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Drowned my Tello!

Sky Junkie

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Location
Melbourne Australia
Has anyone else had the unfortunate event of taking their Tello for a swim?

I have. And in a salt water pool no less! It took about 60 seconds to fish it out and pull the battery.
I then took it inside and flushed it with tap water, and the battery separately as well.
Then I rinsed it in a bowl full of demineralised water and the battery as well, but separately.
I dried the exterior as much as possible, removed the prop guards, and sucked all openings with my mouth to extract as much water as possible.
Then I removed both top and bottom covers. It is now air drying in 22 degree C room temperature.

Has any other Tello survived this unfortunate event? If so, what did you do?
 
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Sounds like you did everything right. All you can do now is let it dry completely and try it.

Do you have another battery you could use?

Has never happened to me, but have read accounts here of Tello coming back to life after a dunking. Salt water corrosion could become a problem later though.

Good luck!
 
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Sounds like you did everything right. All you can do now is let it dry completely and try it.

Do you have another battery you could use?

Has never happened to me, but have read accounts here of Tello coming back to life after a dunking. Salt water corrosion could become a problem later though.

Good luck!
Hi umanbean, thanks for your reply. I had the same thing happen with an older mobile and it worked a charm after giving it the same treatment. Yes, I have spare batteries but am hopeful that the 'clean' one will still be serviceable. Only time will tell.

I'll post the results after letting everything dry out thoroughly. Fingers crossed.

By the way, I was recording video and it cut out right when it hit the water. The file is intact!

Cheers!
 
Conventional wisdom would say place your soaked electronics in a bag of rice to absorb moisture
Respectfully, that's not conventional wisdom, it's internet fallacy wisdom. The moisture will evaporate more rapidly if you leave it out in the open air.

I've never understood how sticking a wet electronics device into a plastic bag with anything is better than air drying. If you want to speed up the process, put it in front of a fan or use a hair blow dryer.
 
Your method works as well as mine from experience. OP's choice.

Agree to disagree. Best to save the rice for jambalaya anyway.
 
Your method works as well as mine from experience. OP's choice.

Agree to disagree. Best to save the rice for jambalaya anyway.

Very true, many methods that work. Desiccants in a bag would work well in a high humidity environment.

btw, I have an abattoir who sells some fantastic sausage, and we have a rack full of seasonings. You bring the shrimp, we'll pool our rice together - jambalaya mon!
 
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It lives! So far I can notice nothing out of the ordinary. Whew!
Great! Tello is one tough little critter eh? Makes me feel a little better about flying around in my backyard. Still not going to fly over the pool though lol

Did you try the battery that took a swim?
 
Great! Tello is one tough little critter eh? Makes me feel a little better about flying around in my backyard. Still not going to fly over the pool though lol

Did you try the battery that took a swim?
Yeah, I'm very happy it came back to life after some CPR! The battery that took a swim, I dried it and kept it in my pants pocket all day to dry out. Then charged it and all went well. Then I used that battery to test the Tello.

So yeah, I'm very happy. I hope this post helps others who may have the same misfortune. The trick is to pull the battery as soon as possible and to flush it with distilled or demineralised water, then let it dry thoroughly. I kept the Tello above an LED desklamp as a mild heat source.
 
I had mine drop into a pool as well, it was only there a few seconds but all I did was dry everything off and let it sit for about a day and surprisingly it worked perfectly fine afterwards
 
I drowned my parrot bebop in a lake this year. Fall from 30m, and sit in water ~10min. When i found him, i removed battery and it was drying at back of my car. When i was back home, i disassembled it completly and clean with rubbing alcohol (got corrosion in some places). Put it back, and it fly as new :)
 

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