Fell in few drops of water. Can't switch on

[Ilrilan 54]

Today my pro1 fell on rubber floor mat in a car with small amount of water - melted snow from boots. Now it don'react to the power button pressing, don't charge.

Have asked support, what can i do - may be there is disassembly guide for cleaning it inner. Or only one variant is sending to.Europe for repairing?.. Yes, i know that water damage isn't warrantly coveored case.

[david 929]

Have you tried any of these options?

https://www.wired.com/2014/02/thats-deal-wet-phone/

[david 929]

Has anyone used any of the DIY water repellent products on any phones?  Or the professional services that make a non-repellent phone more repellent?

[Ilrilan 54]

Phone doesn't react to Power button. Now it is turned off - but i don't try to disassembly myself without manuals, it is very easy to broke more, for example damage connection loops. 

Great vulnerability to the water is very unpleasant - it wasn't falling to the toilet or water stream. No, just few drops on the coverage for some seconds. 

[david 929]

Putting it in a bag of dry rice or using desiccant products won't require you taking it apart.  They just make the air very dry, hence removing the water that made its way inside your phone.  If something didn't short circuit and create physical damage, removing the water should allow it to work again.

[EskeRahn 5,471]

10 minutes ago, Ilrilan said:

Phone doesn't react to Power button. Now it is turned off - but i don't try to disassembly myself without manuals, it is very easy to broke more, for example damage connection loops. 

Great vulnerability to the water is very unpleasant - it wasn't falling to the toilet or water stream. No, just few drops on the coverage for some seconds. 

A single water drop that comes in the wrong place can cause havoc on any device though of course very unlikely.

If you were unlucky and the snow was contaminated with salt from the road, it can have caused more problems than pure water by itself.

I have used the device in very mild rain (took an incoming call), so it not just the first water drop it sees that kills it.

[3zet 100]

15 minutes ago, david said:

Putting it in a bag of dry rice

NEVER DUCKING DO THAT!!!

 

Not only its not working, but also you make your liquid damaged device gluey and disgusting 😄

[david 929]

13 minutes ago, 3zet said:

NEVER DUCKING DO THAT!!!

 

Not only its not working, but also you make your liquid damaged device gluey and disgusting 😄

It does work for some people, and if you read the article, it talks about wrapping it in paper towels to avoid the muck. :-)

[MickH 212]

At a guess, I'd say it was the shock of the drop that did the worst of the damage. I'm not sure "a few drops of water" would cause any big problems, but that depends on how big the drops of water were.

I always worry about dropping my Pro1 when the screen is open. Having said that, yours wasn't open when it hit the floor, was it?

[EskeRahn 5,471]

1 minute ago, david said:

It does work for some people, and if you read the article, it talks about wrapping it in paper towels to avoid the muck. 🙂

Also combined with LIGHT heating (say 40-45 degrees) could help get the moisture from the phone to the rice.

[Ilrilan 54]

Phone was closed. And yes, unfortunately, as said EskeRahn, with big chance it was salt water, not pure - road workers often pour salt and sand to the snow on the roads. 

[VaZso 1,998]

2 minutes ago, Ilrilan said:

Today my pro1 fell on rubber floor mat in a car with small amount of water - melted snow from boots. Now it don'react to the power button pressing, don't charge.

Have asked support, what can i do - may be there is disassembly guide for cleaning it inner. Or only one variant is sending to.Europe for repairing?.. Yes, i know that water damage isn't warrantly coveored case.

Hmm... that is not a good news.

End result depends on the amount of liquid inside and on ingredients in water.

I am also assume it is not covered by warranty, so if I were you, I would disassemble it - the phone itself seems to be relatively easy to disassemble (however, appropriate screwdrivers are mandatory).
First of all, battery should be disconnected as soon as possible to avoid further damage of the circuits inside.
Remember, that "water" is a really bad type of water as in winter, usually it also contains some type of material to be less slippery or become easier to melt.

It may cause corrosion if battery remains connected and depending on the situation, the more you wait, the worse the situation (corrosion) can be.

Also remember these electronics are sensitive - also physically and electronically, so avoid touching them and avoid wearing synthetic clothes when you work with them (especially those clothes what you feel /and even see/ small discharges when you put it off - these discharges WILL destroy electronics and if you wear these clothes, it has a very high chance).

So I advise you to do it only if you have steady hands and do not continue other than disconnecting battery if you are not familiar with electronics.
Instead, go to a trustworthy phone / electronic repair shop, tell them what happened and they should know what to do (but they will not promise anything).

