News iPods are not machine washable

[The_Pope]

A teenager in suburban Melbourne, Australia got something of a surprise on Wednesday evening when his iPod exploded after an accidental adventure in the family washing machine.

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2005/05/13/ipod_wash/

[The_Pope]

I had borrowed a mate's T39 mobile phone for an overseas trip one year - it was tri-band (which my Nokia at the time wasn't) and a neat bonus was a spare battery that was super thin, which I could store in my wallet (you can see where I'm going already, right?)

To cut a long story short, the wallet got washed with my jeans, trashing business cards, expense receipts etc AND my mate's spare battery

[smoguzbenjamin]

Bummer I guess almost any gameboy game I own has been washed at some point, so I've had my fair share of washed electronics. Luckily only's died on me for getting wet. I'll never forget super mario land

[Sunny-D]

you think washing a battery is bad? try washing the whole cellphone.



twas my first. audiovox 4000. never did the laundry without emptying my pockets ever again. never stopped to check on the 'odd thumping noise' coming from the dryer...

[TMM]

haha. I've washed an old Nokia 3310 back when they were actually worth a bit

Someone at my school ended up with a screwdriver half way through the middle of their iPod.. don't ask. Still works o_O

[Otacon]

Can't think of anything electrical i've ever let go through the wash but my 7210 met a watery grave at the bottom of a U-Bend...

Although after the obligitory take it apart as much as you can, dry it, leave it next to a radiator overnight and put it all back together - It was alive!!

Shame that didnt work for the ipod though.

[bloodcar]

Originally Posted by The_Pope

would you happen to have a larger version of that pic? i kinda like it... wouldn't mind using it as my background.

[LAGMonkey]

toilets and phones in back pockets tend to like to meet together im my experiance. My Sony Z5 went into the U-bend but still worked after i took it apart and let it dry (my little sister has it now ). The replacement to the Z5 was my Z7 but that met its watery death when i had to save someone from a swiming pool (was the life guard at the time). AND I didnt evan get a thank you . Pool water is def. a killer of electronics as the Z7 never rose again.

[logan]

My 7110 was the victim of a leaky bottle of shower gel in my gymbag....

Died for a bit but came back to life after a week or so.

Smelled great too!

[advance]

I have washed my VX3100 4 times now and it works fine. The 9 key is a bit messed and there is a gash in the front, but it seems to pick up cells where no one elses does..

[Jhonbus]

One of my friends washed his old phone, which he replaced with a second hand one, which also got washed within a month. Then he bought a new one, and within two weeks dropped it in a glass of water....

[quack]

A friend of mine had a webcam that wasn't working right, so after a few hours of fiddling she got a picture on it. Then just as she was about to fire up MSN Messenger, she dropped it straight in her glass of water. Oops.

[Murdoc]

I sent an old Thompson MP3 player around the washing machine 4 years ago, it only packed up last year


'doc

[The_Pope]

Originally Posted by bloodcar

would you happen to have a larger version of that pic? i kinda like it... wouldn't mind using it as my background.

Haha - it's just something I 'Shopped together in 5 minutes to give the story more punch; I wouldn't make any great claims about it tbh.

I could upload it if you REEEALLY want, but tbh, I found that 800x600 photo of the iPod super fast on Google Image search, so why not have a go yourself and then you can make it say anything you like

[bloodcar]

cuz i suck at photoshop?

[DreamTheEndless]

1. Motorola cell phone (company phone in fact, on call 24x7 and all that...)
2. Beach
3. Tide out
4. Me and girlfriend playing in the ocean with the dogs...
5. Tide in...

We came back to where our clothes and things were to find that everything was under water

The next day, I was able to get my cell phone to power on for a few minutes but that was it. It didn't like sand and saltwater inside.

The nice part was, I didn't get any emergency phone calls on my vacation (My co-workers accused me of doing it on purpose )

[Who_me_33]

My nokia 2280 went through the wash and died. How ever i think it was time though, it had been in the sink twice before. And my kyocera died in a similar fashion, dropped into a puddle, and never worked properly again for some reason.

[Pezboy]

I work nights on the general aviation side of a regional airport and have to carry around a cell phone to which all calls are forwarded. Not two weeks after we got a new one because the old one had been dropped one to many times, it slipped out of my shirt pocket and fell straight into the toilet. I didn't try to catch it; I didn't really move at all. I just watched it splash, sink to the bottom, and said out loud in a complete deadpan, "You have got to be shitting me." Then bubbles began rapidly escaping and I realized it was filling up with water. I finally sprang into motion and pulled it out. (I was wearing latex gloves at the time.) I let it dry out over night, fired it up and it would display but could get no signal. Then it stopped working entirely, just the backlight. The upside is we now have phone that vibrates which means I don't get yelled at for missing calls because I can't hear the ring over a fuel pump or a jet engine.

[Publisher1]

Well, we had better luck -- iPod went through the washer and dryer; and we thought (reading this thread) all was lost. Yesterday I tried, and voila, it worked. (There may be some advantage in leaving things alone for a week or so to allow a thorough drying out of the system.)

Great image, though, and I hope the originator doesn't mind my borrowing it for my blog covering an unrelated subject area (construction marketing).

[The_Beast]

My brother has washed a few phones and they all still worked