Water "proofing" your FPV drone - How to get it done and what to avoid 

Haircut looks good! makes you look more efficient and streamlined.

You've been gone a while, I hope you are doing well Ninja

long time no see , i hope you're doing well mate !

Haven't seen anything from you in a bit. Hope all is well man!

Great video! I've coated over 200 quads, and I agree with all this good advice, except for the "truly waterproof" bit. Ive found with MG 422C you really need 3-4 coats to waterproof, with 1 or 2 it's still "light duty" it's super easy to rework, because you can solder right through it. Light duty means your electronics will probably survive, but in a light rain you'll eventually get waterlogged. With heavy duty coating, you'll completely encase the boards. Worry free isn't good to solder through, but you can scrape it back with a fingernail and then solder 👌 it takes about an hour to dry, but only needs one coat. If you want to seal ports properly, put in a silicone plug and carefully coat the port while it is plugged, when you need betaflight, just peel it off and recoat when you're replugged. Warm PC Desktop exhaust dryer FTW, the editing actually dries the drone 👌 great video 🙌

Hey Bacon! Hope your are doing well. Miss you and your content bro. Greatings form Argentina!

MG 8309 is a Conformal Coating Remover. So if you were overzealous with the conformal application or coated your barometer, you can most definitely reverse what you did

Great video and perfect timing with it! I’ll be doing my first conformal coating any day now.

Looking Fresh! Keep up the good work. Thank You for all the help!!!!

I've been using the mg chemicals conformal coating. That stuff is awesome. Flying in the rain is a blast!

I'm from Brazil and your videos are helping me a lot. Tks bro

This is the video I’ve been looking for!

Gratz on 8k been a while,miss ya, as always great info! MopAir :) oh now im waitin for an ankle replacement, Lookin cool my bro!

Another great, educational video my bro. Keep up the amazing work and thank you 👊👊

Great video. Thanks for your video. Going to use 422c, live in central FL, fly around ocean alot. Thanks again.

Just needed this, and the video has been posted

just got done Conformal coating my winter gear. been doing it since 2013. I like to put little heat sinks on my VTX's after coating them. I've had a couple over heat after Conformal coating.

This is the video I've been waiting for.

Thanks a bunch for all the tips, dude! 😃 I never conformal coated anything because that stuff is really expensive here in Brazil... But I'm going to get some as soon as I can! Anyway, stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊

I've been using the worry free stuff but I think I'm going to try the thinner stuff you have. The wf stuff is like smearing silicone caulking across the board. I learned about the barometer on the speedybee boards by coating my first one and covering that little hole. On my 30x30 I was able to scrape it off and it was fine but my 20x20 I must of gotten some inside because it's always saying I'm at a few thousand feet. Makes the RTH function pretty interesting.

Excellent video. Super comprehensive. If you want to be as waterproofed as possible I’d do the conformal and then fpv worry free. It’ll be more work to peel off after for repairs though.

You are the best! make more content, I would be appreciated for more "repair, soldering, troubleshooting" content. Best regards from Latvia

I've been planning on doing this so I can fly in dense fog, but flying in the snow is going to be so great!

Where you been man? Missing ya….

I fly in Sweden, lots of rain here, learned the hard way to comformal coat my aio lol after 2 burned aio

I like to use DryDrone to protect all the plugs then come back with the conformal coat.

While I have a bottle of conformal, I usually don't bother with it. Well done explanation on the proper use of conformal coating. My Acrobrat was destroyed by water, it's sitting at the bottom of a lake. 🤓

I use Conformal for my standard quad builds but for my waterproof builds, I use FPV Worry Free. So I can FPV Worry Free! no but seriously, if you want to fly through downpours or land in the swimming pool, FPV Worry Free is where it's at!

Where’s this man gone?

You can also put silicon grease in the sockets for extra protection. Forms a watertight seal without compromising conductivity (the plug just displaces the grease). Probably regular grease would work too, it does in automotive applications, but might be more conductive.

