wet cell phone.......

has anyone else heard of this, i know it is probably a rare instance..... the other night i was doing the dishes and dropped my cell phone in the kitchen sink for a 30 second soak, the phone was on at the time, i pulled it out and quickly removed the battery and dried it out in the sun for two days..... i thought it was history until i replaced the battery and powered it back on, to my surprise it still works like new..... i have a little more respect now for motorola.......

It's not just Motorola. What you described is actually quite common. My old Nokia used to get wet quite a bit. (Call it some bad luck I had a few years ago). It had a detachable face-plate. I was able to take the phone completely apart each time it got wet. A day later, everything was dry. Once put back together, it worked! But the last time it got wet, whatever component controls sound, became damaged.

Don't know if this would apply to you, but found this recently, might be helpful (its for moto razr)
http://www.hacktherazr.com/guides/verizon.water.damage.php

Water damage voids the warranty on many phones. Some Sony phones have a dot that changes color inside the phone. The batteries might also share the color dots. They turn red when wet.

IMO it is better to disassemble the phone and carefully use compressed air to dry the phone quickly. Letting the phone air dry may leave mineral deposits which can lead to oxidation and eventual phone failure.

I hope yours is fine.

My brothers Samsung D600 was soaked with orange juice - but after we dismantled and left it under a lamp for a day it worked ago. Althought a new battery needed to be bought.

Once or twice I've had phones and pagers get wet. They all came back to life including my Nokia 3120. But whatever makes the screen work died in the Nokia.

I'm pretty happy so far with my new Nokia 6126 and I carry it differently so the same misfortune can't befall it!

Happens on a frequent basis, but SoundMix is right, there is generally a water marker installed on the phone somewhere so that a tech can see if it's been wet or not..

yeah, mine had a white dot behind the battery stuck on the phone itself, it is now bright red after the soak.....as soon as a tech sees the red he wont touch the phone.......

This is very common. Basically, if you remove the battery and let it air dry it'll often be ok.

Here's a video where they pour a glass of wine and a glass of lemonade into a laptop and it survives:

http://www.grynx.com/projects/wine-in-laptop/

jymkym_1 said:

has anyone else heard of this, i know it is probably a rare instance..... the other night i was doing the dishes and dropped my cell phone in the kitchen sink for a 30 second soak, the phone was on at the time, i pulled it out and quickly removed the battery and dried it out in the sun for two days..... i thought it was history until i replaced the battery and powered it back on, to my surprise it still works like new..... i have a little more respect now for motorola.......

Click to expand...

Found this too
http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=321492&highlight=%2Bwater+%2Bdamage

thread on how to fix cells dropped in water, main thing is removing batt immediately

I had a Samsung X427M that spent the night outside in a downpour. The screen was cracked when I found it the next morning. I called around and found one store in town (pop 300K, with a major University) that did repairs.

The fellow told me that my screen was toast, $50 to replace. He then tore it apart and found some corrosion on the internal board. He probably could've repaired it but my sister gave me her old phone that was identical.

He did tell me that most phones can take a lot of water provided it's clean. He said he'd repair quite a few phones from Co-Eds who'd dropped in the washing machine as well as the sink. He said my problem was that it sat in a puddle with crap floating around it all night.

Similar experience here: I dropped my old Nokia (I don't recall the model number anymore) into a sink full of clean water. I immediately removed the battery and took off the faceplate. I found that virtually no water had gotten into the phone itself. I let it dry overnight, and it worked fine for another year or two, when I replaced it with a smaller Nokia. The new Nokia (6236i) does not seem to be as sturdy or as well-sealed as the old one, so I don't think that I want to get it too close to water!

I know someone else who put a Samsung flip phone through a washing machine. The phone was dry by the time I got it, but the water had left a residue on both displays; I had to disassemble the upper half of the phone and carefully clean the residue off. The phone did survive, but shortly thereafter the hinge broke and the phone had to be replaced anyway.

I also know a third person who dropped a bottom-of-the-line Motorola into a bucket of water containing alloy wheel cleaner. He removed the battery and I rinsed the innards of the phone with distilled water, but the wheel cleaner was apparently fatal to the phone.

