01-04-2006, 02:14 PM
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#8 (permalink)
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| Retired BBF Moderator
Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Model: Bold Carrier: Rogers
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| BlackBerries can survive quite an immersion. I disassembled my old BlackBerry 7280 two years ago (bought as a broken unit, reported as puddle-damaged) and submerged the motherboard for 10 minutes in distilled water to clean contaminants, before reassembling it. Baked at 180 degrees F for 3 hours (motherboard only, no screen, no casing), then reassembled. Then it worked much better.
When disassembled, don't wash the disassembled removed screen though, just wash the plastic parts and circuit board, and then bake the circuit board in a hot summer equivalent of a parked car (or open oven set at 180 degrees F, somewhere significantly below the boiling point of water is normally safe for drying out circuit boards).
The most important thing is to REMOVE THE BATTERY immediately once you realize your BlackBerry is exposed to water. Dry it out (preferably disassembled) before testing. It may take one week if you do not disassemble. 18 hours is not enough if it was underwater for a longer period of time -- the battery can short circuit and/or burn out the BlackBerry electronics (water + electricity = damage) but (clean water without electricity == safe to BlackBerry). That's why it is so important to immediately banish the battery after exposure to water -- and dry out completely before succumbing to temptation to "test" the BlackBerry with the BlackBerry.
Same goes for other electronics gadgets immersed in water (cameras, PDA's, etc). Some parts are unrepairable upon water exposure, but certain models such as BlackBerry 7280's can recover from a good water exposure if resusication is followed properly...
(This becomes somewhat more complicated if the water is corrosive such as saltwater. If you drop in the ocean or other corrosive fluid by accident -- you need to commence resusication procedures immediately. Get rid of the battery temporarily. In some cases, even washing under tap water immediately for several minutes, can be become a necessary temporary solution, to displace the more-corrosive salt water fluid with less-corrosive tap water, "buys you time" to resusicate a water-damaged electronics gadget -- while you frantically hunt for the right kind of screwdriver to disassemble the unit to get rid of the corrosive fluid)
Last edited by Mark Rejhon : 01-04-2006 at 02:18 PM.
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