Just started conformal coating again, Mg silicone. Leaves no excuses to get those packs in

GOOD JOB MATE

Fpv worry free does a better job than regular conformal coating. It's so easy to miss a spot with conformal. Fpv worry free encases everything in a gelatinous substance. Flew my quad into a waterfall in scotland no problem. But yes it is more of a pain to get off

Also, as good as conformal coating is, I stopped using it once I found drydrone. That stuff is absolutely INCREDIBLE. Unlike conformal, you don't even know its there when soldering.

I do conformal coat if I have the bottle handy when I'm building. Def coat the esc, but don't worry much about the fc as I figure grass juice and condensation are more a risk. Whoops always get a coating. I missed my landing pad once, dropped my inav build into a snow bank and retrieved a giant snow ball. 2 days on the fan, it still flies as badly as I make it.

thanks for this video it was very timely for my first coating, just wondering if all is ok, you haven't been active in four month?. :)

I just use it on the one analog 5” I keep around for flying off boats and in winter weather(I’ve had 4 or 5). I have dunked them many times, I dried them, wait about 1-2 days and they are always fine. I have never ruined one from snow or water surprisingly

I make side panels out of thin plastic food containers to help protect the guts from flinging debris and branches and just fly with caution around water or when it's really wet

Hi mate, great video as always! I was wondering if I need to cover the lipo balance connector in order to dive in water or is no issue at all? Thanks for your knowledge!

I have done this in a meteor75 whoop and it worked fine . The only problem was that I had many temperature warnings in osd on summer. That's why I didn't do it in my larger quads

I would never use worry free where I Live, I live in Arizona. It gets too hot and the components would overheat.

You just reminded me, I don't know where my MG Chemicals went. I try to coat all my quads but I am guilty of letting many go without a coating. I live in the only place hotter and dryer than Texas. So, only by maliceful machination might my multi-rotor's microelectronics meet a most moist moratorium, misfortune; Le malheur! I actually have some FPV Worry Free but like you said, it's a pain in the ass if you ever plan to work on the quad again. With that said, my conformal coating should be here Tuesday and my little USB plugs, tomorrow. I never thought to buy USB-C and Micro USB dust covers, thanks!

A small nitpick: barometers can be damaged by isopropyl alcohol or other solvents, so you should close the opening _before_ cleaning the board, not just before conformal coating. Source: dps310 datasheet: "Air blow and ultrasonic cleaning procedures shall not be applied to MEMS pressure sensors. A non-clean paste is recommended for the assembly to avoid subsequent cleaning steps. The MEMS sensor can be severely damaged by cleaning substances." Also, ovens can work for quad drying, if temperature is regulated well enough. 80°C with convection on works pretty well (if you have a battery powered beeper, maybe choose a lower temp - lipos don't like high temperatures). Or a hairdryer.

Conformal coating ftw🤘🏻😃 been using that since my first quad! But I also live in norway, just rain or snow😂

I usually fly in the morning with the dew still present and I notoriously get my escs wet which ends my flights pretty quickly when I hit wet grass. Luckily the heat shrink gun always brings it back to my life. I think I'm just going to coat my escs for that situation and see how it goes.

Psst.. Hey. We miss you. You keep doing you ,TCB. Better be flying though.

Great vid - I plan to do it. So I will leave all the solder joints and cables on there and try to get to all the places?! Probably the best way is to do it while building, leaving out the solder points, solder them and then coat those places. Too late for me ;-)

blue tac is the best tool when conformal coating, i fill the plugs and plug the baro with it and spray my circut board laquer spray till it runs off, 3 coats, then when its dry i scrape the skin off and use fresh blue tac to pull out the tac thats in the plugs, or if im not using that plug then i leave it filled and coated, also im a firm beleiver that it increases durability by making the componants less suseptable to vibrations and stuff cos they glued down like a mofo. - driftingS13

Miss you bacon! Hope you’re well dude

Hey bacon whats camera angles you prefer for freestyle

Im so keen to do this asap. I have the strongest urges to fly when its raining. Now i just gotta see how bad vision gets under rain without installing teeny tiny windscreen (lens) wipers 😅

I wonder if the gyro chipset needs to be coated?

