though, if you take the risks, you face the consequences, even more so nowadays seen as its getting stricter by the month, pretty much,....

RE the battery, no point, once a lipo get water in it, its not worth the risk, a great learning source on here ;)

Sean-newbie Posted at 6-5 15:22
Well...........it arrived today.
Except for the strength of its downdraft, which would blow the thread away, you could darn near thread a needle with the thing it's so stable...........lol.
Of course it has a lot more mass than the toy so eddies wont budge it as easily but even so I was able to fly under control below the height of the dandilion seedheads on my 'lawn'.

I think you can see why we said forget the tether etc. !

Nice one.

OK ... GO.

I have found that the best way to get GO to actually realise connection is :

1. Power up tablet but do not start go. Just let it show Home Screen. Do not plug in USB lead to tablet.
2. Power up Controller with USB lead ONLY plugged into controller
3. Power up P3
4. Watch the LED on front of Controller to see it go GREEN
5. NOW plug in USB lead to tablet .. and it should ask if you want to start GO ... tap yes.

Its not uncommon for USB leads to not work and you have to try various till you find one that does. Its those silly Brand Name people trying to force us to only buy their crap leads !!

You are not alone in this silly problem.

With regards to concrete and cars take offs etc. are you thinking of uniformity, heat or magnetic effects etc

Reason is that concrete usually has rebar set into it and that is ferrous metal.

You should avoid driveways, roadways, boat pontoons, any area / item that contains metal that can be magnetic.

If you power up and display says Magnetic Error or Compass Error  .... DO NOT CALIBRATE COMPASS. Power down... move a few yards / metres and try again. Why power down ? to remove any warning residual from tablet / P3 etc. Often just moving a few feet can be all that's needed.

Sean-newbie Posted at 6-5 15:22
Well...........it arrived today.
Except for the strength of its downdraft, which would blow the thread away, you could darn near thread a needle with the thing it's so stable...........lol.
Of course it has a lot more mass than the toy so eddies wont budge it as easily but even so I was able to fly under control below the height of the dandilion seedheads on my 'lawn'.

You need to wait for the controller to "boot" then connect the controller.  Don't connect it and power it on.  It has to be reconnected after say 30 seconds after the controller has turned on at least for my P4P V2.0 it's around 15-30 seconds.  Mavic 2 and Spark, it doesn't matter.  It will connect w/o reconnecting.

First of let me say I was primarily connecting the phone etc. to the controller before booting but I have the impression, though I now question that impression, that I had tried every connection sequence.
Anyhow yesterday I was getting frustrated and went to  friend's house for tea, I brought the drone so we could 'play'.
'After play' I went to demonstrate the non functioning app and happened to connect the, let's call it a "viewer", without rebooting everything and BOOM there, of course, was a NOW functioning app. Hmmmm maybe connecting it some time after the boot and linking has finish is the trick????? I tried the other viewers, each was working "oh this is looking good".
"Ok lets tidy up the cabling", I had used a long USB cable that was lying around in the car so got one of the shorter ones so from the case. "B*&^%$*r"  back to the broken app, plug the long one back in and voilà there's the app, working.
So, after a few experiments it is looking, at the moment, like NOT ALL USB cables are equal. The "good one" is a Samsung phone cable i.e. power and data cable, I can't remember what the short ones are from/for.
My friend is hearing, I am deaf, so I asked him to listen to the "relink your contoller and drone videos without an app" and we got that working too, though now, of course, it is not really necessary.

Big smile.

Sean-newbie Posted at 6-7 04:45
First of let me say I was primarily connecting the phone etc. to the controller before booting but I have the impression, though I now question that impression, that I had tried every connection sequence.
Anyhow yesterday I was getting frustrated and went to  friend's house for tea, I brought the drone so we could 'play'.
'After play' I went to demonstrate the non functioning app and happened to connect the, let's call it a "viewer", without rebooting everything and BOOM there, of course, was a NOW functioning app. Hmmmm maybe connecting it some time after the boot and linking has finish is the trick????? I tried the other viewers, each was working "oh this is looking good".

See my earlier Post #32 ......

Good to hear its working.

Yep it did strike me as quite a humourous coincidence that you were probably typing that as I was discovering it. I should have made mention of that when I wrote #35, sorry

Well it's had a couple of proper flights now and I am impressed. Last night it encountered gusty conditions and it was interesting watching it 'twitch' to maintain position and how steady the gimbal was. I guess I'll have to start taking pictures etc. soon.