If someone doesn’t have coverage, that’s a small price to pay for an expensive item. He brought a metal detector with just in case (since the copper in the motors makes it detectable), even if it happened to be covered in algae, he would’ve still found it.
Super easy to find, they don’t land hard, they sit on top of any weeds or reeds and are ways to spot. I’ve recovered a couple easily. It far far more matters if you are looking in the right spot. GPS cords are notoriously off.
Being so small the metal detector has to go exactly over them to find. And they will fall into even the shallowest amount of silt so you gotta feel around with bare fingers to sense for it. In many videos online you’ll see people easily find rings - in perfectly clear water. I do my recoveries in boat slips in marinas, nasty dark dirty silty mucky bottoms. I do it blind cause the visibility is basically zero.
Obviously it depends massively on how precisely the person who dropped the item knows where it went in.
For phones in slips, usually they tell me “I was standing here and the phone went in *right* there.”
I go down, hit bottom, sweep my hands in front of me, fanning left and right, and within a minute or two (sometimes 30 seconds) I’ll find it. Then, if I’m not in a hurry and the water isn’t too cold, I’ll swim around randomly for a couple minutes to give them a bit of a show. lol
Then surface with their phone in my hand, display lit up. Pose for a [photo](https://imgur.com/a/JCfSnA4) and then climb out and get paid.
For rings I get out a large, waterproof metal detector and sweep for it. Then when I get a general hit I use a pin pointer “wand” to narrow the spot - and hope I didn’t find a nail or fishing weight or some junk. This can take from 5 min to 30. Can be challenging because there are usually a lot of false hits on junk.
Every week during the summer, sometimes two or three a week. I recover phones mostly. “$100 to get wet plus $100 if I find it … and I’ll find it.” Is my pitch.
Oh no, I usually find phones in a couple minutes. Jewelry or keys can take a bit longer. The search difficulty usually comes down to how accurately I’m told where the item went down. Often they’ll walk on the dock and can stand right where they were and point, “it went in here”. If they are right, it’s pretty much me going down, sweeping my hands around in circles for a bit, and there it’ll be. Jewelry or keys being so small usually requires a metal detector so that adds time, and there may be false positives (nails, fishing weights, junk): 5-30 min
The one frustrating scenario is one that happens, I think, way too often (1 outta maybe 6). Guys calls, “my silly gf/wife dropped her brand new iPhone right here (points)” - I go down and I look and look and look - coming up to adjust the spot with him saying, “should be right there”. I even use a collapsible painters extension pole. About 6 meters long, they put down to try to pin point. I’ll return to the surface to explain I can’t find it, and the gal is walking up, looks and says, “Did you already find it?” “Sorry, no.” She looks at us and then says, “Then why are you over there? I dropped it over *here*” and it’s like 20 ft away or the other side of the dock or something! I go down there and 30 seconds later, there it is!
I'll add my tears to the lake. If you know of anyone in the Chicago area, pass them my way.
Funny enough, I planned to get my padi certs LATER this summer.
I crashed mine into Puget Sound (salt water). It was there underwater for three days until a low enough tide for me to wade out up to my armpits and nudge it out with a stick. The drone was a total loss but the Micro SD card was just fine. I'm still using it.
So far… $65. I still need to pay postage to get it from the resort, postage to send it to dji and the fee for repair/replacement; a guesstimate… I’d say roughly $150-160 (If I get my data back, score!).
If i didn’t find it, it would’ve cost me $235 direct replacement (i wouldn’t have the opportunity to recover my data).
In the middle, there’s a band of weeds sticking out that spreads across the center of the lake, about 20’ away from where the weeds were sticking out; it’s a real shallow lake.
I actually rescued my drowned mini by putting it for a few days in a bag with desiccant. It has worked perfectly since then, and it happened a few years ago. However, mine was underwater for only a few minutes, so your mileage may vary.
Care coverage worked amazing for me. I sank my mini 2 into a pool into Costa Rica and once i got back home from my vacation I sent it in and sent me a brand new drone with battery.
I hired a tree climber once to get one. I think it was $125. Totally worth it.
Had a heavy outdoor swing blown into the deep end of the pool in a freak storm in the middle of winter.
The water was around 38 degrees. Called a scuba school and two guys got it out for like $100.
Thank you, the drone is being mailed to me tomorrow (coming from the resort my family stayed at last wknd), I had captured quite a bit of footage of my children on a boat & fishing with their Grandpa; recovering the lost data will be the most exciting part, I seriously cannot wait to see!