Otherwise, you should see the amount and placement of the water inside and you can check if there are any corrosion.
If there are excessive materials left inside, you should clean it somehow (like isopropyl alcohol) - but I advise you to do it by somebody who is familiar with it.

If you are lucky (...if it were only water or simply rain...) then you only need to dry it off. If there are no excess materials can be seen, you may try to wait to dry it out (still keep battery disconnected(!)) Do not use hairdryer or other similar equipment. You may put it on a table (or a bit warm but not hot casual radiator) and wait for some days to let it to dry.

...but again, let someone who is familiar with electronics do the cleaning and drying out. The only thing someone who is not familiar with electronics should be do is the disconnection of battery as it is the hugest enemy of an electronics which has dusty water inside.

If you are lucky, it may work again after it dried out.

If it does not wake up, I would ask F(x)tec if I could buy a replacement motherboard from them.
They may hear it, it still worth a try, however, I don't know if there are legal restrictions against it - however, motherboard replacement should also be done by somebody who is familiar with electronics as it is easy to cause any damage which may result in a non-working phone again (so F(x)tec may not provide warranty for motherboard and it may be the root cause if they are not willing to sell you a motherboard).

Also connections and ribbon cables may be easily broken, so be aware if you decide to disassemble the phone.

Again, if you are not familiar with electronics, the best thing you can do is only to disconnect battery, then bring it to a service person and "pray"...

[david 929]

23 minutes ago, EskeRahn said:

Also combined with LIGHT heating (say 40-45 degrees) could help get the moisture from the phone to the rice.

104 to 113 degrees Fahrenheit.  :-)

If someone goes the rice route, apparently instant rice works better than regular, uncooked white rice.  And use a lot of it, not a little.  If your house is very dry (as it is in Winter in Minnesota, where I am), a fan blowing on it in open air might work best of all.  Once you get to a certain amount of humidity in the air, then a sealed container with a desiccant of some type is probably your best option. 

There are some people who claim that flushing out a phone with isopropyl alcohol first will help, with the idea that the water will dissolve in the alcohol and then the alcohol will evaporate faster than just water alone.  Not sure if the pros of that approach outweigh the cons in a phone that was only splashed and not submerged significantly.  

Combining what EskeRahn mentioned (light heating) along with the open air fan approach, putting it in front of a hair dryer on a low enough setting and at enough distance might optimize the process.  After all, hair dryers are made to dry wet hair.  You just have to be careful about the temperature.

No matter which method is used, plan on days for the process to take place, not hours.

Edited January 7, 2020 by david

[VaZso 1,998]

13 minutes ago, Ilrilan said:

Phone was closed. And yes, unfortunately, as said EskeRahn, with big chance it was salt water, not pure - road workers often pour salt and sand to the snow on the roads. 

I think salted water is one of the worst thing one can have inside a phone - basically because it conducts and it causes corrosion and that is the cause why you need to disconnect battery.

If you are lucky, the phone may work after cleaned, but there is no guarantee if it will ever work again.
So that is why I would disassemble it to disconnect at least the battery - so to have a chance for it to work again.

Otherwise it may also "eat" the PCB.

[VaZso 1,998]

7 minutes ago, david said:

If someone goes the rice route

Maybe Silica gel instead...

8 minutes ago, david said:

putting it in front of a hair dryer

I don't advise to do it.

[david 929]

1 minute ago, VaZso said:

Maybe Silica gel instead...

Yes, that should be better, in theory, but people generally can get instant rice a lot easier/faster and in bulk than Silica gel.  But if someone has a lot of Silica gel lying around, it should work well. :-)

1 minute ago, VaZso said:

I don't advise to do it.

There is nothing wrong with it as long as it is on a low enough setting and great enough distance.  Put a thermometer next to it to get it to the desired temperature.  The temperatures EskeRahn was talking about are normal temperatures for people living in desert climates.  That's another option.  Fly the phone to the desert and stick it in the shade for a few days. 😉

My current phone regularly gets to those temperatures when it is charging more aggressively too. 

Dry, warm air blowing on it is your best option for removing moisture, most likely.

Disassembly (since, as mentioned, it isn't warrantied now that it got wet) will allow for physically drying any drops that can be seen on the inside, and will also allow whatever indirect drying methods are used to work better.

[EskeRahn 5,471]

Had it been mine, I would open it and see how easy it is to disconnect the battery. But I'm a technician, If you are not familiar with electronics, have someone that are do it, and as @VaZso said, the faster the better, especially if there is a risk of salt or other minerals in the water. If the water is clean disconnecting is not a must, though still recommendable.

