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It just plain doesn't work, please stop telling people to do this (lemmy.zip)
submitted 4 days ago by cm0002@lemmy.zip to c/memes@sopuli.xyz
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[-] MotoAsh@piefed.social 95 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Fun fact: that's not how humidity works. It, in fact, DOES help to get water to evaporate by forcing the local humidity around the phone to stay low. Otherwise you may as well say all the people doing 3D printing that use desiccant to keep water out of their filaments are fools, too.

What it won't do is magically erase any gunk or minerals that were in the water that can short out traces on unprotected PCBs and chips even with the water gone.

So, yes, it is not magic that can fix any phone that saw water. Though it absolutely helps to get the water out of the phone. ... I mean, unless you live in a desert where the humidity should already be sufficiently low most days.

[-] sulfidedisburseangledafternoontipper@piefed.blahaj.zone 22 points 4 days ago

Sure, but rice is a shitty desiccant. If it weren't, it would cook easier and we would ship things with packets of rice rather than silica gel.

[-] MotoAsh@piefed.social 39 points 4 days ago

Silica gel is a great desiccant. Just because rice cannot match something basically designed for the task, doesn't make it awful.

You might as well be saying, "but my horse cannot run fast! He's always behind Secretariat!"

[-] village604@adultswim.fan 6 points 4 days ago

It makes it awful for the purpose of drying wet electronics. It actually impedes the drying process by preventing air from circulating. Plus rice is typically dusty, and you don't want rice dust in your damp electronics.

You'll have a dryer device much faster if you just point a fan at it.

[-] MotoAsh@piefed.social 6 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

That depends on your humidity. As I already said, if you're in a desert that's normally dry enough...

If you're not in a desert, though, you'll have to dry the desiccant for it to have an actually significant effect. Though that's true regardless of which desiccant.

Within the phone, general relative humidity is FAR more important than airflow.

[-] village604@adultswim.fan 2 points 4 days ago

Right but none of that makes rice a good enough desiccant to be more effective than airflow. I live in a very humid environment and an hour or so under a fan is sufficient to dry electronics.

[-] MotoAsh@piefed.social 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

lol no. Dried desiccant in a bag will absolutely murder any fan in a humid environment.

[-] village604@adultswim.fan 1 points 3 days ago

An actual desiccant, yes. Rice isn't that.

[-] MotoAsh@piefed.social 1 points 3 days ago

By definition, yes. Yes it is. It's just not amazing at it.

[-] Ephera@lemmy.ml 23 points 4 days ago

It may not be an industrial-grade desiccant, but the major advantage of rice is that people tend to have it at home...

[-] Ludicrous0251@piefed.zip 19 points 4 days ago

Shit I just dropped my phone in the sink! Just give me a minute to hop online... Commercial grade desiccant... 7-10 days shipping... Buy now... Great! In a week I'll have the driest phone ever!

[-] IncognitoMosquito@beehaw.org 7 points 4 days ago

I have a mason jar full of the desiccant packets that come with the random crap I order. I hang on to them in case my phone decides to go swimming. I recommend it to people, but I don't think I've made many converts lol

[-] MotoAsh@piefed.social 6 points 4 days ago

Just remember that dessicant (including rice) should be dried out in the oven if you're going to expect it to drop humidity below normal ambient humidity. Obviously not baked, but a few hours at ~180F to ~220F will dry out most dessicants. Some are really hydrophillic, though, and might take even higher temps.

Usually the kinds that dry out at lower temps are labeled as reusable or similar terminology. (unless it's a disposable packet, then it's what ever the hell they decided to throw in there).

[-] IncognitoMosquito@beehaw.org 3 points 4 days ago

I didn't know that, thanks!

[-] JusticeForPorygon 4 points 4 days ago

Good point. I'll use diatomaceous earth next time.

[-] JillyB@beehaw.org 4 points 4 days ago

Is this how I debug my phone?

[-] hallettj@leminal.space 4 points 4 days ago

Dammit - now I'm cringing at the thought of datomaceous earth in the USB port!

[-] TheOakTree@lemmy.zip 1 points 3 days ago

Thank goodness DE isn't electrically conductive. It would definitely still be awful - the final boss of getting sand in your phone charging port.

[-] cm0002@lemmy.zip 2 points 4 days ago

Dealing with humidity is one thing, but it's terrible at drawing "whole" water out of something.

