Dan East

Unfortunately I’m becoming something of an expert on repairing or reviving electronic devices that have been submerged in liquids.  Here’s a short list of what me, my wife, my 4 kids and our cats have been able to soak:

• Kyocera Phenom – Ranch Dressing
• Nintendo DS – Sprite
• Motorola Razr – Cat pee
• iPod Touch – Washing machine
• Motorola Razr – Dr. Pepper
• Samsung Cell Phone – Washing machine
• FRS radio – Toilet
• Blackberry Curve -Toilet

And those are just the ones I can remember off the top of my head.  And yes, all those devices lived to tell the tale.

Now before I get into the various methods to “repair” a soaked electronic device, I’ll throw in the usual disclaimers.  First, I make no guarantee  or claims that what I say will work.  Second, you’ll void any warranty that might actually be left on your device. Third, messing with electronic devices (especially lithium ion batteries) is dangerous, and could result in electrocution, burns, fire, toxic chemicals, etc. Fourth, if you open up any device then there’s a good chance that it will end up worse off than before you tried to fix it. Fifth, in short, consider what you’re about to read nothing more than entertainment, and don’t do any of the things I discuss in this article.

So let’s get into the nitty gritty.  Say my wife Tracie has asked me to grab the clothes out of the washer and throw them into the dryer.  In the process I see my Blackberry laying deathly quiet in the bottom of the washer.  Here’s what *I* would do:

1. Try to keep from vomiting as my stomach locks up in knots as I fully realize what I’m seeing.
2. I do not turn on the device! No matter how strong the desire is for me to hit that power button and see if it works, I will not turn it on.  Here’s why.  Electricity is the number one enemy that can cause permanent damage.  Water conducts electricity, and if the device is powered on then the water droplets inside the device can short and reroute electrical currents in ways that the components can’t handle.  Even if the device were to work at first, as water droplets move around inside they can short and damage circuits.
3. Immediately remove the battery. This is absolutely critical.  Modern electronics don’t even have real power switches.  So when a device is “off” it is really just sleeping in a low power state, waiting for a button press or other event to wake it up.  So as long as the battery is in the device, the potential for power to flow to where it doesn’t belong is there.  But what about iPhones, iPods and other Apple devices that don’t have removable batteries? Well, there’s nothing I can do about that.  So potentially those devices are more vulnerable to damage since the battery can’t be removed.
4. Do not plug the device in to recharge, or connect it to a computer or anything else.  If I’ve been listening to anything I’ve said so far, then I should know that electricity = BAD, so plugging into a power source would be bad, bad, bad.
5. Open any access doors, panels, etc.  Remove battery covers, USB covers, memory cards and covers, etc.
6. Physically remove as much liquid as possible.  I do this by placing a towel on my leg, orienting the device so the largest opening faces down, and firmly hitting it against the towel over and over, physically flinging the liquid from the device.

Now, at about this stage in the game a decision has to be made.  If the device was submerged in clean water then the remaining water will probably evaporate out, and if the device wasn’t damaged immediately when it was submerged (again, by the “electricity flowing through water to where it doesn’t belong” part) then there is a very good chance it will be fine.  In this case I will bake it with a hairdryer.  I heat the device evenly with a hairdryer.  If the device gets too hot then it could be damaged, so I try to keep it about as hot as I can tolerate holding it in my hand.
However, if the device was soaked by something other than water  (*cough*  cat pee, Dr. Pepper, Ranch dressing) then drying it isn’t enough.  Soft drinks will leave behind a sugary, sticky coating. Ranch dressing will simply dry into a sort of cement, and cat pee, well, that leaves behind urea and all kinds of nasty cat-pee-smelling-stuff (let me tell you from experience, that’s not exactly what you want to smell everytime you put your cellphone up against the side of your face).  So in these cases I don’t have much choice – the device has to be completely disassembled.  Now this leads to a completely new level of risk and commitment.  Disassembling (and especially the mandatory reassembling part) pretty much any piece of modern electronics is not a task for the faint of heart.  In fact, many devices, like cell phones and Nintendo products, cannot be dissembled without special tools.  The Nintendo DS and DSi use screws that take a special bit, called a tri-wing.  They look like a Phillips head bit but with only 3 wings instead of 4.   I can’t run into Wal-Mart and buy a tool like that – in fact I don’t know of any mortar-and-brick store where I can buy that tool.  Luckily I had already ordered one off of the internet for a previous DS repair job.  Cell phones often use tiny Torx head bits, and those can be purchased at some hardware stores, but it is unlikely that most people would already have a tool like that (unless their cat peed on their cell phone at least once before).

