Help...phantom ditched in the ocean

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I hope someone can help out here: I crashed my phantom into the ocean while filming my brother surfing and was luckily able to get it back after he paddled out an brought it in. I'd fitted a high density foam collar around the gopro as a life jacket and for anti-vibration.
I unplugged the battery, though it had been floating in the salt water for 10 minutes already, and dunked and shook the phantom in a fresh water bath for an hour. Then I dismantled the phantom and spent 3 days with a blower heater drying it out.
I recharged the battery and all looked good with a green light on the charger and then plugged it in the phantom and powered it up without any of the props attached. All the engines started running smoothly but almost immediately there was a strong burning smell like a resistor or something else failing. The arm near the one engine got hot so I'm guessing that's where the failure happened, but all engines kept running and responded to the controls.
In addition the indicator light on the back of the phantom flashed red on and off continuously.
Does anyone here have any idea what may have failed as mechanically everything seems fine and there's no sign of corrosion or obvious damage.
I'm hesitant to actually fly the phantom till I know more about what may have failed as I don't want to do any more damage to this amazing aircraft.
Thanks any advice or suggestions gratefully accepted.
P.s I should point out that I'm in South Africa where there are no phantom dealers or spares and sadly nobody seems to want to ship to Africa
 
bummer and sorry to hear. only thing i can think of is did you take care of the gps unit on top half of the shell also? it is underneath that foam padding thing. also, the IMU is housed in a plastic case, could it possibly still have had water in it?
 
It's probably not mechanical. You said it was one arm that got hot? More likely it's the ESC for the motor on that arm has one or more components that isn't waterproof and is now toast.
 
pwright said:
It's probably not mechanical. You said it was one arm that got hot? More likely it's the ESC for the motor on that arm has one or more components that isn't waterproof and is now toast.


agreed esc's are cheap "ebay" but login to to EBAY.com plenty of us sellers ship worldwide!

Since it was in the arm those are pretty much led controls and motor controls pop it open and see what burned then order that part or post here a pic and im sure someone will help you out!!


edit: I have some spare parts as well as motors and esc's I ll ship to you if you have paypal!
 
Much appreciate you taking the time to respond. I'll have a look at the ESC today and report back anything I see that looks damaged. At this point I can't say if the GPS have been affected until its airborne again.
As the motors are the high current drawing areas I guess that's where the failure is most likely to happen.
 

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