qq190 cant swim

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I took a bad bounce off a slope and ended up in the pool with the qq190. what should i be expecting to replace after something like this? all the electronics? motors too?

Anonymous Answered question May 11, 2019
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Anonymous 0 Comments

Did it plop right in?   We were thinking about developing a submarine mode but we thought that developing a drone was enough for now…

During R&D we have had them drop in puddles and end up just fine.  Well, the one that we lost in the ocean in Hawaii didn’t survive -but that was an irretrievable situation…. I’m sure if we had jumped off the cliff and into the ocean the drone would have come back – but I don’t know if the pilot would have…

In all honesty though, we conformal coated the electronics in the stack in the middle of the drone to help for situations where the QQ190 drone takes a swim.

What does it mean to have drone electronics conformal coated?  It means that there’s a waterproof coating on the electronics to help them be water resistant in the event that the QQ190 gets wet.

The fact that the pool is not salt water is a very good thing because it means that there’s less of a chance of low current conduction that could potentially cause something like ESC FET or FC stm microcontroller failure.

First thing first, you want to absolutely make sure that you get the battery disconnected.  Hopefully it ejected during the crash….  That’s one of the reasons that we love the design of the QQ190 because the battery will eject instead of causing massive damage when you crash.

How you crashed your drone can have a big impact into whether or not the motors and ESC survive.  For instance if you crash at full throttle you have a much higher chance of frying something versus if you drop the throttle to zero before you impact whatever it is you’re crashing into.

Now for the actual answer to your question:

The QQ190 most likely survived the crash and water immersion fine, but the procedure taken after pulling it out of the drink will impact whether or not it will live to fly another day.

Step 1: Recover drone and make sure your battery is removed.

Step 2:. make sure that the substance that the drone got into was not contaminated with something like salt or mud.  If the QQ190 drone got dirty, you can disconnect the camera and battery and give the drone a bath.

We Recommend DE-ionized water, followed by 99% ISO-propyl alcohol.  after you clean all of the components you want to give them ample time to dry maybe 24 hours or more.

The reality is that you can completely submerge every part in the alcohol, and as long as it’s dry and evaporated it should not impact the performance of the parts.

What will kill components of a drone when it goes in the water is conduction of electricity in the parts that are not supposed to receive higher than rated voltage levels.

If you crash into salt water and then try to fly it with the saltwater still on the electrical components, the salt and water can create a short between different circuit traces on the circuit board which can cause components to fry due to the over-currents created in a short-circuit situation.

As long as you are able to recover the drone without a short that is evident at the scene of the accident, you should be able to completely clean it.  After cleaning,  ensure that the QQ190 is completely dry with no residual contaminants on the electrical components such as salt or mud.  If it’s clean and didn’t short than  there’s a good possibility that the drone will fly again.

One thing to note; if you submerge the motors in alcohol it’s recommended that you re-lubricate the motor bearings with oil before you put them back into service.

Good luck, remember that cleanliness is next to godliness and can be the difference between flying again vs having to replace electrical components.

Let us know what you find, we can get you any replacement parts that you need and if you’d be interested in writing a blog post about the procedure to fix your QQ190, will work with you through every step of the process to get flying again.

Anonymous Edited answer August 21, 2019
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Anonymous 1 Comment

Hey Anthony! I tried a bunch of times to log on and update you. but I kept getting an error. couldnt log in or access the Q&A. it wasnt till I got an email that I am able to get back.

Anyway, after it dried out, the only things that needed replacing was a split mini and the vtx. which i just pulled off of another quad. Under the circumstance Id say im lucky to have gotten off so cheap. I think the quality of the QQ190 has something to do with it. been crashing it for over a year now and it just wont die. thanks for the support, and the beefy quad.

Anonymous Posted new comment May 11, 2019

Yeah Bern, sorry about that. We had a server configuration error which caused the q&a to be lost. I’m glad that you were able to get the QQ190 fixed and are pleased with the quality.

We have frames and motors available for a really good price is right now so if you have any friends that might be interested in a good frame, please send them our way!

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Dam Anthony! you must have a fancy talk to type program or something. nicely done! Thank you for the support. If I need to swap everything out its good to know your available.

Blog about it eh? if it helps you help me im open to it. you probably have my email on file if you wanna send me an outline or something.

As far as crashes go it wasnt too bad. I was hauling ass and my belly skipped off the ground and redirected me right in the water. the force wasnt enough to eject the lipo. when I fished it out, the LED’s on the boards were on. i disconnected power soon as i was able. Then dried it off best i could with a leaf blower, its been sitting in front of a fan for the past few days. ill fire it up on Monday after work and see where we’re at.

thanks

Anonymous Answered question April 21, 2019

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