My wife’s FP5 FP3 fell into the toilet with urine yesterday. Wife quickly grabbed it and gave it a rinse. Shortly after she let me know and I told her to immediately turn it off and remove the battery, which she did. She did also spray it with ethanol 70% which we had on hand.
Before you ask, I did not put it in rice.
I tried disassembling it yesterday but I was struggling with a stripped screw. Today I managed to remove it with the rotary tool technique (that also did some damage to the plastic housing, but nothing too bad).
We do have isopropanol available and I was about to bathe everything in it when it occurred to me that maybe it is not safe to submerge everything in it.
So, that is may main question: are there any parts of the FP3 that I should not submerge in isopropanol (isopropyl alcohol)? Like the display? What about the battery? SIM cards? If so, could you please circle them in this image? I’m afraid I won’t know the components by name…
Also, how long should I leave them submerged?
Things that I have read:
t/help-water-damage/83738 from this forum
t/how-to-handle-water-damage/29007 from this forum
Wiki/Electronics_Water_Damage from ifixit
Teardown/Fairphone+3+Teardown/125573 from ifixit
And some others, but the main info I’m using is from those sources.
Sorry, I’m not allowed to post more than 2 links
Additional info: I fortunately have access to a rather impressive workshop, sadly its owner is not available to help me use the tools. I’m sure there’s a multimeter there if I need one, for example.
Thank you in advance for your help,
Nice
EDIT: even more questions:
should I use a qtip to scrub the corroded stuff off?
This is just to prevent basic abuse that unfortunately can happen. You can learn more here and specifically about Trust Levels here. Check out the Welcome topic too.
As to your specific problem, personally I wouldn’t go as far as bathing the modules, certainly not the display unit or the battery, but certainly use cotton buds soaked in isopropanol or surgical-grade alcohol (90°) for thorough cleaning. Larger pieces of cloth too, as long as it won’t leave anything behind (lint, other fibres …)
You mention a FP5 but then FP3. For present purposes it’s not that important but could you confirm which model this is about?
As to opening the modules, that depends rather on how much water got in and for how long. The FP5 resists water a little better than the FP3, but neither is designed to withstand total immersion. You certainly need to be sure no moisture is left inside the modules. Of course dry components thoroughly before reassembling the modules.
Once you’ve cleaned as well as you can, the important thing is to leave ample time for drying, preferably in a gentle flow of dry air. Use a clean cake rack or similar (minimum contact, maximum exposure to air). I’d say 12 hours in this case. Usually one would allow less, if you’ve just been cleaning contacts but here you’ll need more time I would think, to be on the safe side.
In the end I decided to use a fresh soft toothbrush, and that worked quite well.
All but one of the water damage indicator thingies were still white and I couldn’t find any signs of corrosion on any of the contacts and components that I could see (even using a magnifying glass).
The only one that turned red was the one on the bottom of the mother board, near the outline of the Democratic Republic of Congo:
So I thought I should look there with special care, but I can’t seem to remove the EMI shields. Is there any trick to it? I can’t seem to find any gap to insert a pry tool…
Also, when I was cleaning the back side, the black coating started coming off:
Hi, just leaving an update that everything was fine.
After cleaning the FP3 with isopropyl alcohol and letting it dry for about two days I reassembled it and it has been working just fine for about a week.