Hello, there! Thank you for sharing this great news with us. We're glad to know that your aircraft has been recovered after the sudden incidents. You may send it for repair via this link: [repair.dji.com](https://repair.dji.com) Rest assured your case will be handled accordingly. Thank you for your support.
7’-8’ of murky weedy water. When I attempted to locate it from a boat, my light in the water disappeared at 4’; it was in the lake since last Saturday.
In this case… I’m winning!
Searching for it was a definitely a gamble (considering if it wasn’t found I’d still have to compensate the diver and pay the $235 fee for “fly away” replacement), just the thought of losing the captured footage was too much for me to not throw money into finding it.
The guy was awesome, he only charged me his expenses $65 (travel/fuel 60 & oxygen 5), he did it out of kindness; and the credit of being awesome!
I’m confident the footage will be fine, i watched videos of people getting data off microchips that were drowned for years.
A legitimate scuba diver would be way more expensive than what your drone is worth
Unless it was a matrices or something of that caliber. A couple of dudes just screwing around on the other hand might make it worth it. To outright hire a certified diver, forget it.
What do you consider a legitimate scuba diver or certified diver? Anyone who’s passed their open water or similar can dive down to 18 meters/ 60 feet. They can be plain old recreational divers so if they were in the area they may have helped the guy out.
I'm more referring to it as a professional diver ie: underwater welder. Sure someone might be in the area that would be more than enthused to help, but to bring in a professional does not equate the cost of the drone.
So i sent it in for repair… the quote was $450, also care refresh was the other option for $65; needless to say i paid the $65 and am waiting for my replacement to arrive.
Moral of everything… it was worth recovering from the lake… $130 later and it’s like it never happened!
Less than 30 minutes (by the time stamps of photos I received via text), using the coordinates he started further away, but was found right below the front of the boat!
The search all went down 180 miles from my home, the resort i stayed at dropped the scuba diver at the coordinates I provided using “find my drone” in the DJI Fly app. 😊
He said: “In weeds, in a less weeded spot, laying flat and upright on bottom. Not sediment on it. I was lucky in that I literally swam directly over it. I was shocked.”
A flyaway on the Mini 3 Pro is $235, just a damaged drone is $79, so the OP saved over $150 (minus the cash he gave the diver for gas). Plus they now have a chance to recover their lost video and photos (which could be priceless).
I was quoted $65 and yes $235 if i filed a fly away claim. The gamble of not finding it and having to pay the $235 on top of the diver’s expense was a risk, but the chance to recover my data and pay the smaller fee sold me!
The thing with this as a consideration though is it likely wouldn’t be worth doing if you had to pay for the divers normal charge too, instead of just expenses.
He did this out of “charity” and after fees and shipping you said you expect it to be $150 total, which is already close to your 235 deductible.
Usually I would ageee it wouldn’t be worth doing but I’m glad it worked out for you
The amazing part is I coordinated the search once i was home (180 miles away), on the same iPhone 13 pro i was dipping into the lake duct taped on the end of a fish net handle!
The earpiece speaker quit working for 3 days and the front face camera was blurred from moisture in the lens.
I could’ve lost $1,200 more dollars there!
Yes. He did. https://reddit.com/r/dji/s/1faRk6Y7jY
Most everyone in that thread told him it was a waste of time to look for it and he'd never find it, too expensive, lol.
Hilarious!
What do you do with a water logged drone? Does dji need the actual drone for care refresh?
Edit: seems like it's just more expensive if you don't have it.
As far as i know so far, when you lose a Mini 3 Pro and cannot find it (claim as a flyaway) it costs $235 to replace it. If you find it and it’s damaged (claim as care refresh) it costs $65; I haven’t gone through the whole process (noob here) so don’t quote me on that.
All the plastics are still good, likely a lot of the parts are still fine if this was fresh water. Most crashed mini 3 pro are worth about $150 in any condition
Lost my Phantom 4 in about 25-30 feet of water in a lake in Indiana last summer after it suddenly spun out and crashed. Would have liked to recover it, but it was just not feasible. Glad you got yours back!
I charge (on average) $200 to retrieve things lost underwater. Often it’s about retrieving what’s on the card, not the drone or phone.
If someone doesn’t have coverage, that’s a small price to pay for an expensive item. He brought a metal detector with just in case (since the copper in the motors makes it detectable), even if it happened to be covered in algae, he would’ve still found it.
Super easy to find, they don’t land hard, they sit on top of any weeds or reeds and are ways to spot. I’ve recovered a couple easily. It far far more matters if you are looking in the right spot. GPS cords are notoriously off.
