Troubleshooting Recovering Wet Kindle

[jphphotography]

Good thinking with the rice, I've used that before to help unfog a camera lens. Another method I've come across for electronics that have taken a plunge is to remove any batteries then submerse the entire thing in 99.9% alcohol. The alcohol will mix with the water and everything will evaporate quickly. Where I work we actually use a very similar solution (board wash) for cleaning pcbs.

This method is still a last resort situation but its good if water is trapped in places you cant get at to dry. On the other hand some components simply don't mix well with any liquid so this method won't work in all cases so discretion is advised

Anywho I'm glad to hear you got it working again!

[dvhh]

Originally Posted by speedlever

This YouTube video will answer both your question.

Edit: I have no relationship to the vendor, but the video shows what is required to open the case and change the battery.

I might order from them as I found my battery dying way faster than it should. Might be the first noticed damages from the incident.

[EowynCarter]

The first thing to do when one of your electronic device gets wet : take the battery off.
If the something it got wet with isn't water, don't hesitate to use water to clean up.

Then , open everything as much as can be, and wait until it's all perfectly dry.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by speedlever

This YouTube video will answer both your question.

Very sexy video. They were playing Bolero in the background.

[Doug Huffman]

A brand of high proof ethanol is Everclear available at 190 proof. Common 'alcohol' is likely isopropanol at 70% and occasionally 91%.

I noticed that the photographer is from SK where high proof ethanol may not be legally available. 99.9% alcohol is probably quite expensive if available at all, for technical chemistry reasons.

I worked in an industry where money and cost effectiveness was not an issue and we did not use alcohol but for specific and limited applications. In this instance, drying a small electronic device, I'd have started with a freon bath and dried it with warm dry nitrogen.

[travfar]

The problem with tap water is that it's just not water. There are many minerals dissolved in it. If you look at how "professionals" clean flood damaged electronics, they rinse it off with tap water first to remove the dirt and then rinse it off with distilled water to remove the tap water. Then they just dry it. The problem with just letting the tap water dry is that it leaves the minerals behind.

I did the same to my Apple Lisa to clean up after the suicide device went off. Works fine.

I'm hoping that I don't have to mention to unplug and/or remove the batteries, discharge the caps, etc, etc first.

[DaronFraley]

For those who don't have silica gel or other chemicals handy to dry out electronics, rinsing the electronics with distilled water is a great first step (battery removed). Then you can place the mostly dry kindle in a ziplock bag full of rice (uncooked, obviously). That will help draw out the remaining moisture.