My next step would be to see if I by a lucky chance could get to the water, and remove some of it with say a cotton pin, or e.g. a corner of a piece of toilet paper. But again it is delicate business, so important you know what you are doing.

Next step would be drying the whole thing, let it stay at warm (not hot) place, and preferably with some air circulating, as @david already suggested, and for days. I think I would use a normal summer fan near (but not to close) to a moderate heat source like a radiator, or the back of a refrigerator.

After it dried I would take a very fine brush (like for lenses), and see if I can see any place where debris is left from a droplet, and if so try to brush it off.

And finally some dry canned air, blow carefully(!) to get to what can not be seen.

(And reattach the battery and hope...)

[SchattengestaIt 559]

For me it already helped putting the phone on a heater after it got wet. I had a non waterproof phone falling in water. It even was salt water, since some kid took it on the beach and threw it into the water.

Dry it as much as you can with a towel (instinctive), then remove/disconnect the battery. Water isn't a big problem without energy. Then put it on the heater (don't use a hairblower since you could blow water further into the device) and dry it out more. Finally you put it in rice over night. Heating it in a closed container with rice makes the air even dryer.

 

However I am wondering how the power button is designed to allow water into it. That sounds like poor quality to me, even if a phone like that isn't supposed to be waterproof anyways.

[Ilrilan 54]

Morning i took phone to the nearest service center - it was disassembled here. All connection loops where in salt and green oxide, after cleaning with Kontaktreiniger (Liqui Moly) and assembling it works now. Thanks God, electronics wasn't damaged by short curcuits. Serviceman said that all inner plate connectors are opened and vulnerable to water, and there are lot of holes in cover case - dynamic, microphone, sim-slot... now i try to find as tight silicon case, as it possible. May be glueing with silicon sealant unused holes - f.ex, i dont need 3.5mm jack, because of using bluetooth headset. May be dynamic holes can be sticked up inside. Also it's possible to put on sealant part of magnetic usb cable in the socket, like this:

 

If i do something like this, i'll post photos here. Water vulnerability is very bad property

Edited January 8, 2020 by Ilrilan

[VaZso 1,998]

@Ilrilan I am happy finally it works again.

As of holes, it is absolutely not easy to prevent water coming in.
There are phones which does it by a lot of development effort, but only a very few are protected.

My previous phone was also similar regarding water resistance.

[EskeRahn 5,471]

31 minutes ago, Ilrilan said:

Morning i took phone to the nearest service center - it was disassembled here. All connection loops where in salt and green oxide, after cleaning with Kontaktreiniger (Liqui Moly) and assembling it works now. Thanks God, electronics wasn't damaged by short curcuits. Serviceman said that all inner plate connectors are opened and vulnerable to water, and there are lot of holes in cover case - dynamic, microphone, sim-slot... now i try to find as tight silicon case, as it possible. May be glueing with silicon sealant unused holes - f.ex, i dont need 3.5mm jack, because of using bluetooth headset. May be dynamic holes can be sticked up inside. Also it's possible to put on sealant part of magnetic usb cable in the socket, like this:

 

If i do something like this, i'll post photos here. Water vulnerability is very bad property

Glad you got it working, but sad to hear that it should be especially vulnerable 😥

[Ilrilan 54]

Quote

As of holes, it is absolutely not easy to prevent water coming in.

I think, it's not so easy if you want to get water resist without any trade-off. You can't just fill 3.5mm jack with sealant - because socket will not work then. You can't glue micro/dynamic holes with plastic tape, because it will degrade sound quality. When you sell the phone, all parameters must be "new, perfect". 

 

But i don't need 3.5mm jack, and don't need great sound quality - if i want listen music, i'll connect bluetooth. Then i can't simple fill all holes with sealant, knowing that i don't want to sell the phone later.

[Ilrilan 54]

Or may be it's more simple just find tight silicon case, which can protect all holes from liquids. It's not so radikal solution, as disassembly and glueing.

[EskeRahn 5,471]

8 minutes ago, Ilrilan said:

But i don't need 3.5mm jack, and don't need great sound quality - if i want listen music, i'll connect bluetooth. Then i can't simple fill all holes with sealant, knowing that i don't want to sell the phone later.

The problem would be the 'all' here, as there (for obvious reasons) are moveable parts in this device. Even if you are able to cover the whole thing in thin film, the hinge mechanism is not likely to be watertight.

[Ilrilan 54]

Yes. Slider mechanism can't be watertight, so Pro1 can't be full waterproof. I just want to protect it from small water drops in closed state - closing holes on the cover can be something better, than do nothing.