What about proofing the O3 Air Unit?

Any new videos coming out hope everything is okay..

I am doing a lot of shots for actionsports the whole year and i coat all quads with confo mal i tried worry free once but its a real mess to put it on and timewasting a lot in comparison to conformal. Way better solution for me and sooooo much cheaper too

Where you go?

Havnt heard from you in 6 months. Hopefully youre okay and doing good 👍

Ace video thanks from the never dry UK 😂

I've used this MGChemicals 422C for the last couple of years and its so brittle when it dries, it cracks and falls off so easily. I've tried doing thin layers, thick layers, multiple layers and it still ends up dry and flaky. I heard someone said they changed formula's a few years back but I don't know how true that is. Anyway I'm looking for another product but can't find anything. Except FPVWorryFree but that looks likes its impossible to work through to re-solder things. Any other products to use? Thanks.

A better way to protect plugs etc. is to put Kapton tape over the opening.

Good day sir. I followed your tutorial on how to flash ESC and it was successful but later it suddenly not functioning appearing on the speedybee app was ESC/Motor Protocol not configured, then I try to flash it again on ESC configurator but my esc cannot configure when i hit readsettings its hanging? I used Speedybee BLS 50A 4-in-1 ESC Hope you can help me, thank you in advance.

Check out the 80’s Band the Talking Heads. They wrote a song about Pond Water.

Worryfree for the win..

Just dunked a quad in my pond 2 days ago.... dried it with compressed air and stuck in the convection oven at 120F° for an hour. I thought I got away with it, but the HDzero vtx tripped the smoke stopper. I guess that one is toast. Ahh well...

Help please! I can't connect to update firmware on my flight controller. It tries to connect and doesn't work, then if connect, then disconnect in 3-5sec, or connect with CLI only, or says about unavailable version, and there is no my board of FC(SPracingF3) as an option in Betaflight-configurator(i tried few older versions too). I tried update/change drivers and also ImpulseRC doens't find anything. Would be nicer if we could connect in discord/slype etc so faster/better communication and so i can show what exactly happens. But any help would be great. Thanks!

Great video and explanation but didn't you just coat the barometer that you said not to? 😂

Are you still alive? Just checking in on ya brother

Don't put on on barometer! Proceeds to brush directly over barometer... love the vids tho

So in other word you're saying we need to use liquid insulating rubber coating to not destroy our boards.

If it goes in the drink , I put the air line on it , leave it for a day and its ready to send again. Never conformal coat anything here

What's the thing called that makes my drone ramp up in speed it bumps into something??

