Water proof multicopter

It's been my intention to make an amphibious quadcopter for a long time. Unfortunately, I'm lazy so what follows are my waterproofing tricks.

As mentioned, BLDCs are essentially waterproof already, with the bearings being surprisingly resistant to corrosion. The magnets and stator aren't so much. If you want them to last the BLDC outrunner motors need to be disassembled at which point you can coat the stator & magnets in MG Chemicals aerosol silicone conformal coat or dip it in epoxy based paint with the bearings removed. The cooling of the motor windings will obviously be compromised so you can use thermally conductive epoxy or simply swing smaller props and reduce your current draw. You can skip waterproofing the motors entirely if you dunk them in 99% alcohol after each use and that will protect the bearings as well. This will shorten their life considerably, but I don't spend more than $12 on BLDCs so I don't really care if I have to replace them every couple months.

Put all of your control electronics in a cheap tupperware container and backfill it with paraffin wax or silicone rubber. This can include your ESCs, although I've had reasonable success potting those in automotive grade Silicone RTV. This is controversial because the acetic acid supposedly will corrode the pcb and components over time, although I've never had any problem.

I just put my LiPoly batteries in a latex balloon and seal the mouth against the wire connector using hot glue.

I've run all of these components completely submerged in a bathtub using the above techniques.

There was an ROV article on the front page awhile ago:

http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/arduino-rov-sub

The amount of CoTs things I've seen work underwater with the stupid tricks listed above is surprising. If you have to have moving parts, make them non-corrosive, and use epoxy to pot components that need a heatsink. Silicone, hot glue, wax, mineral oil, and rubber diaphragms for everything else. I've never used these techniques deeper than 40 ft, but my default position these days is "it'll work underwater" until I've seen these fail.

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Andrew Chapman December 15, 2012 at 1:00pm

These look pretty waterproof, and they market them as being 'rain resistant':

http://www.microdrones.com/products/md4-200/md4-200-key-information...

Pretty clever design, it's mostly encased, with little disc covers over the motors.
Bill Patterson October 18, 2012 at 9:20pm

http://aquacopters.gostorego.com/?p=28
steve October 18, 2012 at 8:47pm

I've always used conformal coating on ALL of my apm boards, sonar, gps etc but making sure to not coat the baro sensor. Never had a problem. I also open the ESC's and coat them also.
Gerry Lichter May 13, 2012 at 4:20pm

It's been my intention to make an amphibious quadcopter for a long time. Unfortunately, I'm lazy so what follows are my waterproofing tricks.

As mentioned, BLDCs are essentially waterproof already, with the bearings being surprisingly resistant to corrosion. The magnets and stator aren't so much. If you want them to last the BLDC outrunner motors need to be disassembled at which point you can coat the stator & magnets in MG Chemicals aerosol silicone conformal coat or dip it in epoxy based paint with the bearings removed. The cooling of the motor windings will obviously be compromised so you can use thermally conductive epoxy or simply swing smaller props and reduce your current draw. You can skip waterproofing the motors entirely if you dunk them in 99% alcohol after each use and that will protect the bearings as well. This will shorten their life considerably, but I don't spend more than $12 on BLDCs so I don't really care if I have to replace them every couple months.

Put all of your control electronics in a cheap tupperware container and backfill it with paraffin wax or silicone rubber. This can include your ESCs, although I've had reasonable success potting those in automotive grade Silicone RTV. This is controversial because the acetic acid supposedly will corrode the pcb and components over time, although I've never had any problem.

I just put my LiPoly batteries in a latex balloon and seal the mouth against the wire connector using hot glue.

I've run all of these components completely submerged in a bathtub using the above techniques.

There was an ROV article on the front page awhile ago:

http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/arduino-rov-sub

The amount of CoTs things I've seen work underwater with the stupid tricks listed above is surprising. If you have to have moving parts, make them non-corrosive, and use epoxy to pot components that need a heatsink. Silicone, hot glue, wax, mineral oil, and rubber diaphragms for everything else. I've never used these techniques deeper than 40 ft, but my default position these days is "it'll work underwater" until I've seen these fail.
steve May 11, 2012 at 8:26am

I use conformal coating on all my all my boards. I don't fly in rain but have flown in light rain and never had a problem.
Emin Bu May 11, 2012 at 12:35am

...dex multirotors from first post is by far best for that .. http://vimeo.com/37773332
Joshua Ott May 10, 2012 at 1:34pm

http://www.liquipel.com/
Duy Pham May 9, 2012 at 9:41pm

we can use big spinner for motors
tijuan aikens May 9, 2012 at 8:55pm

encase them and run them by gears /belt
Norman Sanchez May 9, 2012 at 6:09pm

hello,
I tried it with varnish or gloss dupont brand and varnish with a brush, apm and the imu .caution the barometer. motors with no problem since all the electric motors of this type the coils are coated.

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Water proof multicopter

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