I was driving southbound towards London on the A10 approaching the m25 roundabout when I saw a drone hovering about 50m up. It was spitting - not heavy, but enough rain that I would not put a drone up. As I crawled very slowly round the roundabout it came down, but it went up again a few seconds later (fresh battery?)
The police are often camped out on a slip road by that roundabout, and I was wondering if it was a police drone, perhaps with some waterproofing. It had its green lights on, and also had a white strobe.
How big?
It is quite possible as more and more forces are using the to monitor traffic situations if not needed else where.
Most of the enterprise drones have a decent amount of weather proofing.
Interesting. When I was doing my A2 C of C, they made a very big point about not flying drones in any kind of precipitation, even drones with a level of water resistance. I blindly assumed that this was followed to the letter
As it was around 6pm, raining and I was driving, all I could quickly see was the green lights and a white strobe, so couldn’t really gauge the size of it.
Wow, I didn’t know these existed, but I thought it was more about the exposed areas around the propellors that would be a problem - are the motors themselves not exposed?
As I hate being in the rain I don’t think I’ll be investing in these - my drone might be safe and dry, but I won’t!
Got my air 2s and one of my Mavic 3’s covered with the wetsuit. Both stay up in rain that’s hammering it down and have no issues at all. Best purchase I’ve made as an add-on for them.
@Windswept lost his first mini2 in the pouring rain. Had to give up the search and return the next day if I remember? Drone located, dried out and successfully flew many flights after that. He has a video on his youtube channel. My main problem with flying in the rain, is getting rain drops on the lens, doesn’t make a great picture.
The motors can be forgotten about as the windings have to be insulated, otherwise they just wouldn’t work and things would get fried.
I’ve not had any of mine apart (yet) but I think it would be possible to coat the pcb in some shellac. My main worry would be water ingress to the camera sensor and gimble. Mine have all come down a little moist when flying near waterfalls or in the mist. Not had an issue yet, just wipe off the outside and let it sit at room temp or in an airing cupboard to dry out.
Windings will be waterproof in the motors but what about the bearings. And as Joe said above about the rain on the lens. Only a few drops and your picture quality is shot so its not worth it from that point of view either.
Bit more understandable if the police have an M30 series up and theyre looking for someone with thermal etc… Its not about picture quality in that case the drone has a job to do.
I got caught in the rain last year & thought maybe is what caused This sent it off to DJI under warranty & they replaced the drone but I had bought another to get me by whilst I had no drone.
I remember reading your post. Ive been caught in the rain a couple of times but no noisy bearings. Im paranoid and always checking motors because I fly over water so much and lost a mavic pro years ago that had been giving me intermitent motor faults. I thought it was a propeller issue so changed it but next flight the fault appeared and into the river mersey went the drone.
