submerged electronics

Eh... eventually, perhaps. The most common problem when a device gets wet is that the water has impurities. Pure water is NOT conductive - the impurities in the most commonly found forms of water are.

Isopropyl alcohol is good for cleaning these devices because it will remove the impurities and evaporates. Air (hairdryer, compressed air) will just blow the water around - probably into nooks and crannies. Heat can damage components. Rice is a pretty poor desiccant.

 

So what do you do if you drop your iPhone in the toilet, submerge the iphone in Isopropyl?

 

Well, I have an Android and I'm not stupid enough to drop it in the toilet, but yes!

 

Are you calling me stupid? It's not like my phone fell in the toilet by my own will! WAS AN ACCIDENT DAMNIT!!

Ok, I dunno about that, I don't see how taking a device apart and blow air in the cracks then using a hair drier or letting it rest on the space heater would cause damage to it. But not saying that pure alcohol bath is not worth it, I ought to try it one day.

 

Is it really a good idea to submerge electronics, especially an iPhone? Plus you have to take the purity of the alcohol into consideration. Isn't it best to wipe the components down? Of course, you can't take easily take an iPhone apart to get to the components...

 

I gave iphone as an exemple because they are notoriously hard to take apart, I personally use a 30$ flip phone. When it fell in the water I just removed the battery and the sim card and left it on the space heater for a day. At first there was condensation in the lcd window but it eventually all evaporated and phone worked as good as before.

Filling the whole thing with alcohol, especially with the battery still inside might have some unknown effect, especially on a Iphone where a lot of glue and soft parts are used.

 

Honestly, IPA (iso-propyl alcohol) is pretty harmless to electronics, chances are that your phone's pcb was actually splashed/immersed with/in it at the factory to clean after soldering. Though I wouldn't go as far as immerse an iPhone in it for extended period of time because you don't want it to find its way inside the battery/screen where it'd take ages to dry. If a device is wet with IPA you shouldn't turn it on. That said, if you dropped your android phone in the sink (not the toilet so retro is happy ) full of soap, it might be a good idea to disassemble it as much as possible and splash it with IPA and adsorb leftover liquid with a sponge before drying with hot air and letting in a sealed box with desiccant until you're confident enough that it's dry.

 

I know IPA is harmless for most electronics, I liberally splash it on pcbs regularly. I am more concerned about glues, some plastics, rubbers, all of which are used inside a modern Cell phone.

 

out of the 1500+ handsets I've serviced, a fair chunk being liquid ingress, I've seen corrosion happen overnight. Personally I've found iPhones the best when faced with getting wet because they are sealed pretty well. Also the pcbs in the iphone tend to have every thing flopped in epoxy...

pure re water is conductive, de-ionised water on the other hand isn't

 

PURE water is not conductive. Tap water is not PURE water. Bottled water is not PURE water. Yes, effectively deionized water is pretty much the only pure water you'll get. It's not just ions but minerals, though - and yeah, they are corrosive, too.

For those who doubt submerging your phone....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdM8bTDNBaQ

What do you think is in those bags?!