Oops I did it again…drone fell into the water

While I am eagerly practicing flying my Dji Neo almost every day, I have become more skillful and confident in my flying abilities—perhaps even overconfident at times. Today, however, I managed to fly the Neo almost crash-free on one battery charge continuously until I set it to fly into my own vlogging camera setup. Fortunately, my camera (Dji Pocket 3) didn’t have a scratch and is still working fine.

When I wanted to take off again to finish draining the Neo’s battery, it had a hard time lifting off and clumsily bounced off the side of the peninsula into the shallow river. I was bewildered by what had just happened! Not long after, I spotted it in the water and quickly took off my shoes and socks to retrieve it. It was quite a funny spectacle, I must say.

Oddly enough, the Neo attempted to restart on its own when I fished it out. I dried it as best as I could with a cloth and removed the battery before quickly cycling home to grab a hairdryer to blow it dry. It miraculously restarted once fully but switched off shortly after. While writing this post, I tried to restart it again while it was charging—miraculously, it fully restarted! I had tried this many times before, and it had shown signs of recharging again, but this time it worked.

It’s remarkable that the Neo still functions after lying in the river for about three minutes. I suspect the battery won’t work well anymore, as it’s never good to drench a battery in water. I’ve been pushing the Neo to its limits, and it’s truly impressive what it can endure.

Here’s a short video from yesterday when I had a tough practice session. I smashed two propellers, fixed them, and it was up and running again!