A Guide On How To Save Your Water-damaged iPhone, Cell Phone Or Any Other Electronic Device

Water Damage Introduction

Water damage can happen to best of us. Any liquid can wreck havoc on your electronics and potentially send them to an early watery grave. If your iPhone, cell phone or any other electronic device has taken a dive and doesn’t seem to be working, you’re probably wondering what your options are and how to save it.

This short guide will tell you everything you need to know about water damage and the consequences of leaving your iPhone, cell phone or any other electronic device unchecked after something happens. With that said, if your phone is currently in a bag of rice because of an altercation with water, time is of the essence. Longer your phone stays in a bag or rice, more the damage there will be.


Damage Caused to an iPhone, Cell Phone or any other electronic device by Water

When a device comes into contact with water, two major issues occur. The first is an electrical short circuit, which is fairly obvious.  The second issue that plagues a water damaged cell phone is one that you can’t detect right away. As the water in the device begins to evaporate and the phone dries out, small particles that were in the water get left behind. This leaves small deposits of residue behind on the hardware and will quickly cause corrosion. Unfortunately when left out to dry in bag of rice, your iPhone, cell phone or any other electronic  device is suffering from exactly this corrosion.
 
Corrosion: What is water damage really is doing to your electronics.  

Imagine the following scenario: You are washing the dishes, listening to music on your iPhone 6S, when all of a sudden the unthinkable happens – the phone that was nestled safely in your shirt pocket tumbles out and into a sink is full of soapy water and dirty dishes. You manage to frantically retrieve your precious phone from its watery grave, dry it off, and find that somehow it is still working! It’s a miracle! All is well in the world of potential water damage… until two days later, when, for no apparent reason, your iPhone now doesn’t work. Your miracle has turned into a nightmare. 

One of the reasons we mentioned is the hidden and most puzzling cause of water damage: corrosion. Corrosion is the gradual breakdown of material, usually metal, by a chemical reaction with its environment. The most common form of corrosion occurs with you combine metal with water and oxygen, creating iron oxide (or what is more commonly known as rust). There is no specific time frame in which corrosion happens; a device can begin corroding a few hours after the initial water damage incident, or it can last days unaffected before showing any signs that there is a problem. How fast corrosion sets in depends on humidity levels, the severity of the water damage, how long the device was submerged, and even how the device is made. All of these factors significantly affect the time frame under consideration for a water damaged device.

What To Do if your Cell Phone is Water Damaged


1.  PLEASE do not attempt to turn it on! Resist all urges! This one move can cause irreversible while your phone is still wet. To stop the flow of current, it would be ideal to remove the battery as quickly as possible, but since most batteries are internally placed on most smartphone models, most users can’t do this.
Do not put it in a bag of Rice as this will cause more corrosion on the board.

2.  Bring the water damaged device to us while its still wet for a free water damage diagnostic as soon as possible. The sooner we receive the phone, the better our chances of fixing it. Starting the cleaning process before the residue deposits begin to form will stop corrosion before it starts.
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Our Process
There are two steps in our water damage repair process. We’ll first open the device up and investigate the extent of the damage. Once we see what shape the main boards are in, we’ll give you a detailed repair quote and you can then decide whether or not to move forward with the repair.
 
The next step would be to put the board through our Ultrasonic cleaning process. This process is excellent at removing residue and corrosion, even at microscopic levels.
 
After that, we can replace any parts that we weren’t able to save if necessary. These parts commonly include the battery, dock connectors, flex cables, the mechanical button flex cables, the proximity sensors, the ear speakers, microphones, loudspeaker, and display assemblies. The main board is the one part of most cell phones that cannot be replaced at a reasonable cost. If this part is irreversibly damaged, it would not be in your best interest to move forward with the repair.  
 
Once the device is fully repaired, it is returned to you and all parts that we replaced are covered under our warranty for 90-days. If any water related issues reappear in that time, we’ll do right by our work.

Please Share this with your friends and family as there is big myth that putting your wet phone in a bag of rice will magically fix it also most of us don't know what to do when situation arises.