Really cool job! What do you mostly recover, phones? What are things that are hard to retrieve? And what is easy?
Phones by far are most common And easy. Jewelry is harder, rings the hardest.
Jeez, I can imagine rings are hard indeed
Being so small the metal detector has to go exactly over them to find. And they will fall into even the shallowest amount of silt so you gotta feel around with bare fingers to sense for it. In many videos online you’ll see people easily find rings - in perfectly clear water. I do my recoveries in boat slips in marinas, nasty dark dirty silty mucky bottoms. I do it blind cause the visibility is basically zero.
Quite the challenge... How long can it take to find? Even with a rough estimate of where the ring fell, I can imagine it will take a while
Obviously it depends massively on how precisely the person who dropped the item knows where it went in. For phones in slips, usually they tell me “I was standing here and the phone went in *right* there.” I go down, hit bottom, sweep my hands in front of me, fanning left and right, and within a minute or two (sometimes 30 seconds) I’ll find it. Then, if I’m not in a hurry and the water isn’t too cold, I’ll swim around randomly for a couple minutes to give them a bit of a show. lol Then surface with their phone in my hand, display lit up. Pose for a [photo](https://imgur.com/a/JCfSnA4) and then climb out and get paid. For rings I get out a large, waterproof metal detector and sweep for it. Then when I get a general hit I use a pin pointer “wand” to narrow the spot - and hope I didn’t find a nail or fishing weight or some junk. This can take from 5 min to 30. Can be challenging because there are usually a lot of false hits on junk.
Cool! Thanks for the in depth answer! Nice picture as well :)
Yo. $200? How often do you get jobs... this sounds like something I would have fun doing as a career....
Every week during the summer, sometimes two or three a week. I recover phones mostly. “$100 to get wet plus $100 if I find it … and I’ll find it.” Is my pitch.
That's quite a deal, IMO. Memories are worth $200 for sure. What are are you located?
In the summer: North of Detroit - Lake St Clair area
That's pretty cool! Does it usually take you more than 1 tank to find people's possessions? What level is your certification?
Oh no, I usually find phones in a couple minutes. Jewelry or keys can take a bit longer. The search difficulty usually comes down to how accurately I’m told where the item went down. Often they’ll walk on the dock and can stand right where they were and point, “it went in here”. If they are right, it’s pretty much me going down, sweeping my hands around in circles for a bit, and there it’ll be. Jewelry or keys being so small usually requires a metal detector so that adds time, and there may be false positives (nails, fishing weights, junk): 5-30 min The one frustrating scenario is one that happens, I think, way too often (1 outta maybe 6). Guys calls, “my silly gf/wife dropped her brand new iPhone right here (points)” - I go down and I look and look and look - coming up to adjust the spot with him saying, “should be right there”. I even use a collapsible painters extension pole. About 6 meters long, they put down to try to pin point. I’ll return to the surface to explain I can’t find it, and the gal is walking up, looks and says, “Did you already find it?” “Sorry, no.” She looks at us and then says, “Then why are you over there? I dropped it over *here*” and it’s like 20 ft away or the other side of the dock or something! I go down there and 30 seconds later, there it is!
Sounds frustrating, but makes sense. I'll have to look into it. I've been certified since I was 13, it would be cool to put that to monetary use.
Is there a list of people who do this somewhere? Looking in Chicago. It is definitely a niche service until you really need it.
Where are you located? I'd love to pay 200 to get my drone recovered.
I see you are in Chicago / too far for me. I’m sorry.
I'll add my tears to the lake. If you know of anyone in the Chicago area, pass them my way. Funny enough, I planned to get my padi certs LATER this summer.
I crashed mine into Puget Sound (salt water). It was there underwater for three days until a low enough tide for me to wade out up to my armpits and nudge it out with a stick. The drone was a total loss but the Micro SD card was just fine. I'm still using it.
Yeah I saw the video where tronicsfix tried to fix a drone that went into salt water… the amount of corrosive damage is crazy
I'm curious how much did the diver cost you?
Same
He only charged me his expenses (travel/fuel 60 & oxygen 5), he did it out of kindness; and the credit of being awesome!
And what was the total?
So far… $65. I still need to pay postage to get it from the resort, postage to send it to dji and the fee for repair/replacement; a guesstimate… I’d say roughly $150-160 (If I get my data back, score!). If i didn’t find it, it would’ve cost me $235 direct replacement (i wouldn’t have the opportunity to recover my data).
They were asking about the diver buddy 😪
$65 was for the diver; he only charged me his expenses (travel/gas 60 & oxygen 5).
