Believe in the power of: Rice?

[Eduardo]

I know this might not be exactly the right topic for here but I am so excited i need to share this story.

I dropped my cellphone in the pool. Immediately I took the battery off, rinsed it and hurried to my closest cellphone repair shop. After 8 hours I get it back and they say its a motherboard problem that they can't fix it and that I should get a new one. I paid 5 bucks for that consultation. I put the battery back in, nothing works, the keys don't work, the touch pad freezes up. I leave it on to receive calls. And it still looked wet inside, behind the screen there seemed to be water. I wondered if the shop did anything to it at all. So I read on the internet about rice's dessicant abilities and to stick a wet cellphone in rice overnight. I did, with the battery inside and turned on, and today it works perfectly! I didn't even take out the battery. An there's no water at all behind the screen. Now obviously the shop didn't take my cellphone apart or even put it into a vacuumed negative chamber or maybe a tub of dessicants because the rice worked. So there's it is. wet cellphone, rice.

[tpugmire]

I've seen this exact same thing pop up in popular mechanics magazine a few times over the past couple years now. I've done it on cell phones and iPods. It has worked great every time, and is definitely a handy trick to remember.

[Eduardo]

The shop didn't give much hope when they handed the cellphone to the guy in line in front of me and said, "well we had it working before but now it's doing it again".

[Gameguy]

Ask for a refund, they clearly were wrong with their "consultation".

[jb143]

It makes sense but I would have surely taken the battery out first. Water isn't quite the electronics killer that we're to believe it is. The thing that can fry a component though is power getting somewhere it shouldn't by shorting across the water, not the water itself.

[Eduardo]

I wanted to take out the battery for a couple of days but the problem is that my parents are out of the country and I haven't heard from them in a couple of days I need my phone on at all times. It was a stressing situation when it got wet.

[NE146]

I'm assuming this is non-cooked rice you're talking about right? Interesting.

Funnily enough I had a "cellphone in the pool" incident not 2 weeks ago when I took my son to play in it. I got in and realized I had the cellphone in my shorts. Sure enough it was DOA. However what I did was immediately dry all the parts off and left it outside directly in the 96 degree hot baking sun for about 2 days straight (taking it at nights), then it still looked like it had condensation on the displays so I just left it on a high and dry shelf for about a week. Well wouldn't you know it, now it's pretty much as good as new.

I'll have to remember that Rice thing the next time though.

[Gaara_Of_the_Sand]

brilliant. I would never have guessed that.