Little Trick To Drying a Wet Electronic Device
It Happens To All Of Us
No matter how hard we try to protect our beloved, and expensive, electronic devices from water, it does happen to all of us at some point in time. A cell phone can fall out of your pocket into the toilet. A digital camera can fall into a pan of soapy dishwater. If you have a rambunctious pet like I do, your animal will surely knock the device into any standing water in your home such as the bathtub or a kitchen sink. Even the weather is not your device's friend. No one intentionally leaves a device in the rain. I have seen people leave a device on a patio table, go inside for just a minute, come back to a sudden and severe rainstorm.
Your Device is Soaked
It happened to me a few days ago. I was trying to multitask by doing the dishes, doing the laundry and take a couple of photographs for my husband. I had the kitchen sink full of hot, soapy water waiting for me when I returned from our community laundry room when it happened. I picked up my coin purse which contains my quarters for laundry when I knocked my digital camera into the sink full of water. I immediately pulled the camera out of the water and laid it on a dry towel. I removed the memory card. Fortunately, I had removed the batteries a few minutes before; and the camera was not turned on at the time.
What Next?
I went online to see what others said about drying out a camera. Several websites used the same advice: Use a hair dryer on low setting or allow the device to dry in a warm, dry place for several days. One person even suggested physically taking the device apart and drying the components inside.
I opted for the "leave it alone" approach since I did not want to damage my camera further by attempting to take it apart. If I tried that, I could see myself losing one or more of the small screws that holds the camera together.
What I Did
The next day, I had told my landlord's girlfriend about my mishap. She told me about a trick that she uses to dry her cell phones when one of her dogs knocks her phone into the toilet or some other source of water. She puts her cell phone in a zippered plastic bag such as a sandwich bag and covers the device with ordinary white rice that you find in any grocery store. Any brand will do. She then leaves the baggie in a warm, dry place for a couple of days. Her phone will work as it did before the water "accident". The rice will soak all, or nearly all, the water out of the device without taking the device apart.
I tried her suggestion and IT WORKED. The only type of white rice I had on hand was the boil-in-bag type which is what I used for my baggie. My camera's LCD screen has a few water-marks but other than that, it works just as it did before I dropped it into the water.
Will This Work For All Devices?
This trick will probably work for all devices. I don't know for sure. I would definitely try it before discarding the device and purchasing a new one. The time to leave your device in the rice baggie will depend upon the size of your device and how much water it has in it at the time you put it in the baggie.
© 2010 Tammy L
