UKC

So my good lady left her iphone 5c in a damp steamy bathroom the other night.
After realising that she had left it there she noticed that the screen looked kinda fuzzy and after attempts of a forced restart the phone wont power up or even charge. The phone has been left in a box of rice for the day and still no change.
So does anyone else have any tips or expirience with resurecting damp iphones would be much approciated as i'm currently failing at man points here.

In reply to lewk_c: Take battery out put in a bag of rice - dry, not cooked - overnight.

In reply to lewk_c:

I have two phones that eventually dried out. One that took a few days just left alone, another that was left overnight on a radiator.

I would heat the oven until it is warm, then turn the oven off and leave it inside overnight. You could wrap it all up in tinfoil with dry rice that is inside a tea towel as well. Garnish with sauce.

Give it time.

In reply to lewk_c:

Cheers folks, yeah its spent the night in a box of rice. Not sure she'll buy the cooker idea, especially after seeing the pictures of someone who tried to dry theirs out in a microwave.

In reply to lewk_c:

To be honest it needs the logic board removing ASAP and it having an alcohol bath in an ultrasonic cleaner. I realise that you'll prob not be able to do that but I would flip the screen off to let any water evaporate. 2 size 00 star screws on the bottom <pentalobe screws> that you may be able to undo with a tiny flat head or Phillips. Then you'll need a suction cup like the one on the back of most satnavs. Look it up on ifixit.com or youtube. The screen can be removed while its cables are still attached to the logic board. Once you get this far, bag it up with rice and pray. If the screen is buggered they are about £35 and need the ff camera, proximity sensor, home button and EMI shield swapping over from the old one. iphones are tough and particularly good at resisting water damage so fingers crossed. The ear speaker and bottom speaker my have suffered damabe though but these parts are cheap enough. Good luck mate.

In reply to lewk_c:

Sorry didn't read your post closely enough to note you had tried the rice trick. I get the impression Wilkie does a fair amount of refurb/repair on electronic devices so I would take his advice.

In reply to lewk_c:

The Apple shop gave us a new iPhone for £150 after the old one got wet. After handing it in we told the sales assistant that it had been total immersed in water and she said I know, and proceeded to show us a pic taken by the technician of a rusty internal.

In reply to lewk_c:

Be patient and use the bag of rice method.It took a week for mine to come back to life but has worked fine since and that was a yr ago.

In reply to lewk_c:
There was a young guy on Dragon's Den who had a kit for such an event ( you actually immerse it again. )

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2524708/Dont-worry-dropping-...

In reply to estivoautumnal:

That'll be a 4s. For a 5c, you're going to be looking at more 215quid

In reply to goose299:

yep that's correct, I got my 4s replaced for £130 but my boy got his 5 replaced last week and it was over £200 .

In reply to Jim C:

Having seen some of the electrochemical corrosion* inside damp electronics, I'm sceptical that a chemical dunk will fix the problem; often, entire PCB tracks are eaten through, and dunking won't fix those. I'm not sure I relish the idea of a corrosive solution to remove the corrosion, and then have to clean all that out, and dry the thing again. I'm out...

* and it's the battery-induced electrochemical corrosion that's the real problem; getting electronics wet with no power attached isn't a problem, provided you can dry them out in a short time. Trouble is, so much portable electronics has a permanently attached battery that the damage is done before you can get the device dry or open.

In reply to captain paranoia:

I was not. Recommending it( not tried it) but just pointing out it is commercially available , and one of the dragons , you would expect, must have had it checked out before backing it.

In reply to Jim C:


It's okay, Jim, I wasn't suggesting you were; I was just musing on the idea...