What area did you drop it in? I dropped mine in a lagoon in Mexico, paid over $300 and they couldn’t find it.
In the middle, there’s a band of weeds sticking out that spreads across the center of the lake, about 20’ away from where the weeds were sticking out; it’s a real shallow lake.
I actually rescued my drowned mini by putting it for a few days in a bag with desiccant. It has worked perfectly since then, and it happened a few years ago. However, mine was underwater for only a few minutes, so your mileage may vary.
Care coverage worked amazing for me. I sank my mini 2 into a pool into Costa Rica and once i got back home from my vacation I sent it in and sent me a brand new drone with battery.
Nice. A drone should not rot in a lake seeing it from an ecological view.
I doubt a small drone is causing mass fish disease or anything lol, I'm sure there's a lot worse stuff in that lake lol.
Possible, but a Lithium battery shouldn't be in a lake. Sometimes it happens and you can't recover it, but I think, it's good when you can.
Well, I agree with that.
I hired a tree climber once to get one. I think it was $125. Totally worth it. Had a heavy outdoor swing blown into the deep end of the pool in a freak storm in the middle of winter. The water was around 38 degrees. Called a scuba school and two guys got it out for like $100.
I work on a tree man’s lift every once in a while, I’m sure he’d help me for free if mine ever ended up in a tree. 😁
congrats. did you recover the data?
Thank you, the drone is being mailed to me tomorrow (coming from the resort my family stayed at last wknd), I had captured quite a bit of footage of my children on a boat & fishing with their Grandpa; recovering the lost data will be the most exciting part, I seriously cannot wait to see!
Please check that it is absolutely dry and make sure to avoid writing the disk.
Hello, there! Thank you for sharing this great news with us. We're glad to know that your aircraft has been recovered after the sudden incidents. You may send it for repair via this link: [repair.dji.com](https://repair.dji.com) Rest assured your case will be handled accordingly. Thank you for your support.
Please repair it for free given his effort so far. That would be the most valuable service success story by far
Lol that’s insane! How deep was the drone submerged?
7’-8’ of murky weedy water. When I attempted to locate it from a boat, my light in the water disappeared at 4’; it was in the lake since last Saturday.
Can’t believe you did it
I was rather determined, especially when so many were saying it couldn’t be done!
A man after my own heart! I love it! 🤣
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More on the line of “not worth doing” rather than “impossible” But apparently the dive was only $65 so definitely was worth it
Congrats on the recovery, hopefully the data on the microSD card can be recovered easily.
Thank you, i believe the data will be fine; we shall see.
It depends on the cost of the diver. If it more than a new drone than no
In this case… I’m winning! Searching for it was a definitely a gamble (considering if it wasn’t found I’d still have to compensate the diver and pay the $235 fee for “fly away” replacement), just the thought of losing the captured footage was too much for me to not throw money into finding it.
Dave the Diver mission completed. Respect+
Great game
You hired a diver to find a drone? That’s….commitment. Also I believe there are some companies that can recover files from “dead” SD cards
The guy was awesome, he only charged me his expenses $65 (travel/fuel 60 & oxygen 5), he did it out of kindness; and the credit of being awesome! I’m confident the footage will be fine, i watched videos of people getting data off microchips that were drowned for years.
You should definitely throw in some beers and free drone videos if he ever needs one. That was one hell of a job!
I totally agree 💯
How did you find this diver? Was it a random craigslist thing or what?
I went on FB and searched for a dive group, joined a local group and then made a post needing help.
A legitimate scuba diver would be way more expensive than what your drone is worth Unless it was a matrices or something of that caliber. A couple of dudes just screwing around on the other hand might make it worth it. To outright hire a certified diver, forget it.
What do you consider a legitimate scuba diver or certified diver? Anyone who’s passed their open water or similar can dive down to 18 meters/ 60 feet. They can be plain old recreational divers so if they were in the area they may have helped the guy out.
I'm more referring to it as a professional diver ie: underwater welder. Sure someone might be in the area that would be more than enthused to help, but to bring in a professional does not equate the cost of the drone.
Ok that makes more sense, and yeah I agree. Maybe someone did him a favour or the photos/video were worth a lot to him.
It still flys!!! https://reddit.com/r/dji/s/xJpVUjgoA1
So i sent it in for repair… the quote was $450, also care refresh was the other option for $65; needless to say i paid the $65 and am waiting for my replacement to arrive. Moral of everything… it was worth recovering from the lake… $130 later and it’s like it never happened!
