[wiki] DIY cleaning after severe water contact

asked 2014-08-29 12:29:13 +0200

This post is a wiki. Anyone with karma >75 is welcome to improve it.

updated 2014-08-29 15:22:28 +0200

jiit
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Short story:

If your Jolla gets really wet:

• do not turn on the screen by pressing the powerbutton or by double-tapping
• take off the cover and remove the battery immediately
• do not try to turn it on again even after 12-24h just to see if it works again

Be patient.

• disassemble your Jolla until you obtain pure mainbord-circuitry without camera, vibramotor, display etc.

• find someone with a ultrasonic cleaning machine (i.e. dentist, dental laboratoriy, optician) who will let you use it

• put just the mainboard inside the ultrasonic cleaner and cover it in 99% isopropanol. Let the machine work for 10-20 minutes.

• take the mainboard out, dry it, and reassemble the phone

Long story:

A week ago I got soaked wet when a small water-fall rained down on me while trying to take the canvas-cover off a lorry down. As a result that small waterfall drenched my complete left body-half, water was flowing into the sleeve of my elevated left arm and ran down inside my jacket wetting the Jolla in my jackets left pocket. After all it was not such a huge amount of water, but the direction of flow was enough and a lot of water seems to have entered the circuitry.

I made 2 mistakes:

1) I took out the Jolla and checked if it was still running.

There was a sizzling noise coming out of the phones circuitry as soon as the screen was on. There was not enough time to read a warning that was displayed - something about the phone using too much power or something - when the screen went dark, with the sizzling noise continuing.

2) Having heard of the isopropanol-cleaning method, but not beeing completely familiar with it, I bought 70%-isopropanol at a local pharmacy. Next day I disassembled to Jolla as good as far as I dared, but did a poor job, putting the entire Jolla without battery and toh into a 70%-isopropanol-bath for 2h. After that I let it dry for 12h.

The following day I repeatedly tried turning on the phone to see if it comes up. Sometimes just an LED would turn on, sometimes even the Jolla logo would appear, but it would not boot up completely. The screen would sometimes still give that sizzling noise.

The day after that I took it to a guy which earns his money replacing broken iphone and galaxy-displays and I knew he had that ultrasonic cleaner. He almost shrieked when he heard, that I had also drowned the display in isopropanol.

After a dissassembly done the right way and that ultrasound treatment he reassembled the phone. The phone booted up and I was able to access my data via ssh, but the screen had never come on again.

Taking a look myself at the flat-cable display connector I saw 2-3 contact-pins showing severe signs off corrosion or burning. Maybe that's the reason why the display stays off. Or maybe I damaged the display by giving it a bath in isopropanol. The repair guy said - displays drowned in isopropanol can start to decolorize, the glue between glas / touchscreen / display may blur the screen etc.

Maybe this becomes helpful to somebody.

Please remember - do not turn on the screen again and remove the batterly immediatley.