Any assistance/thoughts/advice on how to recover from hardware damaged by water would be highly appreciated

i accidently dropped my fairphone 3 last friday morning and it fell into the water. i reacted as fast as i can to take it out, but i guess it was under water for about 2 seconds. after i grabbed it and took it out of the water it was still running, so i immediatly turned it off, removed the backcover as well as the battery. i layed the pieces on a towel and waited since. 2 days have passed since the accident now. an hour or so ago, i took the phone modules apart, as shown on ifixit.com, to check for remaining humidity. everthing seemed dry, so i reassembled everthing incl. battery and pressed the power button, but got no life sign. so i plugged in my usb cable to check if it’s charging, bit nothing happened.
well, it looks like i was unlucky and the device’s hardware got damaged, but how can i know? is there a way to find out, which part was damaged? would it be worth trying out with a new battery?

Hi comspec Welcome to the forum.

My daughter had the same issue but luckily got the phone working after disassembly and drying. I asked her to dry for a couple more days to be sure.

It sounds like you did everything a sensible person would do, so it’s a bit upsetting it didn’t work.

Can you get the battery checked for voltage? You would want it to be above 3.8V and maybe you could get it charged.

There are fairphoneangels and maybe one is near you that could lend you a battery.

The drying really works better in a flow of air rather than static, as just on a towel. I would try a bit more drying. Did you notice a red square?

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Hi Comspec,
A frequent subject alas. In addition to amoun’s advice you can read all about it and in particular:

Patience and persistence are usually important factors.

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i’ll ask a friend to check the battery voltage, as i don’t own the tools needed.

that square turns red once it gets in contact with some sort of liquid, right?

it is red in my case too…

photo

Yes, the squares are white to begin with. A 2-second bath is quite enough.

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Yes sadly that means Fairphone will consider the warranty void now :frowning:

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You can always try to dry it in the oven. Don’t turn on the heat. Just the oven light and let the part sit there for a day or two. This can help get the moisture out of the modules.

How should the oven light help the drying process in any way?

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Hopefully the light will help see the phone so that someone doesn’t try and pre-heat the over for supper. Drying is one thing baking is a different thing altogether. :slight_smile:

I’d have thought an enclosed space would be counter-productive, though a metal grill will allow the air to get to all surfaces. You need to encourage air circulation. A hair-dryer without heat should help to speed things up, otherwise a grill, certainly, but just in a place where there’s plenty of movement of dry air. The airing-cupboard maybe?

I suppose the idea is to have the oven (drying) at about 30-40°C. Normally the light in the oven is sufficient for creating that temperature.
This is known to work at least for letting dough :bread: rise at perfect temperature… :slight_smile:

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There are for sure different ovens around the world, but I don’t think, that small lamp in my oven can change anything on the temperature.

With the door closed you may be surprised :slight_smile:

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I’m sure you’re right and it won’t work with all ovens. But you should still try it out - you might be surprised… Anyway - I’m afraid we’re getting a bit off-topic now… :bread: :cake: :cupcake::wink:

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Many electric ovens are actively ventilated, as opposed to ovens run with gas (at least the ones I’ve seen). Turning on the light should also start the fan (works this way with my oven). Perhaps the idea is more about creating air flow without any kind of heat.

While you can’t bake or cook anything with it, I wouldn’t go as far as saying it can’t change anything, but let me check … starting temperature is 20.5 °C, thermometer is near the bottom of the oven, lamp is at the top … 21.3 °C after 15 minutes … 22.5 °C after 30 minutes … 23.8 °C after 45 minutes … 24.9 °C after 1 hour … 26.5 °C after 1.5 hours … 28.5 °C after 3 hours … 29.5 °C after 5 hours.
My oven uses a 25W E14 300 °C heat-resistent oven bulb behind a thick glass shield.

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But I don’t think, they blow the air outside the oven, that would be very energy consuming, they are just circulating the hot air.

Ok, thanks for the test, at least a little bit warmer than the room temperature.

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Thats a different thing, that’s done with a large airscrew inside the oven.
But you have a point. The ventilation is separate from this, so my idea about air flow inside the oven is probably wrong. But the temperature should help a little.

In my humble opinion the most important point is, that leaving the phone for 2 days to dry - after it has taken a bath -, doesn’t seem to be enough time to get the water out efficiently.

Even though it might not be visible to the naked eye, there are lots of tiny spaces, where moisture could stay for longer.
So it would be a good idea, to keep the phone disassembled for drying for a longer period or/and speed up the drying process as described by moderate heat (30-35°C maybe) and ventilation (oven). Possibly one could use a heating pad/blanked for pets or human use?

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Sorry for the late answer.

The owen light heats my owen to about 34 C.

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wow, i did not expect this amount of replies. thanks everyone for helping me out :grinning:

what i did in the meantime:

  • checked voltage of the battery: 4.27 V.
  • ordered new battery. checked voltage of that one, too: 3.86 V.
  • tried charging with the new battery, but it’s not working.
  • took apart everything again last night and replaced 3 modules i bought a long time ago, but not yet have the time and/or motivation to do that any time sooner (the modules i replaced were those hardware upgrades for fairphone 3; top-/camera-/speaker-module).
  • now, i just plugged in the usb cable to test it out, but still there is no reaction at all.
  • next, i’ll try to charge the battery seperately and then test if the device will boot up again.

i’ve seen many white squares inside. not sure if every of those were such indicators though. but only one square was red and considering it is located near the usb port, so maybe replacing the bottom module could fix it?

well, i got my fairphone in 09/2019, i think, but yeah, i’m certain that i have it more than 2 years, so hardware warranty is over either way, but that doesn’t really matter to me. what bother’s me is the data that is out of my reach :frowning:

yes, i could try that.

questions:

  • is there a debug interface, where i could capture some output?
  • are there any options to access the data stored on the device, without booting it, somehow?

have a nice day :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: