Wednesday, January 27, 2010

What to do if your cell phone gets drenched

So, I read somewhere online that if your cell gets wet, you should put it in a bag of rice and somehow, this makes it dry out. Well, I soaked a cell phone two weeks ago. I bought another one, but, I just tried out the old one. It works. They had been saying, which it seems to be true, that if you try to use it, you will fry the circuitry. I tried it once and when it didn't work, I figured I would just buy another. This is still a good thing even though, I've already replaced it. This way, if something goes wrong with this phone, I have a back up. Also, I think I have phone numbers on the old phone.

4 comments:

  1. Yes, the rice thing absolutely works!

    My strong recommendation is to find some way to keep the phone/rice stew warm or lightly heated (maybe 120-140 F) during the drying process. This helps drive out the water molecules which are trapped everywhere on the insides of the phone. You can keep the phone around those temperatures without endangering the circuits.

    To obtain acceptable heating I've put rice-a-phoney inside a tupperware container (unsealed) just resting on the unlit stovetop of a gas oven that was turned on. The stovetop got well-heated from the oven, and the tupperware provided a good balance of insulation and adequate heat conduction.

    DON'T try to turn on the telephone until you're certain that the little water guys have been absolutely exiled, expelled, banished and deported from the phone. This can realistically require several days to a week of a near-constant hot rice jacuzzi.

    Another important point is to keep the battery separated from the recovering phone and AVOID heating the battery to any high temperatures, or keeping it heated at above-summertime temps for long periods of time. High or prolonged moderate heat WILL severely degrade the battery. Really high heat will encourage it to explode, expectorate, immolate or incinerate.

    A quality telephone is likely using a sealed batt. anyway, so thorough and complete heating of the battery isn't as critical. Just keep your batt-a-rice in a warm room until you're sure the phone is well-done.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I wish I knew about this back when my phone fell in the water. I lost all five hundred contacts. :-(

    ReplyDelete
  3. Five hundred contacts? omg. I don't even know 500 people!

    ReplyDelete
  4. The best solution to this problem is not to drop your phone into water.

    ReplyDelete