Water Damage - Save your Cell Phone(iPhone)

Cell Phone Water Damage - A Silent Killer

WHAT TO DO IF YOUR PHONE GETS WET

First of all, this Blog's main focus is on Apple Devices, but this will pretty much work for any electronic device.

This past weekend, I was at my parents house for a BBQ when my Mom's friend set her new iPhone 4S that she has had for maybe a week next to the pool wrapped up in her towel.  Big mistake to start out with; people, I know you are attached at the hip to your phone, but come on, it does not belong by the pool.  So, as the story goes, my mom goes to dry her hands on the towel, not knowing her friend's phone is in it, and BLOOP, in goes the phone. Totally submerged.  She fishes it out, the phone is completely dead, no response, except the LED Flash for the camera is stuck on.  I am going out on a limb here, but not a good sign.  They came running into the house with the phone, handed it to me in a panicked frenzy, and asked me to fix it in a traumatic garbled language reminiscent of Klingon.

Here are the steps I took to attempt the water damage repair:

1. I immediately saw that the LED Flash was on, not good.  You don't want your phone getting power when it is wet, it is only going to fry your phone.  REMOVE THE BATTERY, do not try to turn it on.  Do not take the time to see if the screen will come on.  Just get the battery out or get it disconnected.  This is the only hope you have if saving the phone.
2. Open up as much of the phone as you can so you can get to as many parts as possible to dry them.  Someone with repair experience can take each piece apart and let them dry separately. 
3. Clean what you can.  Unless you dropped it into distilled water, there are particles in the water that will dry in every single part.  These particles can form connections between circuits that you do not want connected.  This will fry the phone when you turn it back on.  Some people try using chemicals such as rubbing alcohol, or isopropyl alcohol.  I usually don't recommend this because eat eats adhesive.  There are a lot of things glued together in your phone.  Just used some distilled water on a clean cloth and Q-Tips.  You should be able to clean the majority of the phone and parts fairly well with this.
4. You need to dry the phone and parts out quickly.  Some repair shops will have specialized ovens to dry the parts out with.  All you really need is a hair dryer.  Use the low heat setting, highest blower setting, and spend some time drying out the parts and the phone.  The hair dryer will blow water out of the holes and cracks, clean this water up with the distilled water and cloth.  Don't use rice, it just gets into every single crack and crevice and does more long term damage than good.  If you want to put it in a Tupperware container with something, use Silica Packages, they work much better and wont get inside of your parts.  After spending some time drying it with a hair dryer, let it sit on a dry towel overnight.
5. In the morning, everything should be completely dry.  At this point, you can put everything back together and reconnect the battery.  This is all you should have to do if you get to your phone in time and disconnect the battery before trying to turn in on a hundred times.

The phone I just put through this process last weekend is working just as it did the day before it was dropped in the pool.  The water indicator stickers in your phone will be red, and this voids your warranty of course, but at least you have a working phone.