I was out of office to meet with a customer. Meeting time as 10.00, I had 1 hour left so I brought my Spark with me. I figured it was time to test Litchi. I figured I would set up a path to fly over a river. I setup a route and let the Spark start the mission, little did I know that it seems that forward detection was off when flying Litchi missions with the Spark. After a few seconds it went into a tree. It started tumbling down, dropping into the river. I went after it. I could clearly see it 2m down from me. My meeting was now 15 minutes away. I have a pool at home and I have some long handles for the hand net which is 4m long when extended. I had my customer meeting, feeling sweaty over loosing my second drone. My first lost was a Mavic 1 dropping from the sky into a high tree, never found it again.
Meeting took three hours, I went home to get the hand net and handle. When I returned to the river the Spark had been submerged under 1m of water for three and a half hours. I was able to pick it up without problems. I immediately removed the battery.
I went home, took it apart and placed it on a radiator which never exceeds 40C degrees to dry it out. I left it there for five days. It seems some sand have got inside one of the engines. I used compressed air to remove it so the propeller would rotate freely again.
One of the propellers where lost in the crash so I replaced it. I mounted another battery and started it up, it booted up fine. I let it sit idle running down two fully charged batteries. After that I successfully calibrated it, then I tried it outside, it really worked again.
It can film with good quality as well. It even seems to work better than before, using sport mode previously usually rendered it with gps and or compass issue but no more.
Here is the movie when the drone crashed into the tree:
I am happy to have a working drone again, I will make sure to never fly arround high objects when using Litchi missions.
Meeting took three hours, I went home to get the hand net and handle. When I returned to the river the Spark had been submerged under 1m of water for three and a half hours. I was able to pick it up without problems. I immediately removed the battery.
I went home, took it apart and placed it on a radiator which never exceeds 40C degrees to dry it out. I left it there for five days. It seems some sand have got inside one of the engines. I used compressed air to remove it so the propeller would rotate freely again.
One of the propellers where lost in the crash so I replaced it. I mounted another battery and started it up, it booted up fine. I let it sit idle running down two fully charged batteries. After that I successfully calibrated it, then I tried it outside, it really worked again.
It can film with good quality as well. It even seems to work better than before, using sport mode previously usually rendered it with gps and or compass issue but no more.
Here is the movie when the drone crashed into the tree:
