Long story short, a friend of mine got his ipod wet. Its the smaller version of the original ipod (no, its not the new mini, but it is about the same size). The problem is, it shows no signs of life whatsoever. The casing is sealed amazingly tight so I can only imagine that it got into the ports. From my past experience with wet electronics, I'm thinking I should just let it sit and dry. I'd like to get it open, but I cant break the seal. I found some people who said that if you heat up the case you can squeeze it really tight to get the seal to break and it will also loosen up the adhesive to hold the cover on, but so far no luck. So what would you guys recommend. Should I just let it be and hope it dries itself out, is there a better way to get it open so I can dry it better, or is there something else I should be doing? Thanks.
Remove the battery, then wait for it to dry (leave it on an operating TV or monitor to speed up the drying). If it's more than just clean water, rinse it off with distilled water before drying it (don't worry, they actually use water to clean PCBs in the electronics industry).
best thing to do with wet electronics: >fill a small plastic container with 70% isoporpal alcohal >submerge *watever* in that for 5 or 6 minutes >wrap the device in a paper towel, and let it sit for 3 minutes >unrwap it, and wrap it 4 or 5 times over with a dry papertowel >set it in a small oven, set to ~250 degrees for an hour you should be good to go as soon as it cools down agein
if you wrap it in paper towels, it will not instanly reach 250... the idea is that your evaporating the alcohol which has just displaced the water. most ovens will not go below 250 but if yours does then the lower the beter
If you search around online there is a bunch of stuff about opening Ipods, mainly about replacing the battery. If if clean water that got on it, when you open it, just let the water evaporate. If it isn't just stick with distilled water to clean it. I wouldn't use rubbing alcohol because it could mess with the LCD. If you are sure that it won't, I would go with 90% or better rubbing alcohol (it exists, just harder to find) it evaporates very fast. When I clean heatsinks with it, I rub the heatsinks with a wet cotton ball, and the line of the alchol evaporating moves at probably 10-15mm/s. Granted you are doing a little more than rubbing it on. As for drying, definitely not in an oven no mater how low it goes. If it gets hot enough that some of the flux starts to boil you have some nice carcinogens floating around in the air. I would have to say that on top of a monitor sounds pretty good . Hair dryer would work but keep it a good 2 feet away from the board. You can disconnect the hard drive on the Ipod right? I wouldn't think that HDDs would take to kindly to fluids.
Well, saved some electronics over the years now, making a samll list of the ones i remember right now (thou I know i'v saved more) Nokia 6210I (after 2 days in seawater, didn't work properly, but enugh to get the 500+ Contacts in there) My 5 days old Sony MD An alarm-central (from a boat) A VHF and as said. some other's to 1. (as soon as you can) disconnect the power sourse (if it has one) 2. put it in fresh-water, empty the container and refill, put it back in there, do this about 4 times, the 4. or 5. after the compontent has been in there for a while, taste a bit of the water, if it still is salty, than you have to do this until you can no longer taste salt (if the thing was in sal****er) 3. preheat your oven to about 70 deg celcius (or something in the proximity) 4. put the thing into the oven, leave it for 3-4 hours (make shur your mom dosent begin to make dinner, and turn it upto 250 degrees... ) 5. take the thing out of the oven, put some power back on, If it works, you'v been lucky, if not.. too bad. BUT my consern about the ipod, is'nt the data/songs saved on a HardDrive? if so, I would beleve that it has died, as the drive-plates are in a ventilated room.... theshadow27: I was planing to do something similar the next time, but, read that i shoud use a mix of 70% whitesprite and 30% water AND, assuming that you are thinking Farenheit, not Celcius?
Then my original plan would work fine, but you see, my problem is, I've done plenty of searching, and the I still havent found a successful way to open it up.
zz300, I said its not the original ipod, but the smaller version with the click wheel. Thanks anyway. This weekend hes going to see what his warranty will give him.
If he gets a replacement, I'll buy the old unit off him for a fiver or so. I SO need something to take apart........
