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When electronics find their way into the washing machine...

cstanton

I do my best to avoid cleaning my electronics hardware and peripherals.

 

Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, somehow wearable electronics manage to find themselves in the washing machine. I wasn't even washing my trousers where I usually keep it, no, this time my Wii Fit U Meter found itself among the towels, and spun around in the machine. It wasn't until it was too late, and I saw its depressed features pushed up against the glass, that I realised it had gone through an exciting event and probably inflated my walking score.

 

I didn't try to power it on. Not able to find my Y screwdriver, the only thing I could do was put it in rice.

The rice got damp very quickly after a day on the window sill in 35 degrees C heat, I replaced it a couple of times, found my Y screwdriver and finally took it apart.

I have some cleaning to do, now, what's the best way to clean this?

 

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I also couldn't help but notice a number of test pads, and some that may even be programming pads.

  • Hi Christopher,

     

    Just thinking, washing machines should come with BLE detection and cut-off feature : ), since so many wearables etc now have BLE, and might get left in pockets : )

    If there's residues, then isopropanol (or typical lens wipe) is normally good, since it's quite mild and won't damage anything (much/mostly : ).

    Other than that, if it is all definitely completely dry then there's no harm trying to power it up I guess : ) I think it may still work.

  • Not sure there is a rule book for this. Maybe a gentle toothbrush or Q-tips and alcohol?

    I have seen worse - in some electronics that went down with a boat that sank. Really knarly oxide growths that were eventually cleaned by scrubbing with water and alcohol before a proper drying. The oxides were due to the electronics being full of water and baking in the sun for a few weeks after being pulled from the sunken boat. Every thing survived as far as I remember, but I don't think anyone would mistake the resulting circuit boards for brand new parts.

  • in reply to shabaz

    Isopropanol and q-tips (thanks ) has been the way to go! It's all cleaned and powered on, it's pretty resilient.

     

    Sadly though, the pressure sensor in it appears to have failed (it uses the barometer to measure height so it knows when you're climbing or using stairs).

     

    I like your idea of BLE detection with a cut off, a detection of electronics left in your pockets - I'm surprised I haven't seen anything that tries to do this already.

  • in reply to dougw

    Wow , that's amazing to hear, I haven't experienced anything so close, only in my last job we found the servers were reporting hard drive errors, and weird temperature readings - we entered the server room to find it was flooding from the toilets above! Amazingly we discovered that all but one server that ended up contained with water, residue and all sorts of sediment managed to survive. Electronics are surprisingly resilient to this type of abuse it appears!

     

    Thanks for the cleaning advice image

  • in reply to cstanton

    Hi Christopher,

     

    I wonder if the pressure sensor might sort itself out, it may be still wet inside. I'm not sure though, it's just speculation.

    BLE detection could be retro-fitted to washing machines perhaps : ) The metal drum is perfect for shielding, and if there was a device stuck onto the glass door with an antenna directed inward, it could pick up RF emanating from inside the drum maybe : ) and sound an alert.. Hm, I'll have to experiment!

  • Some advise to take the battery out if you can, and then keep it under water instead of rice, until you have everything in place to properly open it up and dry with air...

    Two to 3 days in rice gives it enough exposure to air to start the corrosion.

  • in reply to cstanton

    As Shabaz indicated, the pressure sensor may just need to be "baked" for a while to evaporate any residual moisture.

  • in reply to dougw

    I agree, the behaviour of it is similar to the humidity sensor in my Meet Bernie, a Pet with an Affection for Arduino! project when the sensor would be soaked with the spray system image

     

    Also, time of death:

    image

  • in reply to Jan Cumps

    Totally agree - it's having power on and water at the same time that is really bad.

    When I clean boards after soldering I use stuff called Safewash which is just strong detergent in water and then rinse several times in de-ionised water.

    Then shake, pat with absorbent paper and dry on a radiator (except if it's too warm for it to be on and then I blow dry with a fan).

     

    Once we had a delivery of boards with liquid trapped under the solder resist - when we powered them up we could see little threads growing between tracks - they didn't work well.

    And because the liquid was under the resist trying to dry them out didn't work either.

     

    MK

  • in reply to michaelkellett

    > and then keep it under water instead of rice,

     

    Reminds me of restoring/preserving items you find from a ship wreck, keep it in the conditions which causes the damage and then slowly bring it back to a different environment.

     

    > And because the liquid was under the resist trying to dry them out didn't work either.

     

    Yeah the altimeter/barometer with temperature sensor in this device appears to be shot/has suffered. It's not returning to life.

     

    I'm wondering if I can find a replacement part for it and do a bit of reflow, I'm going to assume it's this part:

     

    image

     

    I should probably take a better photograph with my microscope.