…Jim Thompson

My Blackberry works now!

The good news is that a 10 minute immersion in distilled water
(drugstore variety distilled water), including shaking, swishing, and
jiggling, then quick drying with paper towels, followed immediately by
a 2 hours in my oven preheated to about 150 degrees F (oven turned off
and temperature before Blackberry inserted in oven) even before I
removed the Blackberry from the water, to minimize oxygen exposure to
a wet electronic circuit board. To maintain heat, I intermittently
turned on the oven for 10 seconds while my hand was inside the oven as
a control to make sure it was never too hot to keep my hand in the
oven. I did not use any denatured alcohol or 97% isopropyl alcohol
– although that would have been my next step (I had a difficult time
finding denatured alcohol, which affected my decision to try just
distilled water first.) Although it is true there is oxygen content
in the distilled water, I am told it is supposed to not be nearly as
corrosive as as other types of water (like tap water) and keeping it
underwater in relatively cool much purer water for only 10 minutes
probably won’t do more damage than the damage already done in the
first place by the contaminants of dropping into a dirty puddle that
got it broken in the first place..

I was going to wait 24 hours, but the blackberry seemed fully dry
after 10 minutes, so I continued. After about 3 hours, I reassembled
the Blackberry cellphone and it WORKED!

So now I’m a happy camper. There is a minor stain in the backlighting
(I removed the LCD and the thumb keyboard and put them aside before
immersing the circuit board in the water), and the thumb keyboard
seems a little well-used, but that’s mostly it. I have activated the
Blackberry now.

Thanks to all the people who gave me advice, which almost always
mentioned distilled water as a washing step, usually alongside another
agent as a rinsing step (i.e. denatured alcohol). Except for a couple
of advice.

So next time, if something is possibly not worth repairing through any
other means, and the defect is a short circuit somewhere (i.e. stuck
buttons), then a distilled water bath followed by low-temperature oven
is the ideal route that avoids permanent banishment to a junk
drawer….! For me at least.

I’ll probably try denatured alcohol, if I could easily find some
locally — may have to go further to a big place such as a Home Depot
somewhere in the suburbs.

Mark Rejhon

…Jim Thompson

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Definitions:

Denatured Alcohol is ethyl alcohol, or ethanol, containing traces of
benzene. While ethanol, in it’s natural form, is a source of
combustible fuel, it contains trace amounts of water making it less
efficient for burning than in it’s denatured form. Introducing Benzene
during the distillation process drives out the water contained in
ethanol creating a very pure and potent fuel source - denatured
alcohol.

NOTE: Ethanol is the alcohol consumed in alcoholic beverages. However,
once denatured, ethanol becomes toxic and can cause blindness or death
if consumed.

Rubbing Alcohol is isopropanol. It has a completely different
molecular structure than ethanol and often contains up to 30% water.
Though it is flammable it is a poor choice for fuel.

======================================

The above definitions are written for Joe Average, the alcohol doesn’t
“contain” water, there are instead *bonded* waters-of-hydration.

…Jim Thompson

Acetone is sometimes added intead. Acetone works very well in the lab
for drying glassware, but it is too strong a solvent I guess.

Alcohol in the 96% concentration will take water with it when it evaporates.

Thomas

My grandfather’s name was James L.

His grandfather’s name was just James

My father’s name is James R.

My name is James E.

So I’m named my sons Aaron and Duane

…Jim Thompson