Toilet, Ipod, sad young lady

You could try soaking in or opening it up and wiping with anyhydrous alcohol, or the closest thing you can easily get, as that's sort of a pain to find, and isn't anyhydrous anymore as soon as you break the seal anyway...

91% or 99% isopropyl (91 is easier to find, 99 is better) Cheap, easy to find at drugstore, my default electronics cleaning material.

Everclear (190 proof, aka 95%, ethyl) - far more expensive due to taxes as drinking-grade.

Denatured alcohol - ethyl with some nasty crud added to keep you from drinking it, cheap at the paint section of the hardware store.

IMO, don't use methyl, aka wood alcohol, or denatured ethyl which has been denatured with methyl.

--
Cats, coffee, chocolate...vices to live by

Did it land in a toilet full of clean water? Or did the toilet also have some cleaning chemical?

Did you rule out foul play? Perhaps the Ipod died long ago due to stupid abuse.. The washroom cleaning was just a cover story. Even sneakier... Maybe it's not her Ipod.. It's an identical one (broken) that belongs to a friend to scam you into getting a new one.

D from BC

Suspicious mind there D from BC, Clean Water, no cleaning solution, no foul play, no abuse, no cover story ( I saw it go in and saw her hesitate before she stuck her hand in to get it :-) ) it was her Ipod, no scam , she already has ordered a new one with money from her own bank account. Now the scam, if I get it to work I'll have an Ipod. Mike

Hey...I practice electronics...My motto is: Trust Nothing. It's like this for me because often everything I work with doesn't act like it should.. :P

I don't know how impact resistant Ipods are.. Do you think the Ipod hit the hard toilet 1st (rim shot) or was it a water landing?

Just a theory... I suspect track, lead or other corrosion forming oxides in the trapped liquid creating an ionic fluid that is conducting and causing circuit problems.. Soln: See alcohol post.

Theory 2... Guessing a failsafe mechanism in the batteries is water sensitive and corrodes. Soln: Change batteries.. It's just a guess.. I don't know what batteries those Ipods are using.

D from BC

...

See my post titled _GMCFESIL: (Guy Macon's Cure For Electronics Soaked In Liquids)_.

--
Guy Macon

The best solvent is distilled water. Give it a soak in distilled water; just enough to cover it. Dry in an oven set low. Repeat 3-4 times.

Battery power and moisture cause accelerated corrosion, probably opened up some of the battery wiring. If you disassemble and inspect, scrape off the green stuff, wipe off the residues, and solder fresh wires in, it's likely to work fine.

I've also seen LSI packages with a hundred corroded-in-half wires, no way to connect anything ever again.

If anything similar happens in future, do the following: blot dry, flush with anhydrous alcohol, and blot dry again, then run the battery completely down to 'dead' and give it a week in a dessicant jar.

Hmmm. Either you have the only 16-year-old daughter on earth that is willing to let her father see *anything* she does in the loo, or you dropped it yourself and made up the bit about the daughter. :)

--
Guy Macon

No problem. Let her keep her dead ipod and enjoy it dead. It'll help her realize that she needs to take better care of her stuff.

You can help her contact apple repair, send it back, and find out what it'll cost. She can then work odd jobs till she has enough money to fix it.

Look at the bright side; it a few years she'll be wrecking the car.

The Rhode Island Public Transit Authority installed these nice display systems in all the poles at the bus stops in their main terminal in Kennedy Plaza.

And because none of them are truly watertight, they all end up corroded to hell.

The company that used to maintain them has gone belly up. I thought about assuming the contract but until they improve the housings it's a lose-lose.

My wife dropped her cell phone in a foot bath at the nail salon :-(

It quit working.

I opened up the battery compartment, removed the battery, and then flooded (as much as I could) with denatured alcohol.

Let it dry for a few days... came right back up working fine ;-)

...Jim Thompson

--
|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
|  Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
|  Phoenix, Arizona            Voice:(480)460-2350  |             |
|  E-mail Address at Website     Fax:(480)460-2142  |  Brass Rat  |
|       http://www.analog-innovations.com           |    1962     |
             
         America: Land of the Free, Because of the Brave

So what's the problem? The "music" kids listen to these days belongs in the toilet anyway.

I mean, whatever happened to real music, played on real instruments, by real musicians? Oops. I guess we SED members only have ourselves to blame for that one.

Synthesizers, MIDI, DIY PC software, sequencers, etc....

-mpm

I have an IPOD. I use it for listening to books while I'm flying around the country.

...Jim Thompson

--
|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
|  Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
|  Phoenix, Arizona            Voice:(480)460-2350  |             |
|  E-mail Address at Website     Fax:(480)460-2142  |  Brass Rat  |
|       http://www.analog-innovations.com           |    1962     |
             
         America: Land of the Free, Because of the Brave

I've already told you that the FAA is going to catch you flying without a plane, one of these days. The things some people will do to avoid the TSA! ;-)

--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I\'ve got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

The problem is these units have been left to rot on the poles. The first time I saw them I knew they'd have problems with the units because rivets don't generally do a watertight seal. They could have at least put a layer of silicone on the edges to seal it up but they also got water in them from above.

Poor design all around.

Just replace all of it mini-pc's with small LCD screens that are well protected from the elements. But then you'd need a small heat source to keep the LCD from freezing up.

I have one too. I use it to listen to music, podcasts, Italian lessons, etc. They're spectacular little devices.

In Africa my pal dropped our phone in the Indian Ocean just off the Cape of Good Hope. He brought it to me within minutes, dead.

I ripped out the battery, smoking from hydrolysis (& hot), then dunked and rinsed everything in the cleanest fresh water available. Several traces on the PCB inside were already heavily eroded, nearly gone in that short time.

When the thing dried out two days later we charged it up and ... it ran. Perfectly, and it kept us faithfully in touch the rest of our trip.

Cheers, James Arthur

I have an MP3 player (IPods are too expensive) that I use to listen to talk radio, while driving. Neat widget - takes USB sticks and has an FM transmitter.

--
Keith