Aqueous Cell Phone

The chlorinated water will have a corrosive effect on your phone, but more importantly the deposits left from the chlorine salts are conductive. It might be too late now but I would dunk it in distilled water before you dry it out.

About a year ago I had a phone that was about one week old that I dropped into the toilet. Half of me considered just flushing it and calling it a loss, but I fished it out.

The first thing I did was remove the battery, the second thing I did was put it in distilled water. Rubbing alcohol might work and dry quicker, but I would be worried about anything in the phone being soluble.

Not wanting to wait a week the third thing I did was to take my new phone apart as much as possible and pat it dry with a towel. I then left the phone taken apart over night to dry. The next morning I assembled it and it worked fine.

I also noticed they use moisture sensitive stickers on the phone and battery so they can tell if it has gotten wet and been dried out.

Lucky for me my old phone was the same brand and the stickers were the same so I carefully swapped them so I could get a new phone if needed. Its been over a year now and my phone has been working fine, and not gotten wet since.

From others I know, the main thing that seems to die and sometimes stay dead from water, is the ccfl backlight.

My kid has done this repeatedly, usually with 50/50 chances for the phone except one: the SIM card would take on a curl, impeding proper contact. This was fixed with a scrap of folded paper.

Been there. Mine was under water for about 30 minutes. I took everything I could remove off. Put all the pieces into a container of isopropyl alcohol and let it soak for 2-3 hours. Then I removed as much water as possible by swinging it around my head for a few minutes. I then put it outside in the AZ sun for a day. Put it all back together, turned it on, and have been using it for over a year now, no problems.

There is a small shadow on the face of the display, inside, where the last of the liquid dried, leaving residue.

Good Luck!

The most prone to corrosion due to chlorinated water, are aluminum parts, but it would take more chlorine than a super-chlorinated pool. Whatever you do, don't let the phone dry slowly thru the days without disassembling it, that would cause heavy deposits and lots of oxidation on the delicate conectors.

First thing, keep it immersed in water (distilled is great) 'till you can FULLY disassemble it.

Then clean it with ispropyl alcohol, and use a hair drier to completely dry it (don't let it get hot).

As per the display issues, if the back light was off, then a short circuit thru water to the high voltage illuminator is not likelly to have happened.

Yahlasit

Never saw a post and avatar so perfectly matched before.

Yahlasit

Aside from using distilled water first and removing the battery, I would shake it to remove as much water as possible. Then spray it thoroughly with WD-40, or LPS 1. Then shake some more, and repeat.

Take as much of the phone apart as you can get back together.

Dry as much as possible, and put in heated area for a day. A blow dryer on high fan and low heat would work to drive out some water.

I remember seeing an article in one of the ham radio magazines, QST or CQ-VHF, by a ham who had dropped several handheld transceivers into lakes or ponds while fishing.

His technique involved the distilled water soak, to dilute or remove the nasty stuff in pond water. In his case, he changed water several times to be sure to get all the nasties out.

I don't remember too many of the details, but a couple of my own thoughts: Avoid spraying anything electrical or electronic with anything flammable. Also, you might want to open it up and use cotton swabs to dab away excess moisture or residue.

I wonder which is worse, sea water or chlorinated pool water?

this story appeared here some time ago, about a Nokia that was swallowed by a cod, was fished out, still found to have been working!

I had my USB memory stick go through the full wash cycle once...I opened it, rinsed with tap water, sprayed flux cleaner over all pcb and components, then hair dryer. It's worked ever since. I'm glad that it kept it's memory why mine didn't.

As they don't work well under water, the temptation to flush the lot of them is very strong....

I flushed one. Got a hell of a weird message as if it was crying out. That was after I did the hair dryer thing et al. It worked for awhile, but then later began malfunctioning.

Had another jump from my tool bag in the pickup into a cup of coffee.

Got another.

Cracked the face on that with a wheelbarrow handle while it was in my pocket.

The screen was going blank sometimes, but a wide piece of clear packing tape worked as a repair.

Well, I've been using the phone now for over a week without a single glitch... I never did get the phone rinsed with distilled water, it was already drying out when i got that recommendation. I took it all apart, stuck it in a bowl of dry white rice, and a week later, it turned on, and works great!