How to Dry Out a Wet Cell Phone

Summertime is coming! As soon as scorching sunshine is getting on us, we rush to a waterfront. Naturally, we take all the electronics we are used to carry around. However, unfortunately, our favorite, swimming like a stone, smartphones, telephones, and tablets get dropped in water. Such a trouble is a common problem caused by accidents around water or otherwise. Sometimes, we manage to wash telephones in washing machine with dirty laundry or spill some coffee or tea over them. The very first thoughts that pop into our mind are "What can I do? Do I need to go to a service center? How much does it cost to fix?".

Therefore, let's start with that. First of all, let us introduce you to the basic reanimation procedure.

What do you need to do if a liquid leaked inside your phone?

1. Eject the battery. At least for 24 hours, don't insert the battery back into the device. Not the water itself, but the electric circuit, running inside the device components, wastes and corrodes electric units and motherboard. Also, do not forget to eject MicroSD and SIM-cards.
2. Dry the telephone from inside. Unfortunately, though liquid incredibly quickly leaks inside of electronics, it evaporates out for many days. Even after the complete drying-out, the water leaves salts on the device components. The salts corrode electric elements as well as conduct electric circuit.
3. If there is significant amount of liquid inside your phone, you may use hoover to suck it away.
4. The last resort for rescuing your phone will be electronics service center. If you really care about your gadget, take it to professionals.

The above two recommendations always must be followed right after you take the phone out of a liquid.

Unfortunately, it is not always that easy to follow the first, obviously, very simple instruction – to eject the battery, for example, from iPhone. In order to extract the battery, the Apple device has to be disassembled first, that takes special tools and knowledge. If you have no time to visit service center or it is just too far from your place, take the following advice. Fill a deep container (for example, saucepan or similar tank) with rice, put the soaked gadget inside and cover it with some rice from above. In order to reach the best effect, open all vents and slots of the device, such as, SIM-card slot covers, charging terminal clamp, etc. Rice will perfectly absorb moisture. iPhone, after being dried in rice will take minimum damage. The motherboard is supposed to become completely clean, however, the touchscreen terminal may remain corroded.

Also you can use special bags for drying wet electronics. Such bags may be purchased in most electronics stores. They really come in handy and it is always helpful to keep one as a reserve.

What you must NOT do to wet phones:

• Under no circumstances you should turn on the phone and press the buttons.
• Do not shake and do not stress wet device. This may help the liquid leak deeper inside.
• Do not dry the phone with hair dryer. Strong air flow will push the water deeper inside of the gadget causing even worse consequences.
• Do not dry the phone in microwave oven, stove or fridge. After such attempts of drying, the phone/smartphone will become completely irrepairable.

How much would it cost to repair the "drowned"?

The repair cost for telephone, smartphone or tablet may be estimated only after the disassembly and inspecting the damaged units. If telephone does not turn on after drying, such issue may have several reasons. There may be different types of defects, depending on the quantity and the place of the leakage.

What happens if the battery is not ejected right away?

If a phone got wet inside and you turned it on without removing the battery, the phone won't "live out" long. Along with the corrosion, electronic units of the phone soon will become deteriorated. The "wet" device will work for some time, but, after it turns off, no hopes would be left for repair. The only solution is to replace the motherboard, while the cost of the motherboard reaches the price of a used phone of respective model.

White stains and blotches on the touchscreen

If a liquid has leaked inside a phone and the phone is still on, but stains and blotches appeared on the LCD, then you've got only one choice – LCD replacement. It is not possible to remove water stains after the water evaporates. There is no real method to dismantle the LCD, because it is made of several film layers to disperse the backlight. Therefore, the only solution to this problem is buying and installing the replacement LCD.

Units Corrosion

The worst effect is made by the water that remains inside the phone, because, after corroding the electronic units, the water will put them out of order. The corrosion effect depends on the time the phone was submerged into water, the amount of water inside, whether the device was instantly extracted out of water or later on. If the battery was not extracted instantly after the leakage and the device was not dried out soon, the effect will be fatal. Even though the device may have stayed in water for a short time, the moisture inside of the device may corrode the components and the dissolved salts will soon acidify the electronic units, so that the "drowned" device soon will become irrepairable.

If, after all, your lovely device was not rescued, but there is a chance it may be repaired, AllSpares Online Store is what you need. Here you can find a wide choice of spare parts not only for cell phones and smartphones, but also for tablets and e-book readers.

If you have not found the necessary spare part in our store, you can ask our sales manager in chat window and order this spare part, if possible. All Spares Online Store constantly and carefully follows all the latest innovations to provide spare parts for the latest electronic devices.