dropped my nokia lumia in the sea yesterday

[WPCentral Question]

Yesterday I dropped my nokia luia 520 in the sea and immedatly after looking for it (i couldnt find it, it took my 1-2 mins to find it) i wipped with a towel and took the battery and sim card out. I couldnt use rice because I culdn't get back home. Today it isint working, not to my surprise, I don't know what to do. Please help, or my parents will kill me, they just think my battery broke, I'm scared to tell them i dropped it in the sea because its 2 months old. HELP!!

 

[jharr100]

Now that you're home get some rice...usually it takes a few days for it dry out and start working again IF it starts working again....

 

[SPIFF Costa]

Yesterday I dropped my nokia luia 520 in the sea and immedatly after looking for it (i couldnt find it, it took my 1-2 mins to find it) i wipped with a towel and took the battery and sim card out. I couldnt use rice because I culdn't get back home. Today it isint working, not to my surprise, I don't know what to do. Please help, or my parents will kill me, they just think my battery broke, I'm scared to tell them i dropped it in the sea because its 2 months old. HELP!!

Probably you're ****ed. Pardon my french

 

[rdubmu]

You need to put it in rice... And don't turn it on. You probably broke it doing that

 

[Jazmac]

Personally, I don't think your parents believe that as a kid you are not incompetent as a rule. They know who you are and that you'll mess up from time to time. I hope you didn't lie to them about what truly happened with your phone. If you wasn't truthful, you got that additional layer to deal with. As jharr100 said, shove it in a bag of dry rice and leave it for a few days. Maybe you'll get lucky. You could always hit up Craigslist.

 

[rdubmu]

Also a Lumia 520 are less than $100 bucks full price, pretty cheap

 

[rdubmu]

Personally, I don't think your parents believe that as a kid you are not incompetent as a rule. They know who you are and that you'll mess up from time to time. I hope you didn't lie to them about what truly happened with your phone. If you wasn't truthful, you got that additional layer to deal with. As jharr100 said, shove it in a bag of dry rice and leave it for a few days. Maybe you'll get lucky. You could always hit up Craigslist.

I agree, the truth will always be better. Don't lie to your parents, if you did lie, I would tell them the truth right away.

 

[BatteryLife]

Uh, don't think that I'm crazy... But I suggest that your wash it with water before you soak it into rice(hopefully again). Sea water is salty you see, and salt isn't what I would bear to have in electronical gadgets. It messes it up somehow. Not that sure about this though

 

[xandros9]

If you dropped it in the salty sea, the phone would need to be rinsed out completely with fresh water as the salt will be lethal.
Without the battery of course.

But I remember the feeling of breaking stuff as a kid. (still am legally)
Assuming they are reasonable people, I would come clean as it's going to happen one day or another. If you have ATT in the US, 520's are cheap, albeit locked to ATT. But otherwise, work something out.

 

[roni09riku]

Just tell them the truth. They'll probably find out about it sooner or later. If you tell them now, you'll get less problems, plus you won't have to worry about it EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. until they eventually find out.

P.S. - don't bring your phone near the sea, a swimming pool or any place similar next time.

 

[Branta]

Uh, don't think that I'm crazy... But I suggest that your wash it with water before you soak it into rice(hopefully again). Sea water is salty you see, and salt isn't what I would bear to have in electronical gadgets. It messes it up somehow. Not that sure about this though

Perfect advice. Salt water will destroy circuit boards, and if it is concentrated by evaporating the water it will be even more destructive. With the history of this phone I'm estimating less than 5% chance it will ever work again. For all practical considerations the phone is toast.

My advice is to remove the battery now, and not put it back until the phone is washed out to remove all salt, AND completely dried. The phone needs at least 3 soaks in DISTILLED water (deionized is also ok and might be easier to find). Flood the phone completely (it's already wet and salty, it can't get worse) for a few minutes, then drain the phone for about 5 minutes on an adsorbent cloth. Pour away the water and replace with fresh, repeat at least 3 more times and drain as much as possible.

Now you have two choices to dry the phone - and that also means ALL the water trapped under the chips, etc on the pcb, not just a quick wipe and shake. Forget about rice, it is fine as emergency first aid if it is all you have, but not up to the same standard of drying as you get from silica gel. My suggestion is to put the phone in a sealed box with at least 8 ounces of freshly dried silica gel, and leave it for at least a week. It should be easy to find silica gel online (ebay?) and it can be dried and re-activated by heating for a few hours at about 120C in a regular oven (not a microwave).

The other method used during manufacture is to clear the water by rinsing in isopropanol to remove the moisture. However this really needs the phone to be opened up so you can treat only the PCBs (not the case) and be sure any isopropanol vapor has been cleared before you power up.