FP3 Opening up the phone

[Patrick71]

Dear fellow FP3 users. I’m happy with my phone, but had a stupid moment the phone dropped in the water for 2 seconds. I got the screwdriver as I want to open the inside up and check if there is any water inside.

I there a manual for this? I can’t find any which is a bit odd for the phone that can be opened. Anyway I got the screws out (bit hard job) but don’t know what to do next. Any direction please.

Thx,

[s99h]

Welcome @Patrick71!

My first thought was this:
Fairphone 3 Repair - iFixit

or
Replace a Fairphone 3 module

and
Water damage Wiki

Best luck!

[Patrick71]

Thx s99h.

While I was searching for manual…it was named different.

Replace a Fairphone 3 module

I could open and close it. The bad news is however that video’s (own and youtube) are without sound. Testing ringtones works well, but that may be another speaker I wonder. I will dry the speaker with hairdryer and hope for the best.

[BertG]

In general I would vote against switching the phone on again before you can be quite sure, that the water is gone. Rather take out the battery and keep it that way.
So the #waterwiki already linked by @s99h is a really good starting poing on how to handle this case.

[Patrick71]

Thx Bert. I took the phone apart and speaker out and left it a couple hours drying. I put it back together and was happy to find out that all works well again.

My siily accident to dip half the phone for a few seconds in the water actually showed the power of the concept to fix it while it could be end of life with another brand.

[rkbwde]

@Patrick71

My siily accident to dip half the phone for a few seconds in the water actually showed the power of the concept to fix it while it could be end of life with another brand.

That’s great indeed. I had the same problem after my coat leaked in heavy rain and my FP2 inside the pocket got wet. Disassembling and drying it solved the issue without further problems within a day. The same event might have killed other phones or would have taken many days for drying without disassembling …

P.S. Now I always carry a few small plastic bags designated for dog droppings - they can also serve as rain protection for the FP2

[jmvanel]

My FP3 has fallen in water for 30 seconds.
When it got out of water, i still worked; I imediatelety stoped it.
After 30 minutes, when I got home, I started dismantling it.
I separated the screen, then the top module,
and now I still see some water near the fingerprint sensor , between the plastic case and a metal plate 1 cm wide.
I guess I should remove the big metal L shaped piece protecting the motherboard, But I could not find any video or information in Internet on that …

That was before reading the water damage wiki :

How to handle water damage

Since this happens again and again and there is a lot of useful info on the forum, but people usually read it too late I’ll gather it here in hope that you read it before this happens to you. This is a #wiki so feel free to add info by editing the post. First things first: Turn off and take apart If your phone comes in contact with water and there is even the slightest chance that some droplets or moisture entered it then turn off the phone immediately. The fastest, and only in…

so I didn’t remove the battery before 30 minutes, and I’m afraid damage is done !

[urs_lesse]

If you haven’t found it yet, the information iFixit provides might be valuable to you:

Réparation Fairphone 3

Note that the disassembly in iFixit’s teardown only complies with Fairphone’s warranty until (including) step 7. But as your Fairphone 3 fell into water, its warranty is void now anyway.

[jmvanel]

Thanks Urs; I indeed referred to iFixit’s teardown link that you mentioned, but the step 9 is not clear .