Are there any tips and tricks to save my flashlight? It was in the washer tru the whole cycle! I’ve never seen my flashlight so clean before! It’s like new now! Lol
But seriously, after the wash, I put it in a ziplock with some silica gel. After couple hours. It wouldn’t turn on for any modes. If I charge it, the red charging light comes on. During charging if I click, the light comes on but no other modes. A week later it’s still not working
I try to make sure that everything in my pockets is water proof. I had a phone go through the washing machine about 10 years ago and came out totally dead. I had another one go through a front loading washing machine cycle 5 years ago without a problem.
This might sound crazy but it’s already ruined so what the heck…
Distilled water or alcohol cleaning. Water isn’t what kills solid state electronics, it’s the dissolved solids that leave residue behind creating shorts that kills electronics. If it worked even a little bit I wouldn’t try but since it’s pretty much toast anyway maybe try a good distilled water and/or IPA cleaning. Not like you’re gonna make it worse.
If you could get it apart and physically scrub the corrosion away that’d be even better than just a rinse.
You said a week? By this point corrosion could be so bad it’s physically degraded PCB traces or switches or the foil pouch Lipo battery or the flex PCB it’s self by now anyway.
Ck is correct. Youd be amazed what a stiff bristled nylon brush and isopropyl alcohol can do for circuit boards that are garbage. What else do you have to lose?
A few years ago we saw a ton of flood damage cars appear here in the north east, and what a nightmare it was. I wont say it worked every time, but 1 in 10 cars were lucky enough to be brought back this way.
One case in particular i remember: Had a (flood damaged) jag go through a few garages with a bad ecm, something even the dealer couldn’t get - and it was going to the yard. I offered to look at it, and agreed the ecm was the culprit. This was the worst condition ecm ive ever laid eyes on. litteraly packed full of rust, corrosion, oxidization, salt and sand. The works. Didnt even bother with the iso scrub.
I sprayed the ecm with “pb blaster” and took my stiff nylon brush to it. Whole can on the board, the pins, case, just went to town. then rinsed with isopropyl alcohol, and left it in bag full of dessicant for a week.
I did end up having to solder a few new pins on the ecm, and repin the corresponding wires in the ecm harness, but i sh*t myself when it fired up; I never expexted it to actually work. Dude drove it for another 3 years after that. A 7$ can of pb blaster and a few hours of elbow grease, and i acquired a customer for life.
Now I dont recommend everyone to go that route and use pb blaster like i did, id definetely start with isopropyl alcohol. But if its already junk, there isnt much to lose.
Never mind - I see you've let it dry for a week.
The majority of what’s writen before this post is correct. Hardly ever he culprit is the water itself, but it’s what’s in the water, detergent, or salts in the case of diving in seawater. It won’t get any better, if you let it like this. Dutch soccer players use to say: niet geschoten is altijd mis (a shot not taken is a goal never made).
Things I use, in addition to the ones previous mentioned, are a soft clean toothbrush, and water that comes out of a condensing tumble dryer (one run through a double coffee filter). That’s almost destilled water.
And eh… IMHO a luke warm dip works better than a cold one.
much like others mentioned, take the light apart, rinse & clean it with distilled water to get any conductive deposits and residue off the circuits, then dry it completely in a zip-log bag with dried rice. (but first heat & dry the rice in an oven at 100 degrees for 30 minutes, then place the light in a zip-loc bag with the warm rice. (the heat from the rice will help vaporize any moisture trapped under, and in any components.) leave it in the bag for a few days. take it out, and see if it works. the last thing you can try if not, is to spray or coat the PC board with a light oil, (which will dissolve any remaining conductive soap residue on the board, then try the light. I did this to a salt water dunked GMRS radio, and it worked.
Just to reiterate;time is of utmost importance at this point. The longer you wait the worse it’s going to continue to get. The damage is done but not finished happening if you want any chance of fixing it take action immediately
Yeah, as soon as I saw it was a week… ouch. Can’t let it go more than a day or two at the most. Salt water, however, would be about an hour or so. That stuff corrodes quickly.
Nitecore TIP CRI is junk. Had 2 of them. Both failed. Left a sour taste in my mouth for mini Nitecore lights. TIP 2 looks very interesting, but would rather wait a year to see how it plays out.