My spark went down.....into the water.

[Lupz]

So I got over adventurous with how good I thought my flying was, and it went down into the water.

So here's what I know.

1. They really don't like salt water, the amount of corrosion was incredible.
2. Don't get one as a grey import to save a few bucks, because DJI care refresh would have been cheaper.
3. The battery will die instantly.

Here's what I have done so far, I washed it with clean water as soon as possible.
I then took everything apart, and cleaned it with 98% alcohol.
The drone will now power on but stays in diagnosis mode. It make all the right noises at start up but goes no further.
It looks like the connector on the board for the front infrared is toast. The corrosion there was massive.

I have decided to send it off to a local repairer to take a look and see what he thinks.

I am worried with the ammount of corrosion I seen that even if he gets it going its only a matter of time before it fails again.

 

[Spark 317]

Salt water gets EVERYWHERE within the Spark.

Unfortunately, I think you're SOL (Salt Out of Luck) for future flights as the corrosion continues on internally.

Good Luck.

 

[Ndroner]

Really would love know how you managed to crash it. Thanx.

 

[Don Baldwin]

I lost my Spark in salt water a few weeks ago and not able to recover it. I also have DJI Care Refresh (highly recommended). This is a lot less expensive than hiring a diver to recover the aircraft.

Contacted DJI and sent them the logs and they confirmed it was an onboard flight controller failure that caused it to go out of control. Had a replacement Spark within a week. Very happy with how DJI Support handled my case!

 

[DameEdnaBrown]

Dont bother get another

 

[His415]

I liked what you were going doe with the shot, would have been cool!

 

[Buddy411]

Spark is going for $400 in a bunch of places for Black Friday.

 

[Lupz]

Really would love know how you managed to crash it. Thanx.

Quite easily it would appear.

The more I think about it I just think I'll end up getting another one. Would still be nice to get it going though

 

[Hotwire]

Sideways into a pile not a great place to fly.
Care Refresh will not help you if you don't recover the craft, but you did so it would have been replaced, I guess.
Proximity flying is a bad practice around water because LiPO batteries deliver lots of current. Lots of current equals lots of corrosion, very quickly. Sparks underside has sonar and optical flow, so you could have just stayed above the piles and been safe, however neither will see the water properly.

I know how you feel as I to have sent one swimming. Get another and keep going.

This experience isn't failure it's education.

 

[RaWine]

Not sure about salt water, but regular electronics, you bury in rice for a couple days. Of course with salt water, you'd have to rinse it thoroughly with (probably) distilled water.

Motor though, is not in a lot of electronics. : (

Old artifacts in sea water, are often kept in sea water to keep the corrosion from starting --- then what, I don't know.

 

[RaWine]

Not sure about salt water, but regular electronics, you bury in rice for a couple days. Of course with salt water, you'd have to rinse it thoroughly with (probably) distilled water.

Motor though, is not in a lot of electronics. : (

Old artifacts in sea water, are often kept in sea water to keep the corrosion from starting --- then what, I don't know.

Seem to be several videos on water logged drones Here's one.

 

[finlayson]

Please stop with the 'clickbait' video headlines ("Shocking"). There's far too much of this already.

 

[Virtual1]

From my decade of experience fixing computers, and laptops specifically, remember this: water + electricity + copper = corrosion. (salt accelerates this process) Corrosion is a film or fluffy mass of conductive material made from the copper and the water. There's no safe chemical way to remove it, it almost always has to be removed mechanically. This is a problem when it's UNDER a chip, as many ICs in densely manufactured products like laptops and drones tend to use BGA chips where there's 16-100+ pads under the chip where you can't get at them to clean them. So your best way to handle getting those three things together is to stop the process immediately or as quickly as possible, to prevent the growth of as much corrosion as you can, because fixing it can be difficult or impossible. The more of it you let grow before removing power, the bigger your battle will be.

