mvigod

Curious. what are the odds of motors, planes, cars, radio equipment surviving being submerged for an hour or two totally underwater. My basement flooded out yesterday and some stuff went under. Was curious if any of it would be potentially salvageable and if there are any steps on what to do or not to do to give it a better chance.

I had a NexStar plane go under, an XTM Buggy go under and a few other items as well. Most of my stuff was hung in the rafters and was fine and nowhere close to the one foot of water. Is everything destined for the dumpster or what?

Kmot

My Feedback: (24)

Sounds like a real mess bud! I had a 3" flood once and that was bad enough...

OK, from experience in boating I can tell you that as long as nothing electrical was powered up by a battery chances are it will be ok. You need to disasemble as much as possible to let it air dry completely. Talking about the electronics here. Once it is all dry, you should be good to go.

As for your engines, it is teardown time to be safe. Inspect for rust. Carbon steel cranks and such can rust almost immediately when exposed to water. But if there is no rust you are good to go, just dry it, wipe it with a rag, lube it and that should be it.

The balsa and plywood is probably toast...

Good luck!

Kmot

My Feedback: (24)

Oh, and as far as electric motors are concerned they can run underwater so no worries there except again for rust. Just make sure they get dried out OK.

Mhale71

what the hell ?
electric motors run underwater??

WHY am i only learning this now??

Bax

My Feedback: (11)

Depending upon how dirty the water was, a lot of unwanted material can be left in the electronics when the water dries out. That material can cause small connections between the pads on the circuilt boards. Best thing to do is rinse off with distilled water and then use very gentle heat to dry off the units.

Sometimes a circuit-board cleaning solvent will help, but you have to be careful because some of the solvents are a bit active and can dissolve insulation inside small coils and such.

If corrosion gets started on a circuit board, you'll have to write it off. Our experience is that it just won't stop, once it starts, and performance of the electronics just deteriorates more and more over time.

R/C engines should have the carbs, heads, and rear covers removed. Flush them with fresh model fuel, kerosene, or similar, and the oil them up very well. You can't use too much oil.

As far as balsa models are concerned, just give them enough time to dry out. If they're not warped, you should be OK.

FLYBOY

My Feedback: (11)

Watch for corrosion after the stuff dries out too. Was it tap water or sewer water? Tap should be fairly clean and do the least damage. Make sure the wings and fuse are all straight when it drys on the planes.

The engines, I would just flush, fire them up, run them hot and then oil them good. Getting them hot will get any water out. I have dunked a few engines and always get the water out and get them good and hot right away to get the water out of the bearings and stuff and then lube them up good. Never had one rust doing that.

Good luck!

Kmot

My Feedback: (24)

Well, I can't answer your question "why" but yes they sure do. Here is a pic of a motor running in water to seat the brushes.

Scott Claboe

My Feedback: (9)

That's cool!

DBCherry

My Feedback: (4)

Marc,
I'd take one other precaution and use a heat source to dry the Nexstar. I'm not sure what they use for glue on it, but I was given a Tower trainer that had been sitting in a swimming pool for a day or two; I managed to dry everything out, even had the receiver, servos and engine working fine, but I noticed the firewall was a bit loose and added epoxy there and to any doublers and joints I could get to easily.

Well, first (attempted) flight and just as it lifted off one of the dowels holding the wing parted from the fuse. (The doubler came free from the balsa side, and the dowel ripped out.) The plane rolled badly to the right, and no amount of aileron or rudder would help. It never got over about six feet in the air, and it caught a wingtip and nosed in (like the beginning of a cartwheel), then it just absolutely exploded! [X(]

The bottom of the fuse separated from the sides, the sides from the top.... I almost literally had a new kit. It seems that virtually every glue joint popped loose. Problem was, the wood had a greyish look, almost like dry rot, so I just trashed it.

Good luck with your stuff!
Dennis-

Underaged Pilot

My Feedback: (1)

I've about a plane crashing into our lake and recoverd like a month in 30 feet deep water that is dirty dries the stuff out for 6 months used some oil and said they were even better!!!

mvigod

This was settling rainwater. My sump pump decided to not work for awhile (not broken..it works now so go figure) but decided to take off for a few days. We had some heavy rains here and it was muddy so don't know if you would call that tap or sewer actually.

Cactus.

My Feedback: (1)

i sunk my boat once full charge, a week later i got it back ,unplugged it, charged the pack on slow, that was ok, the servo was ok and the RX too after a week in the airing cupboard, the speedo needed a month before it worked, 3 months and the water was slowly drying up inside the relay's, a year later i had backwards again.

at our display my Dust got filled with rain!!! i didn't notice a problem till the next day when i found said rain, the Rx was dried and fine, the servos went iffy next week, both were opened, sprayed with WD-40 and left to spin a bit without cogs. all still working great.


salt water... thats a different beast!!