Help save my soaking wet cellphone. Help!

[Metanoia]

I'll just make things short.

I have a brand new Nokia 5610 cellphone. The problem is that, because of my foolishness and stupidity, I dropped it in the toilet.

So what do I have to do?
Is there a chance that it would still be saved?
Is it covered by the limited warranty?

I really need help, especially from the experts.
Thank you very much!

[Sliderule]

It "may" still work if you dry it out for a few days before putting any juice to it, but I doubt it. You're just going to have to wait and see, depending on the make of the phone and how it was designed you might just get lucky. There really isn't much else you can do besides putting the lid down next time.

[Avid]

Eh, just take out the batteries and let it sit aside for a while. I had a bad habit of washing electronics...most of them worked. I used to forever wash my mouse with the comforter and occasionally my cellphone.

[Ice Wolf]

You can try drying it in a oven, at about 45C. Leave it there for couple of days.

If you are techie, you can disassemble it (warranty!), wash it with 96% ethanol and then dry it. Board only. Don't wash LCD.

Remove battery, before you do anything.

If you left your battery in, it is probably too late. :(

[Ytterbium]

Remove the battery. Let it bath in destilled water or alcohol and let it dry. Water usually leaves various of rests found in it after it evaporates. Which may short circuit conductive parts.

[Motor Jax]

you can send it to me, and ill see what i can do...


oh, and you can go ahead and leave the SIM card in there for me...

[burazekun]

You have a couple options to clean it. After looking at the model I think the best method would to be soak it in distilled water, or a tub of alchohol like previously mentioned. Make sure to remove the batter and have it dry sepperately, dry it with a towel if nessesary. Avoid quick dry methods as they do not thouroughly dry all the parts.

After soaking it, open it up and lay it face down on a towel. For the first 2 hours change the towel every hour. You can reuse them but you need to let them dry. Let the device dry for a day. It is safer if you keep it facing down and in one dirrection and flipping it could cause contaminates to pool in the device.

I would say dont risk warrenty. However if you need immediate drying, you can take it appart. You will need to use a precision screwdriver kit most likely. Once open try to take out the board that is in there., it lookes like there will be two of them. Leave the LCD inside the casing. Dry the boards and in about 2 hours you can try to use the device. However you may damage the LCD with this quick dry method. And in turn reduce or make the device inoperable.

Edit Note: 24 hours if in a dry climate or a room with a dehimidifier. 48 anywhere else.

[SimplyOtter]

I feel for you. I managed to drop both cordless and cell phone in the bathtube while having a bath! I still believe it's been some sort of a miracle, but they are both working again. All I have used is the hairdryer.

Good luck!

[tp6626]

Have a look on youtube for ultrasonic baths. They use those to clean electronics in water. Not that its that useful, just may be of interest as its slightly related. Its just that its generally thought that water is not friends with electrical items, but I think this is ill-founded. As long as it isn't switched on with water present, and as long as no debris or corrosion builds up to cause shorts or breaks etc... it should be fine.

When I was 7 or 8 I left my gameboy out in the rain all night by accident. Two days in the airing cupboard and it worked fine again, and was pretty clean for it too!

[Metanoia]

Thank you very much for all the concern.

Haha, I am not a techie person so I did not even dare open my unit. I trusted the phone company to do the thing for me.

After four visits to them, they finally told me just a while ago that my case was a hopeless case. The board was corroded and there was no other way to fix it. They won't recommend me buying a new board because it's almost the same as buying a new unit for me. I went home still trying to accept the fact that its over and done for the phone and me. I tried thinking of other back up plans but no sensible plan came.

I told myself that it was just a matter of acceptance. Sooner or later, we all have to let go of things anyway.

When I got home, I looked at the model closely. Then I tried different things which I no longer remember. It seems like I'm on a trance. I inserted the battery and tried to open the unit without the SIM and memory card. To my surprise, it opened. I was very much elated for this. But then, I did not expected too much. It might just be an illusion.

I inserted the SIM and memory card, opened the phone and wait till the phone was ready. It says it can't read the memory storage. After a while, it was able to read the memory storage too. The music player was playing very well, however the camera was not working.

All's well that ends well. At least some of its features are still working. I just wonder why the company diagnosted it as a hopeless case.

[Avid]

Sounds like your phone isn't/wasn't completely dry or the stuff short circuited.

[Metanoia]

Oh yeah. I think that was what the phone company told me.
However, I was wondering why I was able to open the unit when they told me that the phone will never be able to function any more.

[Avid]

They were just taking the easy way out. I know a lot of "tech" guys that will just say something is a lost cause only to have me or someone close to me fix it.

[elsdfr]

I drop phones in toilets to. Two works ones so far :suspicious:

As for fixing them (If you REALLY want to) then yeah I wouldn't try turn it on if its wet. KABOOM.. pull it all apart and dry it out like burazekun was saying. I tried this with one of them and put it onto of a bar heater but I forgot about it though and now its slightly melted and still not working. So yeah proceed with caution.

[Jakalwarrior]

The stuff that still isnt working probably has water in it still. It really needs to air out! Like others have said, the main thing that kills electronics when they are wet is that water is conductive and bridges circuts.

[PRBori]

I've read that someone Microwaved their phone for 1 min and it worked afterwards I'm guessing battery off... also sumerging it on rice for a day is supposed to absorved the water....

