The Resurrection Connection

[thongd4me 69]

My first wife, at least in the last few years of residing together, never did my laundry.

I never ask my current wife to do it but she feels that is her job. So be it.

I have a lightweight jacket that was becoming a little thin for the colder December weather.

My wife threw it in the washer and my cell phone with it last Saturday.

First rule: the woman is always right. "You never put your cell phone in your jacket."

- correct answer: "Yes, dear."

OK now we have that out of the way, I looked online for cell phone laundry and

the recommendations were as follows:

1) Don't try to turn it on (this rule can NEVER be broken).

2) There are white squares on both the inner body of the

phone and on the connection side of the battery. If these

turn red or pink, you have water damage and the warranty

is void (but all is not lost).

2) In order to dry it out, remove both the sim card, the battery

and the memory chip (if any).

3) You may put in it the refrigerator (yes it has drying powers)

for about 30 minutes at a time and wrap it in a paper towel.

4) Don't use a hair dryer as the heat may do more damage

than the water already has. You MAY use a VACUUM cleaner

to literally suck the moisture away from the phone.

5) My choice was to leave it near a radiator (NOT on top of)

where it was only getting very mild heat over time. I also

put it in the refrigerator a few times initially until the water

disappeared from the touch screen.

6) The amount of time to let it dry varied (according to what

methods were used) but to be safe, I gave it the maximum,

which was 5 days.

This morning I put the battery and the SIM card and the

memory chip back in and put it on charge and it worked!

Only time will tell if some functions gum up or the battery

will have a shorter charging life, but now it seems good to go.

Remember the most important rule is NOT to jump to try and

turn it on or charge it. Let it dry out first; better safe than sorry.

WHEW!

[thongd4me 69]

It seems now that it's only half resurrected:

When I tried to make a few calls I quickly discovered that

the people I was talking to couldn't hear me because

the microphone on my cell was water damaged.

Tonight I'm going to try it with the wireless earpiece and

also the wired earpiece, each of which have their own

microphones.

I'm a little wary that the problem may NOT be the microphone

but the hardware part of the phone that does the transmission,

as I can hear myself speak when I turn the speaker on.

At least I have all my data.

[Fandango 1,439]

That totally sucks! I did the same thing with hubby's phone, tho it was in cargo shorts (I mean how many flippin pockets do those things have anyway??) We tried a few things - heard something about putting it in rice (???), but none worked...we just broke down and went to buy him a new phone.

Hope this gets sorted! I'm guessing it's not a smart phone or anything like that? If you need a replacement, have you looked on ebay??

[thongd4me 69]

That totally sucks! I did the same thing with hubby's phone, tho it was in cargo shorts (I mean how many flippin pockets do those things have anyway??) We tried a few things - heard something about putting it in rice (???), but none worked...we just broke down and went to buy him a new phone.

Hope this gets sorted! I'm guessing it's not a smart phone or anything like that? If you need a replacement, have you looked on ebay??

Yeah I saw the suggestion of rice as a dessicant, but it looked great after I waited 5 days.

I think most failures to bring back soaked phones are the result of people trying to turn them on too soon.

Then there is the lurking possibility of some OTHER performance issue -

my co worker had a phone in water and thought he got it back but two weeks later it was dead.

I'm going to try the hands free eqpt. tonight and see if that sorts out the mic problems.

EDIT: The jacket DID have a LOT of pockets, inside & out - she DID empty ONE

pocket but there were two others (cell phone, metrocard, and lots of tissues!).

Edited December 9, 2010 by thongd4me

[Fandango 1,439]

This brings back memories of when I drove a Jag xj6, and filled a large slurpee-esque sized cup with coffee..naturally, I was running late to work, couldn't find the travel mug, couldn't find a lid for the ginormous cup I'd prepared. I thought 'what could go wrong???' and the worst thing I came up with was that I could spill some on myself.

Flash forward to getting cut off while driving to work, having to hit the brakes, and in VERY slow motion, the cup holder tilting 45 degrees forward, and all the coffee flying out of the cup and going straight into - get this...my radio! All the while me screaming a very slow mo 'noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!'

No, the radio wasn't salvageable -let alone what it did to my interior! but it makes for a ridiculous story...

Edited December 9, 2010 by Lisa C

[thongd4me 69]

This brings back memories of when I drove a Jag xj6, and filled a large slurpee-esque sized cup with coffee..naturally, I was running late to work, couldn't find the travel mug, couldn't find a lid for the ginormous cup I'd prepared. I thought 'what could go wrong???' and the worst thing I came up with was that I could spill some on myself.

Flash forward to getting cut off while driving to work, having to hit the brakes, and in VERY slow motion, the cup holder tilting 45 degrees forward, and all the coffee flying out of the cup and going straight into - get this...my radio! All the while me screaming a very slow mo 'noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!'

No, the radio wasn't salvageable -let alone what it did to my interior! but it makes for a ridiculous story...

That's quite a story - could certainly make Austin Powers blush.

Oh, BE-HAVE!

[thongd4me 69]

(so far so good)

I seem to be back in bizheth as the plug-in earpiece/mic is working fine.

The battery seems to be in good shape as it is holding a charge reasonably well,

all that after a full cycle in the clothes washer.