-Ben

Man, timely thread. I stayed the night at the gf's Sunday night, and used my new Nokia 6030 as my alarm in the morning. After hitting snooze about 5 times (had it set to 5 min snoozes, bad move), I sleepily placed it back on the nightstand. The phone then decided "enough of this foolishness", and gave me a big wink as it did a triple lux with a no splash entry into the glass of water on the floor 2 feet below it. The glass of water was on the floor specifically...say it with me..."So the PHONE doesn't ACCIDENTLY get WET".
Seeing as how fast I got my azz in gear after that, I shoulda just threw it in the water to start with.
Only the earspeaker and part of the screen got submerged, and I blew around in it to get the water out before reassembling it. The screen's backlight flickered a little for the begining of the day, and has been fine since.

GPS drowned in sea water...

Hey guys. What if it fell in sea water?

My GPS recently drowned in the sea and I only let it air dry (opened it up first) before putting back the battery in and it works, sort of. There's obviously something abnormal about it's behavior and I expect it to fail shortly. Should I reopen the GPS and wash it out with fresh water then dry it again? The actual part that got wet is under some sort of plate and I'll have to desolder the plate to get to the salty areas. Should I even bother to attempt this?

Thanks.

Everyone seems to be missing a step in wet electronics. I seem to always end up fixing my friend's various phones, cameras, remotes, etc. when they go into the lake, pool, ocean, or go through the washer. It takes more than just opening up and drying it. One thing to remember is that water by itself has no effect on DC current, and DC will work while submerged just fine. It's dissolved particulates that's the problem. When something gets wet, even in salt water, turn it off right away and remove the battery. At your earliest possible convenience, fully disassemble the device as much as you can without breaking it, and remembering how to put it back together. Rinse it under fresh water, using a toothbrush to gently scrub the internals. Use good judgment as some electronics have parts that should be handled very gently. Shake any loose water off, and let it air dry while disassembled for at least 24 hours. Upon inspection, if any part is still wet, let it dry longer. Once reassembled, it should work just fine. Using this method, I can usually save about 90% of electronics that went for a dunk and were then subsequently not working until they were cleaned and rinsed in fresh water.

I went swimming with my cell once, it still works.

Re: GPS drowned in sea water...

Salt water is a completely different situation. If you didn't rinse it thoroughly after dropping it in, the device probably has permanent damage. I'd say you should definitely open it up and hope it's not totally corroded on the inside (although it probably is at this point).

eebowler said:

Hey guys. What if it fell in sea water?

My GPS recently drowned in the sea and I only let it air dry (opened it up first) before putting back the battery in and it works, sort of. There's obviously something abnormal about it's behavior and I expect it to fail shortly. Should I reopen the GPS and wash it out with fresh water then dry it again? The actual part that got wet is under some sort of plate and I'll have to desolder the plate to get to the salty areas. Should I even bother to attempt this?

Thanks.

Click to expand...

take the battery out and put the phone in a zip lock bag of plain rice and leave it alone to dry:twothumbs

Re: GPS drowned in sea water...

eebowler said:

Hey guys. What if it fell in sea water?

My GPS recently drowned in the sea and I only let it air dry (opened it up first) before putting back the battery in and it works, sort of. There's obviously something abnormal about it's behavior and I expect it to fail shortly. Should I reopen the GPS and wash it out with fresh water then dry it again? The actual part that got wet is under some sort of plate and I'll have to desolder the plate to get to the salty areas. Should I even bother to attempt this?

Thanks.

Click to expand...

As others have already stated, salt water is a different story than fresh water. Salt water is electrically conductive and sets up unwanted shorts as well as galvanic corrosion quickly!! Turning the device off and getting the battery out as soon as possible even if it is still in the water is your best bet. If you can't get the device apart soon, you are better to drop it in a jar or container of fresh water and leave it to soak, submersed, than you are if you allow it to dry out with the saltwater still inside it. This is also true for cameras and lenses (from experience I type).

Re: GPS drowned in sea water...

McGizmo said:

As others have already stated, salt water is a different story than fresh water. Salt water is electrically conductive and sets up unwanted shorts as well as galvanic corrosion quickly!! Turning the device off and getting the battery out as soon as possible even if it is still in the water is your best bet. If you can't get the device apart soon, you are better to drop it in a jar or container of fresh water and leave it to soak, submersed, than you are if you allow it to dry out with the saltwater still inside it. This is also true for cameras and lenses (from experience I type).

Click to expand...

Wow and to think I fear even unscrewing the back:shakehead