Lost my phantom :-(

gingericeman said:
Ladies and gentlemen , we got him :-D I put my new Phantom up yesterday and took pictures and I just noticed my drone up a tree about 50 feet with its belly and camera pointing straight up into the sky. I'm going out now to recover it. Any tips for drying it out ?

I'm so happy, now Thundbirds are go :-D

Yes, take her apart, dry everything with paper towels, remove screws so you can get under PCBs. A wet vac could help get some moisture out the motors. But, with it upside down, it shouldn't be too bad.

Go buy a LOT of rice! Did I say a LOT? Get a big plastic back. Insert Phantom, gimbal, camera, etc. in it. Then, pour in the white rice. Fill the bag, shake it so rice gets everywhere. Then close the top securely, so no air can get inside. Also, don't allow much air to remain in the bag.

As time goes on, you should see some swollen rice as they absorb moisture. Shake the bag so hard rice will replace the swollen rice. How long you leave it in the bag depends on the amount of moisture in there. Err on the side of leaving it too long. I recommend a minimum of 3 days.

Don't allow the bag to be in sunlight. That will create condensation on the inside of the bag. Just put it on the kitchen counter. MIf you have a cat, improvise!

When the time is up, take the parts out. Shake excess rice out. Then use the shop vac to vacuum out any rice in hard to reach places. Then, reassemble the Phantom, without the gimbal and camera. Not sure if you have this or the vision model. Check the Phantom out first. By the way, put the Phantom's battery in the bag too.

If it is fine, install gimbal. Check camera before installing in gimbal. NOTE: When you put the camera in the bag, take out the battery and SD card, LCD screen if it is on.

Then, hopefully it all works! p.s. Didn't someone tell you where it was?
 
Yup got it back phantomfanatic, its all dried out everything reset and rebalanced and flown again, see previous photos.

Yup someone told me, Thanks :)
 
gingericeman said:
Yup got it back phantomfanatic, its all dried out everything reset and rebalanced and flown again, see previous photos.

Yup someone told me, Thanks :)

Well, that was fast! I suppose you used another method, but I'm glad it worked!

If only I could have been there on day one! :). I am VERY happy for you!
 
Thats awesome to hear you got it down with out to much harm.
 
Glad to hear the great news.
 
Thanks guys, it's good to have it back in one piece safe and sound. Lessons were learned, trackers were bought and I think I'm a safer flyer now too.
 
But it looks like you need to do some significant modifications to mount a Flytrex 3D on a Phantom 3 plus being able to power it. What is this Locator 8 someone mentioned, with the 2g cellular network getting shut down in December, I guess we won't have a lot of choices left.

I saw on a deemunseed video where he tested the "Tile" out and it worked pretty well for a couple hundred feet. It uses Bluetooth to connect to your phone.so I guess if you're in the vicinity, it might work better than nothing

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