Recently we had a Pilot Pro fail during testing by a Freefly team member, and he returned the unit for repair. Upon investigation the Freefly team discovered that the conformal coating (a water resistant protective coating used on the circuit boards) had failed and was chipping off the boards. Our investigation revealed that the conformal coating was not to spec, and would leave the PCBA’s inside Pilot Pro less protected from rain/moisture than we designed for.
Background
– Pilot Pro is designed to be robust and weather resistant
– Freefly relies on conformal coating for many of our products to help increase the robustness and reliability of sensitive PCBA’s
– We investigated and determined this issue only impacted around 20 units (you are one of the impacted customers)
– Unless the Pilot Pro was subjected to heavy moisture/rain this would not cause any issue with safe operation
Discussion
There are a few potential root causes they are investigating:
– Conformal coating material went bad
– Conformal coating was improperly applied
– There was a reaction between some contaminant on the PCBA and the coating which impacted its adhesion to the circuit boards
Recommendation
At this time Freefly recommends you send your Pilot Pro back to Freefly for a complimentary checkup. They will determine if your unit is impacted and if it is, they will fix the issue. Contact Freefly Support at [email protected] to get a Return Authorization started for this checkup.
This inspection is completely optional and up to user discretion. There are safety mechanisms built into Pilot Pro that will alert the user to a variety of failures that could happen due to water ingress with sub par conformal coating.
For questions and assistance, reach out to Gresco UAS at [email protected] or 478-315-0812.