Soaked mobile phone

[Harley]

My friend dropped her mobile in the toilet.She was told to put it in the freezer for 24hrs and guess what? It still works.Why and how?

[andy hughes]

Microchip hardweare is proving to be remarkably robust, and impervious to damage under the most unusual circumstances. It would appear that the technology used in making microchips is not at all as delicate as you would imagine, given their sophistication of operation - we recently gave our TV remote control a quick hot wash and spin when it accidentally joined the duvet for its weekly sluice. After twenty-four hours to dry out, and a new set of batteries, it performs as well as ever - however against the odds such a result may be. Isn't technology wonderful? Now if it can just learn to programme the video .....

[cupra]

I applaud the effort to get the phone working again, but I would think twice about using it after it's visit to the toilet!

[sft42]

Most of the damage done to the PCB will be through water shorting out the circuits so if you don't allow this to happen then i can only imagine this is the effect the freezer has had though why it didn't cause damage when it thawed i don't know. And Andy you wash your duvet once a week????

[beenee]

Yeah, I'd abandon it too.

[tief]

I'm being really dense, but I don't get this at all. Water expands when it freezes so don't you risk doing some damage that way? And sft42 makes a good point - when the phone thaws it's wet again - back to square one.

[Harley]

Hmmmm I thought that was the purpose of posting a question.I think it has something to do with water evaporating as it loses heat during freezing.I missed chemistry and physics can I have an answer from a clever bod please.

[Hippy]

The likely long term damage to your Batfone from a quick dunk in the WC is small. However, it will not work straight away afterwards.

If this happens to you, the first thing to do after removing it from the water is to remove the battery. Not only will it not work, so the battery is not needed, the power might cause extra damage thanks to the shorting out effect of the water.

The important thing is to prevent salt deposits on the printed circuit board so it may need an alcohol paint job. The second thing that happens is that water gets into the keypad bits. These are synthetic rubber with small conductive blobs that short out bits of printed circuit. These have to be dried carefully (please, no hair driers!). Finally, and probably the most stubbortn of all the bits is the part that sends and receives the radio signals. A bit of this is like a tiny box with a lattice holes and tiny flaps. Water here can be most persistent and is probably the bit that takes the longest to dry out.

If the level of urine in the loo was small and therefore the concentration of salts low gentle drying over a few days will be all that is required. If you are a bit of a techie then dismantling the Batfone will speed things up, but please dont poke around inside with screwdrivers and pointy things. Be patient.

[Traceyyy]

When my moby had a brief swimming lesson i removed the battery and shoved the lot in the airing cupboard and it still works perfectly :o) (when i have credit !)