Battery or bottom module dead?

Help Fairphone 3
1

Hey, looking for your advice.
I had a water incident this weekend while camping, my 4.5 year old FP3 was very moist, partially in contact with water.
It still had 15% battery but wouldn’t charge anymore (with a mobile charger), so I set it to off.

Back home, I disassembled it, cleaned all the contacts with WD-40 Contact Spray (the green one, has worked wonders for a lot of my electronics), and let it dry for 12 hrs.

I re-assembled it and did the following:

  • Plugged it into a laptop charger (without turning it on). Red steady light would appear, I let it “charge” for about 30mins, but the light would not turn yellow as it usually does after that while.
  • Used another charger (smaller wattage), then it would continually restart and show a screen with 4% capacity and telling me to not unplug it.
  • Plugged it again into the laptop charger, red steady light would appear. Turned it on, still had 2% battery and then took the battery test as advised here: https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001041206-Find-fix-an-issue-yourself. The test showed a level of 0%, a voltage of about 3V and a temperature of about 31°C, a status of “Charging” and a health of “Good” → Test PASS. I took a screenshot and sent it out via Slack, but I guess my phone died in that process and so I don’t have it… :frowning:

Anyway, it seems these check values are wrong? Something is off - it says it is charging while it isn’t. However, the contacts in the bottom module still seem to work, as there is some reaction when I plug in a charger.

So what do you guys think, do I need to replace the battery, the bottom module, or both?
Thans for any advice & further troubleshooting.

2

I hope there is a Fairphone Angel in your neighbourhood who has parts for a Fairphone 3. So that you can test what is wrong with your phone.
In the meanwhile dismantle your phone and let it dry further.

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4

Hi I am having a similar problem I think… This morning I splashed myself while watering the plants and the phone was in my pocket and it’s been 30c+ these days, so now my fairphone 3+ will no longer charge: if I plug it in while turned on, it won’t show it’s charging. If I turn it off and plug it in it’ll cycle through the “fairphone powered by android” screen and then the battery icon appears, and it doesn’t seem to be charging after 20 minutes plugged in it’s at the same level. Does this mean it’s water damage and would changing the bottom module help? I have a spare battery somewhere so I will try that. Thanks for any advice at least to figure out what the problem is.

5

Well, I would do what others advise here too: Disassemble it completely and let it dry for at least a day. If you can, buy something like WD-40 Contact Spray (the green one) and spray it to remove excess liquidity.

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6

I believe in water wiki there’s information about the water damage indicators. It might be worth checking them out.

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7

Thanks very much! I happened to have a bottom module and battery so I discovered it was the bottom module.

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8

Maybe there is moisture in the USB/charging port. I also have a Samsung Galaxy A5 and when it get wet I need to let it dry for many hours before I can use the port again.

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