Chosen Solution
Last weekend, my wife took my 3 year old daughter to a friend’s birthday pool party. My wife ended up jumping in the pool to save a kid and had her phone in her pocket (iphone 5). I had her put it in rice until I was able to take it apart. I cleaned all the connections with 91% isoproply alcohol, dried it with a hair drier then let it sit over night. I put it back together the following day (Sunday) and it worked, except for he vibration mech. I had to go on travel on Tuesday and literally, a hour after i left the digitizer stopped working. It’s not Saturday, I took it back apart, thinking the connection needed to be cleaner of the cable reseated, but neither seems to be working. I haven’t replaced the battery, but I know I should do that. Anything I should try before buying a new front assembly? Thanks!
“Clean the connections” doesn’t count as cleaning the phone. Just tonight I put a phone through the ultrasonic cleaner, then scrubbed the part of the board that is visible. I desoldered the EMI shields to see how good the result was—-there was still frank corrosion in a couple of spots. In my book, an iPhone 5 water damage recovery requires desoldering the shields and scrubbing every inch of the board, and then replacing any component that is corroded, burned, or damaged after examination under the microscope. Think of corrosion as a cancer that will metastasize if left unchecked. When you say ‘digitizer not working’ do you mean the display, or just the touchscreen function. If you mean the display, I would guess that your backlight coil or filters have failed—very common after water damage. Of course it is also common for the LCD to fail as well. If I were you, I would give it to a local shop and ask if they desolder the shields to do a full water damage recovery. jessa
Water damage is so tough to diagnose you could clean it and all is working grand then it just decides to die..
This has worked for me numerous times…Submerge your device in 70% plain rubbing alcohol for 10-15 sec. This will dissipate any remaining water and residue without having to further dismantle your device. REMOVE THE BATTERY, SIM AND SD CARDS FIRST!!! DO NOT USE 90% ALCOHOL. Allow the alcohol to fully dissipate before attempting to turn on your device get a new battery and rejoice! Because alcohol evaporates quickly this will not harm any components when you submerge your device. I have had much success with this in my 20+ years as a tech. The rice and silica are good alternatives but don’t fully complete the required steps to get your device running again and if it does it’s usually short lived.
when your phone get wet don’t ever turn it on because it will short circuit… you should take out everything removable parts like battery, sim card, memory card and wipe everything dry… now you need to extract all the remaining water… there are 3 ways to extract the remaining water, one is by rice bag method.. put your phone in a not cook rice bag then leave it for 72hrs… two is by silica gel bag method… put silica gel with your phone in a zip lock bag and it will dry your phone in 2-3days… the third method is using Bhesstie bag.. the air tight pouch contain moist absorbing beans… then like the first two method just put your phone inside the bag and leave it for 24-72 hrs… it will absorb the remaining water in your gadgets.. whatever method you use after doing it just put together your phone and hit the power button… it will work just the way it used too… this 3 methods works and proven… just try it before buying a replacement… thanks
Ulysses no offence but this will not help any phone water needs to be washed off not dryed or absorbed by rice or gel bags. In almost all cases there will be corrosion and this needs washed off to prevent further damage.. If by any change people can’t get motherboard washed then your method is the next best thing but is only a quick maybe fix not a solution
I put the phone in 91% alcohol and then used a blow dryer. I put it back together and put it on the charger when I turned it on the touch screen didn’t work. Any ideas what I can do to fix it?
Could someone please go into depth regarding this recommendation that a lower concentration of alchol is better(i.e. 70% is better than 90%). I just as soon use Everclear and avoid the isopropyl residue, is this a bad conclusion?
I’m not sure why people are suggesting using 70% isopropanol is better than 91% isopropanol. Electronics grade isopropanol is ~99.8%. The higher the better for getting rid of water. I use it in my lab everyday and it evaporates very quickly.