I suspect the really important thing is what you do after the quad gets wet. I have some experience with quads and water. I've had a Kised Alien that was underwater for a couple of hours and a Diatone GT349 which was under water for 5-15 mins. The Alien lost it's battery, the battery of the GT349 stayed on. Both of those quads are still flying - the Alien is had it's swim about 5 years ago - there's a photo of the ALien immediately after it was pulled out of the water at the end of: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-GYVIpIQGcXA.html. The Alien had had extensive conformal treatment, the GT had only had conformal on the solder joints for the motos and battery wire joints - it was it's first flight and it was a plug 'n' play and I had not pulled it down yet. The quads both went into the same water - an onramental creek at my local park.The water is fresh water, but it has rats and ducks and who knows what else swimming in it and the bottom is covered in sediment, so it is not very clean fresh water. The Alein came up covered in mud etc - I could not see the Alien when I recovered it even though it was only in 9-12" of water. The water was a fair bit cleaner when teh GT went. In both cases after recovering the quad (and disconnecting the battery for the GT - out of the water) - I took the quads home and flushed them with fresh clean tap water (our tap water is chlorinated) for like 10-15 mins, rotating them and moving the hose around to cover as many anbgles as possible, basically trying to git rid of as many conductiver particles as possible. Then I left then to dry for 2-3 days in the sun. In both cases it was summer which means it was 35C+ (nearly or around 100F) and very dry - we have very low humidity. Then I powered them up with a low charged battery (as in flown but not recharged or storage charged) smoke stopper and when that was OK I The Alien came trhough will all components OK. The GT which still had a connected battery when it when under water needed a new 4in1 ESC. With cameras I coat all the internal components except the sensor. I also apply some coating to the lens threads and for cameras with a case aroiund the join of the case back, both before and after repalcing the back. I believe the best way to apply conformal is to air brush it - the MG 422B comes "ready to spray" - but make sure you have some kind of thinners to clean out your brush after. I just use a paint brish designed for scale modelling to apply mine and i use laquer thiner to thin the coating even more (I have some that is not MG and is much thicker) and clean the brush. One thing many people don't know is is that conformal coating - at least silicon conformal - is a thermalk insulater so applying it thin is a good idea. I typcially go really heavy on the pins of chips, regulators etc and fiarly light on the top of the chip package. You can solder through conformal, but I prefer to try and scape it of with a wooden tooth pick or icream stick or to use alcohol to clean it off. If you solder through the solder behaves kinda ike lead free solder and you get little points when you take the iron off - like tiny pointy dog turds and the solder looks dull. It still works, but it looks shit and I'm not 100% convinved the join is mechanically quite as good.

This has nothing to do with water proofing. Just swapped everything from a aos 5 frame to tanq frame. I kept breaking the AOS 5 frame. Using xing2 1855kv motors. What props should I use on this heavy frame. I really did like the AOS 5 it's just to fragile.

how many people who does coating knows when you dip coated part to acetone it removes coating completely, push like it is new for you.

I live in florida and I've never seen snow

8:39 😂😂

Ok nice,but what I would do if I want to solder something?

fresh cut huh noice

What if we use Nail Polish, the stuff with nitrocelulose, the good stuff. Or what if we just put hot glue over everything?

Absolutely do not put conformal coating on your bare vtx! I did this and it suffocated the vtx ,its just black now. I used worry free and it doesn't come off with alcohol. when I re-watched all the videos. I noticed they all had an aluminum case, that they just covered up the holes with the worry free. so now I have the worlds lightest paperweight lol also thanks for the video I have a speedy bee I will be conformal coating soon

I try to fly everyday even in Vermont winter I break less in the snow Softer crash landing

cant you just get the hull off the dji o3 for example, and first coat the inside without coating any plugs and then coat every airhole of the hull and assemble it back? that way you could keep your plugs and still waterproof everything…

You can use clear nail polish aswel

my favourite is Dry Drone - it is kind of 3M chemical :)

Hey whats going on?!

whats up

You forgot the barometer hole. 🤯

Anyone know why Bacon hasn't been around? Been worried about him for months 😟

Has anyone just tried hosing everything down with that camp dry silicone spray for water proffing clothes and tents? I just kinda wonder if you gave it a fresh coat occasionally or at least the day before flying near water if it would prevent releasing the magic smoke 🔥, or maybe just cause it, 😂

nice, thats actually what im exactly looking for right now, i live in Canada lol, winter is coming! speedybee bluetooth is the best thing again!

Acrylic MG Chemicals - 419D-55ML...is better because you can solder right through it for repair

RIP Bacon.

you forgot to mention cleaning it with bottled water before drying it out

hi Bacon, what do you think about all gubments drawing a line around you and saying you are not allowed to leave?(Antarctic Treaty) If you don't know what I mean, read my about tab.

this is some next level shit

Someone got thier ears lowered

#bringbackbaconninja

Missing your entertaining videos! Fly something please!

"Don't paint over your barometer." ::Paints over barometer with first brush stroke::

I am a conformist. Does that count?