Teaching a mobile phone to swim

Could have been worse, next door neighbour managed to dunk iPhone in the loo, of course you can't whip the battery out on those, so it was a write-off ...

This particular model is one step above two empty cocoa tins and a length of string, so no great loss, but a nuisance, nevertheless.

If you can, get the case off. You may then be able to disconnect the battery that keeps the memory alive. Nokias are relatively easy to dismantle.

You may get intermittent problems after it's dried out due to minute spots of corrosion on the keypad PCB. You'll need a good magnifying glass to see 'em. :-/

Bloomin' Nokia communicators....

It might have been better to rinse it out with distilled or deionised water to get rid of any organic matter from the burn.

In article , News writes

In a similar spot I decided to dismantle the phone and wash it out with isopropyl alcohol. The idea was to displace the water before it could leave any deposits on evaporation. It did recover but it may have worked without the IPA treatment, I was careful to wash out under the chips. IPA will absorb water.

I've tried drying out a digital camera that had got damp by leaving it near a radiator and that was a definite mistake, it was too hot, the moisture vaporised and then condensed in the worst possible places within the undismantlable depths, between the layers of the lcd assembly and in the shutter switch, causing corrosion. I did manage to recover that one but the approach was a definite mistake. The more gentle heat of the airing cupboard may work better.

Sealed military electronics gets desiccated before the final plug goes in and there should be some mileage in attempting to replicate that process to dry something out but despite having it demonstrated to me in the past and it being a relatively simple process I'm not sure I could set up the process at home.

Putting it in (a bag of) rice seems to be the best thing - absorbs the moisture.

JB.

Open any closed spaces up, and give it a full week to dry out.

NT

I like that one. I was going to suggest putting it in a low vacuum chamber.

One of my sons was particularly careless with his phone, but taking it apart and putting in a fan oven at 60 degrees for an hour having been through a machine wash recovered it. After the third time though I had to take a toothbrush to the contacts around one of the chips which were getting a bit furry. Regards Bruce

I have put a dropped phone into my ultrasonic cleaner before putting it somewhere to dry out for a couple of weeks. After that, I remove the sim card and use a pencil eraser to clean both sets of contacts. The one in the phone and the one on the card.

I recovered my wife's camera that way when she fell into a stream.

Dave

But what about the wife though?

David

she wasn't naked at the time.

My Nokia managed to slip out of the overall phone pocket into the bowl of a toilet I'd just installed.

Tried the airing cupboard ploy to no avail so I rang O2.

Very helpful. Upgraded me early at no extra expense to a Samsung Immerse

Not tried that, but very handy being able to rinse it under the tap.

I've never investigated this but isn't a fridge a drier place than an airing cupboard ? You're not going to freeze any moisture because the fridge will be at about 5 degC, but air dryers/humidity extractors use effectively open fridges to remove moisture from the air. Also flash drying of foodstuffs is done at low temperature..

Rob

most common way of losing one - apparently

tim

Well it's not much help now, but I have heard that the next big selling point for mobile phones is likely to be riggedness and water-resistance. There are a number out there now.

SteveW

^^^^^^^^^^ That was ruggedness.

riggedness. Te ability of a mobile device to be suspended on a piece of string.

riggedness. The ability of a mobile device to withstand being driven over by a Tiger tank.