
Don't put your drowned phone into rice to dry it - sdfjkl
https://www.ifixit.com/Wiki/Don%27t_Put_Your_Device_in_Rice._Here%27s_Why...
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gowld
> Open your device as soon as you can, take out the battery,

If only our devices were user-friendly instead of planned obsolescent.

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ceejayoz
Built-in batteries are part of the planned _waterproof_ nature of modern
phones, so that's a bit of an odd statement in this context.

If you drown your iPhone XS, you just wipe it off. Removable batteries mean
openings, which means intrusion opportunities.

~~~
roddds
None of the iPhones had removable batteries, and none but the most recent ones
are waterproof.

~~~
ceejayoz
They've been reducing ingress points over time. The removal of the headphone
jack was at least partially for this reason; so was the non-mechanical home
button.

A battery door is a giant potential ingress point for water.

~~~
effingwewt
No, those are just more ways to stop people from opening their phones and
doing things like replacing batteries rather than buying a new phone. There
are water resistant phones with headphone jacks, removable batteries etc.
Shoot even a plug for potential infress points would be fine. Sorry, I just
hate the new anti-consumer trend of irreplaceable batteries. Feels like we are
back to the days where every phone had a diff charger port. Anything to make
people spend more money than they have to. /rant.

~~~
stouset
Yes, and all of those things mean _other_ compromises.

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closetohome
Article: Rice doesn't work. If it worked for you, it was a coincidence and
your phone would have been fine anyway.

Commenters: Yes but I put my phone in rice once and it worked, so...

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hiram112
I have had rice work several times - maybe it wasn't the rice but just a
coincidence.

I should note I left the phone in the rice for a few days, and it still didn't
work. So I bought a new phone and forgot about it for a few months. Low and
behold, when I did remember it months later, it worked, and did for a year or
so more.

~~~
hjk05
I have a rock that keeps tigers away, does it work? Well I’ve never had a
tiger in my apartment so it must work right?

Correlation is not causation. You left your phone in rice, but it didn’t work.
It didn’t do anything. The water dried just like it would in any setting. And
you where lucky to not get any damage from the corrosion.

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Sohcahtoa82
Digressing slightly, but he mentions the difficulty with trying to clean dried
pancake batter...

The trick to cleaning dry pancake batter is to soak the area with water for a
few minutes. It'll revert back into a more batter-like texture and will easily
wipe off.

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viewtransform
Is there any solution to water damaged Mac standalone keyboards ? I have
several keyboards that were ruined by minor water spills. I don't understand
what component in these keyboards gets permanently destroyed by water.

~~~
ksaj
One of mine died just from the moisture of a cleaning cloth after a wipe down.
Pretty sad.

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brokenmachine
I've used Damp-Rid that they sell in the hardware store before.

I put the device (in my case it was an mp3 player that I ran with in a
rainstorm) in a sealed container with the stuff. I left it in there for a few
days and it did the job and it worked for about a year afterwards. It still
does "work" but the screen is always blank now, so who knows, maybe the
corrosion got to it in the end...

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jimbo1qaz
Clickbait headline deliberately fails to explain what to use instead of rice.

>What you want to do is first displace the water—or more specifically, all the
conductive stuff in the water. You can do this best by using 90%+ isopropyl
(rubbing) alcohol and a toothbrush. Open your device as soon as you can, take
out the battery, and get scrubbing. Submerge the whole motherboard in alcohol,
and scrub away. Only then, dry it and see where you stand. By getting the
liquid displaced before it can dry, we are cleaning the pancake batter on
Sunday morning. This is your best strategy for liquid damage.

~~~
Cpoll
What would you have titled it?

I'm not sure that "Instead of putting your phone in rice, open it up, douse it
in 90%+ isopropyl and brush it with a toothbrush to remove the water before it
dries" is short enough to be an effective title.

And "To fix a drowned phone, drown it again in isopropyl" is arguably even
more click-baity.

In further defense, the comments here show the necessity of a title like this.
If the title were "how to fix a drowned phone," many people would say "oh, I
know this one, just put it in rice" and ignore the article.

~~~
closetohome
Youtube version: Fix your WET PHONE by DROWNING IT!

Thumbnail is a picture of a guy in SCUBA gear holding a phone and looking
shocked. The phone is circled in red for some reason.

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Konnstann
Louis Rossmann did a video [1] on rice and its effects on electronics,
debunking the myth completely.

[1]: [https://youtu.be/yPeITOz2_YM](https://youtu.be/yPeITOz2_YM)

~~~
guilhas
Brought to you by the guy which sells machines to clean electronic devices.

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guilhas
It worked on my phone. Shut it down immediately, put in rice. You can clearly
see the rice getting moistened slowly.

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AcerbicZero
A bit late, this was like the first result on google -
[https://www.gazelle.com/thehorn/2014/05/06/gazelles-guide-
wa...](https://www.gazelle.com/thehorn/2014/05/06/gazelles-guide-water-damage-
truth-rice-galaxy-everything/)

~~~
TimTheTinker
To be clear, the Gazelle article is the incorrect one - it advocates _drying_
the phone first using a desiccant like silica gel or cat litter (though it
says rice is the least effective of them). There is no mention of using
alcohol (except in some comments).

The iFixit article advocates _displacing_ the water using rubbing alcohol
(i.e. open it up and dunk the motherboard/etc. in alcohol) - thus halting the
corrosion that would continue if it were left to dry.

~~~
jandrese
Is alcohol better than just patting it dry and blowing it out with some
compressed air?

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jbarberu
Yes. With alcohol you're displacing the water. With compressed air you might
end up pushing it into new nooks and crannies it wouldn't otherwise have been
able to reach.

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Something1234
But doesn't booze like to mix with water?

~~~
TimTheTinker
Yes, so strictly speaking you're not only displacing the water; you're
dissolving it into the alcohol. But assuming you're using more than a tiny bit
of alcohol, the water/alcohol ratio of the solution will be minuscule.
Furthermore, if you pour alcohol over the components, the new alcohol will
displace the just-formed solution.