I won’t get into the horrific discussion of dissembling mobile devices here, because the tools and techniques vary drastically from one device to another (don’t even dream of opening an iPod Touch / iPhone unless you’ve got a replacement glass bezel and touchscreen membrane handy, because you’ll almost certainly tear them both to pieces trying to pry them off).  So I consult the internet to find specific disassembly instructions (there’s at least one YouTube video showing how to take apart any electronic device you can think of).

Now once I get the device apart, and separated into its constituent circuit boards, LCD panels, touch membranes, etc, I liberally apply 91% alcohol with a lint-free cloth, dissolving and wiping away whatever liquid is in there that doesn’t belong of the circuit boards, button membranes, etc.  In the case of the Dr. Pepper soaked Razr, I actually soaked the circuit boards in a tray of alcohol.  I clean all the plastic pieces, etc, really well.  In the case of the DS that was soaked in Sprite, I had to remove each of the tiny ribbon cables from the connectors on the mainboard, and soak and wipe them thoroughly with alcohol to remove the sticky sugar that worked its way between the conductors.  Note, do not apply alcohol to LCD panels! It either damages the LCD or leaves behind residue between the membranes – the panel will have permanent visual artifacts if alcohol gets inside it.  Also, I make sure any alcohol has air-dried before applying heat with the hairdryer.

So far so good.  Again, assuming the device wasn’t fried immediately due to shorts when it was first submerged then it might have a chance.  However, the big IF at this point is the LCD display.  Pretty much every mobile device in existence now has an LCD  display, and those are finicky little suckers.  See, the problem is that they are comprised of several layers of incredibly thin membranes, separated by incredibly thin gaps.  When it comes to water, a little thing called Capillary Action comes into play.  Remember seeing a thing called a meniscus at the surface of water in test tubes during chemistry lab?  Well, me neither.  But if I did remember that stuff then I would know that capillary action will literally suck water in between the thin layers that comprise an LCD panel, and there’s no way to actually dissemble an LCD panel to clean between them.  If it is water, then most likely every bit will eventually evaporate and work its way out from between those layers (more on that below).  However if the liquid was not water, then in all likelihood the LCD panel will end up with residue permanently left between those layers.  In other words, it might work and be viewable, but it will look like crap.

So I’ve got my device all dried out.  If I had to take it apart then I made sure I reassembled it correctly, and put everything back in place (sounds a lot easier than it is, that’s for sure).  Finally I’m ready to power it up and see what happens.  More than likely, the battery is dead.  The act of shorting it out in a liquid allowed the current to flow unchecked, discharging the battery.  So first I’ll try powering up by the battery, and if that doesn’t work, I’ll hook it up to external power.

Assuming it powers up and works, the first thing I’ll notice is the LCD display.  It will look like fractal patterns of shimmering, strange shapes that change as the device is tilted.  That is the liquid interfering with the polarizer film, causing the optical qualities of the LCD to be really whacked.  There are two ways to quicken the removal of water from within the LCD panel.  First is heat – back to the hairdryer.  I’m always careful not to overheat the LCD, because that could damage it even worse than the liquid.  It will take quite a while for the water to evaporate out of the LCD panel.  It’s about like watching paint dry.  When drying  the iPod touch I took a picture of the pattern on the screen, and after half an hour of applying heat I could tell the water was dissipating when I compared the picture to the device. So it is a very slow process, but it does work.

The other technique is even slower, but it is better than not doing anything.  Put some rice in a Ziploc bag and throw the device in with it. Have you ever wondered what those little baggies that sort of look like little tea bags are that are packed in with new electronic gadgets?  They are called desiccants, and they basically help suck moisture out of the air, thus acting like a little dehumidifier.  That’s what the rice does in this case – it pulls what little moisture there is out of the air in the bag, quickening the evaporation of water from within the LCD panel.  Again, it is a slow process, and even without the rice it will evaporate on its own – eventually.  My daughter’s Samsung cell phone took a few weeks for the moisture to evaporate out of the LCD in room air, and now the screen is visually perfect (that is if she can find it – she looses her cell phone weekly).  And just to reiterate, if something other than water made it inside the LCD then it will likely leave residue behind that cannot be removed.  That is the case with my 6-year-old’s DS – both LCDs work but they don’t look so good.  The only alternative for perfection is to send it off for repair, or replace the panels yourself.  The good news for me is that I have already replaced the LCD panels on both my 9 and 11 year old DS’s, so I’m already an expert in that area.

If you’re reading this half panicked after your toddler threw your iPhone into the toilet to see if it would sink or float, then don’t dispair.  Make sure you don’t turn it on, lay a towel on your lap and start banging the water out of it.  Follow up with hairdryer and a bag of rice, take two aspirin and don’t call me in the morning.