My wife washed her cellphone in the washer this weekend. I hear if you run the cellphone through a acid bath you can sometimes save the phone. But I have no idea what kind of acid to buy and how long to leave it in ect.
Hello Customer,
Thank you for asking your question on Just Answer. What ever you do not try giving your phone an acid bath. This will damage the phone beyond repair. The acid bath sounds like something posted on the internet. Some people post such information as a sick joke. The best thing to do when a cell phone gets wet is to immediately remove the battery. Never try the phone to see if it will work. Shake out as much water as possible from the phone. Place the phone in a bag with some silica gel. This can be bought at most craft shops. It is used for drying flowers. Leave the phone in the bag for a week. This will remove any moisture from the phone. I am not saying this will work every time, but it will give you the best chance of having a working phone again. If the phone was not turned on there is a very good chance this process will work.
Experience: I am the #3 General expert on Just Answer.
There is a local cell phone repair store that actually uses a acid bath as a remedy for water damaged phones they have about a 80% success ratio using this process, and they can tell you if it works the next day. What i was looking for was what type of acid they would be using
Any acid applied to the circuity of the circuit boards on the phone will destroy the tracings on the circuit board. I have seen circuits boards that have had 409 cleaner sprayed on them, even when the acid in the 409 is a very weak solution, it will eat the copper tracing off the circuit board. Water by itself will not damage the cell phone. If you remove the battery before the phone gets wet you will have 100% success getting the phone to work again once it is dry. Acid will not remove water. The silica gel will. The video below shows how a circuit board is made.
Click here if you can not view the video.
As you see in the video the acid bath will remove the copper tracing on the board. I can not recommend that any acid be applied to the phone.
This guy that is running this cellphone repair store must be doing something else. He's telling people that he is running it thru a acid bath, which he must not be. He must be pocketing the phone for parts. Thanks for the clarification
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