I hope nobody minds me posting this in here and mods if you want to move it somewhere more appropriate (like the bin ) then please do but as it’s small electronics thought the knowledge people have here might be able to help.
I unexpectedly went for a swim the other day trying to rescue my drone as it headed for the waves and in my panic to try and recover it ran into the sea without emptying my pockets.
I came home and took my soggy phone and remote car fob out of my pocket, ran a hoover over the top of them a bit and left them tp dry out for a few days.
The car fob worked intermittently for a bit but now won’t work at all, as it’s totally buggered I’ve nothing to lose in terms of trying to fix it and as it worked for a while but not now was wondering of salt water had taken it’s toll and was thinking about spraying some switch cleaner all over it with the battery removed … unless anyone has any better idea’s asto what I could try … I do have isopropyl alcohol to hand as well if that was likely to be any better.
If anyone can offer any advice would be greatly appreciated although I do accept it may be totally beyond the stage of recovery.
Sadly it’s probably the salt water that has done the damage, you should have removed battery and flushed it with copious amounts of fresh water as soon as possible to get rid of the salt then hovered and dryed it ( placing in a descant or rice works well ) and not used it until completely dry.
You got nothing to loose by using switch cleaner or similar, but I suspect it past saving
As any long term boat owner knows, salt water is the most corrosive substance known to boat owners
I’ve never seen a key fob that couldn’t be taken apart. I can’t tell you how to take apart your particular one but maybe you can figure it out. If you can get the two halves apart and get it the circuit board I would scrub the circuit board with isopropyl alcohol and a toothbrush. I fixed quite a few wet electronic boards this way.
saltwater= death to electronics.
have to pull batteries the instant you realize it got dunked and rinse with clean freshwater.distilled if possible.
then dry in a warm,dry place.even on an ac vent as that air is dry.
as for contact cleaner there is only deoxit.forget the others.
Totally agreed. Even a freshwater lake, river, or stream will have mineral content in it that will kill electronics so treat all unintended dunkings the same way. Only rainwater and tapwater should be considered clean and non-corrosive; everything else will nave contaminants harmful to electronics.
1- Immediately remove the cell or battery
2- ASAP flush well with tap water or filtered bottled water (NOT ‘spring water’ or ‘sparkling water’- read the label)
3- Initially dry with compressed air, hoover, bicycle pump but NOT human breath
4- Drop into an air-tight container of rice (ziploc bags do well) and leave it at least 48 hours.
5- Remove, inspect, blow of any rice dust, and give it a try.
Any device with an electret microphone you will probably need to replace that- they are highly moisture sensitive. The most important part of the process is to un-power it; your success depends more on that than any other factor. Next is rinsing; if you don’t have tapwater handy any cleaner water should be used ASAP then use tapwater later on to finish .Never use anything else as you might cause a chemical reaction or leave a residue behind that water cannot remove. LiIon cells should never see moisture- consider them gone if they get dunked and place them somewhere safe in case they go into thermal runaway and vent once you get them out.
Echoing what everyone else says: immediately pull the battery and flush with clean water.
You can dry it in a bag of rice, but I’ve had good luck baking things gently under a low-wattage incandescent light bulb for a couple of days.
I also repaired a laptop that had a drink spilled in it by removing the motherboard, flushing it with copious amounts of tap water, then by setting the motherboard on top of a CRT monitor over a weekend, so the warmth of the monitor slowly dried it out.
The camera I use for all my reviews took a drink… It’s an older 3MP Pentax, but it has the ability to macro focus to 0cm, meaning the object you photograph can actually be touching the lens. I was hiking along the river at Beaver’s Bend in Oklahoma and dropped it in about 2’ of water. I removed the battery, and had to lug a water-filled camera around the rest of the day. When I got home, I disassembled the camera the best I could, and baked it under a 40W incan bulb for a few days. When I re-assembled the camera, it worked perfectly, and I still use that camera frequently, 8-10 years later.
I lost a small digital camera I had in my pocket. It was a cool-little 2MP pocket camera I had. It was about the size of an iPhone, but slightly larger, with a small LCD on the back, a rotating camera sensor so you could take pictures of yourself if you wished, took 640x480 video, played mp3s, etc… It was a great camera for the time, as the best cell phone cameras would only take 640x480 shots at the time IIRC. It was in my shorts pocket when I waded into the Gulf of Mexico, but it was a week-long vacation and I didn’t have any tools to open it and clean it. Died from the corrosion. :cry:
Oh and when you want to start your car do not be surprised if it doesn’t work, you need to use a spare simple key without electronics sometimes (my wife dumped her fob in hot chocolate, i rinsed it a littld bit, leftt it to dry because could not see how to open. Car didn’t start, used spare. Garage asked €108 for a new one, so I asked if he could open it up. Saw the relative simple electronics and it could be ordered for much less do took it home, cleaned it with demineralized water and a toothbrush, dunked it in alcohol for a night, let it dry and put a new battery in. Then in car , turn to on (not start) press lock for 10 seconds and it worked again
Other cars have this a bit different but googling sure will give you a few things to try)
Cheers for everyone’s input is much appreciated!!!
I have an old tooth brush that was retired literally about 2 weeks ago, I kept it as we have a young tortoise and was going to use it for scrubbing his back when he has a bath but looks like my car fob may get to try it 1st … I also have some demineralised water so will use that and see how I get on!!!
You can dunk the depowered item in 92% isopropyl alcohol after the fresh water rinse as well. Alcohol and water are attracted to each other, so this makes the item dry after the freshwater rinse a bit easier. Alcohol at 90% or above is general safe for unpowered electronics. You can find 92% at WalMart or CVS in the first aid section.
) then please do but as it’s small electronics thought the knowledge people have here might be able to help.