Steps A, B, and C are all the same. Remove power, remove power, and remove power. Seriously, it's that important. Don't be thinking about drying it out, don't waste time pondering rice or dessicants or anything else. Don't sit there and sulk over your waterlooged unit trying to get it to turn on. REMOVE POWER IMMEDIATELY. That will stop more corrosion from forming, and you can take your time doing a good job of carefully disassembling and drying things out. With laptops (and cell phones) this is a problem because some laptops have non-removable batteries. Laptops have an additional boobytrap, they tend to have little coin cell bios batteries hidden on them, sometimes under the motherboard or somewhere you can't see. Those count just the same for power and MUST be disconnected. I don't know if your flyer has a backup battery in it or not, but if it does then it needs to get unplugged ASAP, which may involve rapid disassembly and possibly a wire cutters. I've seen powered electronics in water before, and it's just like watching electrolysis - the water is bubbling and foaming and you can almost see the corrosion filaments growing off the exposed copper. If your bird lands in the water, I hope you can swim, because the 10 minutes it takes you to go get a boat will do enormous damage. Dive in and get it out, and have that battery out before you make it back to shore.

And FWIW, power management chips and other sensitive electronics can be damaged instantly if water creates a semi-conductive path between the wrong points. All the unplugging and drying out in the world won't fix that, chips and other silicon have been physically damaged and will need to be identified and replaced. There's advice all over the place on how to dry out your gear and lots of different approaches you can make, but you can (somewhat) take your time with that so long as the power's gone.

 

[Lupz]

So the general feeling was that no matter what its going to be a risk to repair.

The repairer said hes happy to do it, just wont guarantee it will stay in the air once its going, given the amount of corrosion it has.

So with the various black Friday / cyber Monday sales on I just ordered a new one of the drone only.

 

[Virtual1]

Corrosion, especially in salt water, is really hard to fix. It's not the green gunk you see that's the problem, that stuff is easy to remove. It's the gunk UNDER the bga chips that must also be removed, and the electrically damaged chips that have to be replaced that is the problem.

Then people will talk about chips that have been "weakened" such that they are likely to fail soon after you repair the unit, which is usually a condition you have no way to identify or predict. And chips that have a DJI firmware or bootloader on them can't just be swapped with stock parts, they have to have the original program uploaded to them first. (you can't upload firmware to an 'empty' chip in the nice user-friendly way we're used to using, it requires a JTAG and special software, and the firmware to be uploaded)

 

[RaWine]

I keep looking at the Spark, wondering if there is some good way to add a vest, just for temporary flights over water. Maybe constructed of bubble wrap? That wouldn't add much weight. You might have to put it on like 3 piece suit.

You have to avoid the props and certain bits. Maybe someone else will think of something eventually.

 

[Spark 317]

Google "Water landing gear for Spark"

 

[Virtual1]

I used to use a RotoPod for my heli, makes excellent training gear. Hard to damage a prop on even a bad landing, and quite impossible to get inverted. Maybe some design like that, with a wide stance and floats way out? https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/zoom/...device_1_cf9223f557378e84370d79d324a8f1a6.jpg

 

[bath1968]

Spark float kit is what you needed [emoji6]
What are your thoughts on this???
<br /><br /><br />PENIVO Protector Spark Water Surface Take off / Landing Set ,Floating Ball Extended Landing Gear Kit for DJI Spark Heightened Legs Drone Accessories (Black) https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B076KPQK2C/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_frxgAbJ4CETDH

 

[alekaras]

So I managed to land my Spark in the sea. I almost got to it to air catch it, but was a fraction of a second late and the AC landed in the water. It went down maybe a few inches before I pulled it out, so it was submerged for maybe second or so.

Is this about as bad as if it had stayed in the water for longer? Given it was completely submerged, even for a second, will the be damage? I immediately powered off, rinsed the motors with fresh water, and I am leaving it out to dry. Am I SOL?