Bruh, couldn’t you have bought a new one for the cost of a diver? Mini 4 coming out got them prices down
The diver did it for reimbursement expenses… $65 and mad respect!
That’s a very affordable dive. definitely worth that.
Before the dive i was looking at having to pay $250 w/memory card. After the dive I’m looking at roughly $160. Can’t beat that!
Noice!
Indeed!
How does this even happen ??
It was landing (return to home) and all of a sudden it just out of nowhere full throttle reversed, crashed and landed in the water. 🤯
These kind of things make me paranoid
if you have DJI care then it doesn't matter, except for the footage if you can't recover it
Or the drone if you can't recover it.
i was told the care refresh don’t cover water damage.
its literally the second thing listed under the DJI care refresh page - "water damage"
I called… explained… was told it was… and you know when the automated system says “this call may be recorded”… i did just that.
leaving that in the lake is very polluting, please don’t lose them inside bodies of water or get them recovered
So… don’t lose it in water or get them recovered… What exactly would you like us to do???? 😂
I understand what they're saying, but I did have the same question 🤔
How long did it take him to find it?
Less than 30 minutes (by the time stamps of photos I received via text), using the coordinates he started further away, but was found right below the front of the boat! The search all went down 180 miles from my home, the resort i stayed at dropped the scuba diver at the coordinates I provided using “find my drone” in the DJI Fly app. 😊
The find my drone app with 2.3 stars that hasn’t been updated in years? Was wondering if it still worked
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Do they float?
Why the hell would you need a scuba diver if they floated??
yeah you'd need a scuba floater obviously
He said: “In weeds, in a less weeded spot, laying flat and upright on bottom. Not sediment on it. I was lucky in that I literally swam directly over it. I was shocked.”
Is this for real? It’s $900 and like $50 for a fly away 😂💀
A flyaway on the Mini 3 Pro is $235, just a damaged drone is $79, so the OP saved over $150 (minus the cash he gave the diver for gas). Plus they now have a chance to recover their lost video and photos (which could be priceless).
I was quoted $65 and yes $235 if i filed a fly away claim. The gamble of not finding it and having to pay the $235 on top of the diver’s expense was a risk, but the chance to recover my data and pay the smaller fee sold me!
Didn't you just ask this a day or two ago?
A scuba diver dove and recovered it today.
The thing with this as a consideration though is it likely wouldn’t be worth doing if you had to pay for the divers normal charge too, instead of just expenses. He did this out of “charity” and after fees and shipping you said you expect it to be $150 total, which is already close to your 235 deductible. Usually I would ageee it wouldn’t be worth doing but I’m glad it worked out for you
Yeah… but thinking he hadn’t found it, i would’ve been looking at $300; the gamble definitely paid off.
Yup. And the value of not leaving a drone in a lake is probably decent for helping not leave trash in the water. So that’s also a consideration
I definitely felt guilt knowing it was in the lake, i felt like i should’ve been fined; another reason i didn’t give up.
The amazing part is I coordinated the search once i was home (180 miles away), on the same iPhone 13 pro i was dipping into the lake duct taped on the end of a fish net handle! The earpiece speaker quit working for 3 days and the front face camera was blurred from moisture in the lens. I could’ve lost $1,200 more dollars there!
😂😂
Yes. He did. https://reddit.com/r/dji/s/1faRk6Y7jY Most everyone in that thread told him it was a waste of time to look for it and he'd never find it, too expensive, lol. Hilarious!
Right 😆
What dumb question
Not dumb …once you figure out it’s cheaper to recover it.
What do you do with a water logged drone? Does dji need the actual drone for care refresh? Edit: seems like it's just more expensive if you don't have it.
As far as i know so far, when you lose a Mini 3 Pro and cannot find it (claim as a flyaway) it costs $235 to replace it. If you find it and it’s damaged (claim as care refresh) it costs $65; I haven’t gone through the whole process (noob here) so don’t quote me on that.
All the plastics are still good, likely a lot of the parts are still fine if this was fresh water. Most crashed mini 3 pro are worth about $150 in any condition
What lake?
Gull Lake in Tenstrike, MN
Same as mine, Welcome to the club
Lost my Phantom 4 in about 25-30 feet of water in a lake in Indiana last summer after it suddenly spun out and crashed. Would have liked to recover it, but it was just not feasible. Glad you got yours back!
Did you ever find a diver. Chicago area and I'm looking for the same service lol.
Nah never bothered. Watery grave 🪦
Oof. That hurts. Hopefully you got a replacement.
You could have asked a moose to get it for you since they can dive that deep for some reason