Nevertheless, for the future I suggest you put insurance on it and report it lost so you can get a re-furbish one...

[punkyplatypus]

The toilet? :laugh: Did you eat your phone?
My mom dropped her cell phone & a cordless phone in the pool before. Each time she took the battery out, towel dried it, took a blow dryer to it (not too long or too close to cause any damage), and then set it aside for any sitting water to dry. Both worked afterwards, though the cordless phone's speaker didn't work as well as before.

[Jakalwarrior]

Yeah those little paper speakers sometimes arent the same after water. I never thought of the rice idea though, would be similar to putting it in a bag of silica pellets, Ill have to remember that one!

[burazekun]

Well if you have any issues with it in the future. You can send it to me. I like to work on gadgets like that. If there was "corrosion" It is actually easy to clean off. Oxy Clean is actually pretty good, and with a wash up afterwards "on the board" you can generally get it to work generally perfectly.

My PS2 developed corrosion on the sensor that told the system if it was open or closed. "I have a slim" Opened it up to find a green copper oxidation on the connectors fusing them together so it was a short. I unplugged it, took some hydrogen peroxide, a precision flat head screwdriver and a sewing needle and scrapped it off. Took the hydrogen peroxide and scrubbed with a micro fiber cloth.

Cleaning it was easy, but for smaller curcuit devices you generally have to stick to Q-Tips and deoxidizing agents. "Like WD40, Oxiclean, and a few others. However I recemend not using WD40... that was a experiment that worked.. however it is... well flamable, and you need to use a deturgent afterwards to take the oils off then cleanse it." A little drying can go a long way though. You may even in the future find yourself with more of those features, or you may lose some, if not all to real corrosion.

[Ytterbium]

Remove the battery. Let it bath in destilled water or alcohol and let it dry. Water usually leaves various of rests found in it after it evaporates. Which may short circuit conductive parts.

I see now that I used stupid wording. It's the phone that shall take a bath not the battery. I hope you understood it anyway.

[reb]

did you try 10 minutes in the microwave? the phone won't work, but you can drill holes in the plastic lump after you put out the fire, and use it to hold flowers. tell everyone you bought the thing at a gallery for $5,000, and it's modern art by an unknown artist. very chic....

reb

[Ice Wolf]

Putting electronic device into microwave would be rather destructive procedure. If you doubt, try putting something metalic in it. As you can contemplate: induction makes wonders with electronic devices. And results of such doing are usually quite grim.

WD40 is a contact killer. I still don't know who was the guy who came up with idea of using it instead of contact spray. But I guess he deserves to be shot at sight.

[PRBori]

I forgot, althought I mention the microwave option first I personally wouln't recommended either, that was just something I had read somewhere. Telephones have metal and any type of metal will sparkle and make it very dangerous to try. My apologoes for the late response on it and thank to the rest that cut it ahead of time.

I still prefer to have insurance on the phone, most phones can be replace with 50 dollar charge only, really depends on the model. Also the Go phones will work as long as they are from the same service carrier. A while back my phoned stop working and I didn't have time to wait for the replacement so I bouth a 20 dollar Go Phone for ATT and that was sufficient to deal with the issue.

Just a thought.

******

Hahaha...I'm now watching Myth Buster and they put a spoon, a fork, and aluminum foil on a microwave for almost 5 minutes. The first two items did't reacted, only the aluminum sparkled but did not cause the microwave to explode so maybe putting the cell in the microwave would work..still will not recommended but this is ongoing now... all microwave theories being busted...

[reb]

whack..whack! whack!!!!! BAM!!!! (item shatters from blow of sledge)

help! my sarcasm indicator seal is not working on this thread....i think i'll stick the f'er in the microwave....
reb

[burazekun]

Putting electronic device into microwave would be rather destructive procedure. If you doubt, try putting something metalic in it. As you can contemplate: induction makes wonders with electronic devices. And results of such doing are usually quite grim.

WD40 is a contact killer. I still don't know who was the guy who came up with idea of using it instead of contact spray. But I guess he deserves to be shot at sight.


I came up with it. I used the method to clean up a computer I recovered from a fire. I also used it to clean out a 4gd MP4 player. WD40 I said was not an option that should be considered because of the work involved to make sure you dont kill the device using it. To be honest... soapy water probably would have been enough to clean it... But it's good to take off corrosion. It's not like you spray the entire thing in it.

Microwaves will also fry the micro processor and kill sectors in memory and other parts. The metal pieces will bring about increased heat to the area it's located. Chances are it will die.

[Metanoia]

I thought the phone is already functioning back to normal except for the fact that the camera is not working. However, to my disappointment, it seem like it was just a transient matter.

The LCD's no longer displaying anything.

Sigh, how could I use a phone that is not even displaying anything on it's screen.

[reb]

Metanoia,

as an aside for future possibility, i keep my nokia in a hard shell glasses case which claims to be waterproof and will float. some kind of 'tupperware' might be an option for smaller phones. a little inconvenient, but protects the phone if dropped to some degree, and prevents this (unless you were in a boat, or over the toilet, and just dropped the thing...). course, i don't text, email or anything else on my phone, and don't use it unless 'i am only talking on the phone' either...just a thought.
reb

[Released]

when discmans first came out, I dropped two of them in the toilet. Didn't get them to work against after that. The lesson I learned: be very careful around water :)

But the best advice I have has already been given: don't turn it on, leave it off to dry out really, really well, and take the battery out.