And it's not the water that's the problem, it's like you said, it's the gunk and minerals it leaves behind.

Isopropyl alcohol will push water out of any cracks and crevices, if you're able to submerge bare boards in it. If you do it before the minerals have a chance to dry and corrode, it will get pushed out with the water.

[-] faintwhenfree@lemmus.org 14 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Again untrue whatever you think is "whole" water, any dessicant will absolutely undoubtedly help with evaporation.

Not every person is tech savvy enough to open boards. Advice for most novices is still put phone between dessicant to get water out of the device is valid and good advice.

Would using isopropyl alcohol be better option? Sure it is. but telling my aunt to do it, and device will probably die because she doesn't know how to handle pcbs anyway. I'd much rather just advice using dessicant and hope mineral residue doesn't sort anything. And I'll continue with that advice forever.

[-] village604@adultswim.fan 1 points 4 days ago

But it doesn't help with evaporation. It actually prevents it by preventing air from circulating.

[-] faintwhenfree@lemmus.org 6 points 3 days ago

Bro you need to understand how relative humidity works. Evaporation is dependent on both air circulation and humidity gradiant. Now out of the two humidity gradiant is by quite a strong factor to the point where you can have very high air circulation of 100% relative humidity and you would see very little evaporation. Compare that a 20% relative humidity and no air circulation and you will see much more evaporation until relative humidity reaches 100%.

So what a dessicant does is take the relative humidity down by quite a lot in a sealed container and that forces evaporation quite a bit, and it will continue to dry the phone until relative humidity reaches 100% which will only happen once rice/desiccant has absorbed all the water it possible can at the given temperature and pressure.

[-] davetortoise@reddthat.com 3 points 3 days ago

But it's funny

[-] Lyra_Lycan 5 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

I thought the whole purpose of the joke, the punchline, was that leaving your phone in rice would attract an Indian to the food, who would compulsively fix the phone for you. That's what I heard in school with that joke anyway

[-] burntbacon@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 4 days ago

Nah, this little bit of wisdom has been around since flip phones in the early 2000s era. That's long before there were any businessmen cooking up various franchises based around variations of 'fix'ation.

[-] db2@lemmy.world 0 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

So you thought the purpose was overt racism and you're ok with that.

[-] hotdogcharmer@lemmy.zip 1 points 4 days ago

To be fair, they didn't say they were okay with it 🤷‍♂️

[-] AllHailTheSheep@sh.itjust.works 5 points 4 days ago

best way I've found to isolate and repair water damage is to open it up and apply some high quality liquid rosin to the water damaged areas. then hit it with hot air (300c should be fine) to get the rosin under all chips and connectors. lastly, do not clean the board, it can push the corrosion around and cause more issues.

[-] Dubiousx99@lemmy.world 0 points 4 days ago

You are just trolling right?

[-] AllHailTheSheep@sh.itjust.works 0 points 4 days ago

no. if you want to do component level board repair for water damge, this is how you do it professionally. I've been using this strategy for 5 years or so now and it has much better success rates than just cleaning the board with ipa.

maybe overkill for most people since it requires more specialized tools but if you go to a shop they'll most likely use similar techniques at least to assess the damage

[-] Dubiousx99@lemmy.world 0 points 4 days ago

I mean, solder melts at temperatures lower than 300 degrees Celsius.

[-] AllHailTheSheep@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 days ago

depends on the type of solder but yeah, I'm not exactly holding it there tho. just high airflow at that temp for a few seconds to push the rosin underneath the chips. helps a lot with bga chips where water can actually get underneath the chip and short connections or leave debris even once evaporated. for actually reworking chips I use around 480c.

[-] aeronmelon@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

I brought a wet AirPod back from the dead last week using rice. It does work, sometimes.

[-] village604@adultswim.fan 0 points 4 days ago

It would have probably been faster to just set it on a windowsill or somewhere with adequate airflow.

[-] cm0002@lemmy.zip 0 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

It doesn't, what you've got is either a device that was sufficiently waterproofed (Which maybe aren't AirPods waterproof?) and just needed the liquid to clear out on its own

Or a device that's working on borrowed time, the minerals have still been deposited on electronic components after the water evaporated on its own. Devices can take some shorting here and there, but it's only a matter of time before it becomes too much. Could be a few days, couple of weeks or even months and then POOF dead for good

[-] certified_expert@lemmy.world 0 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

WD-40

that IS its reason of existance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WD-40

(full disclosure: I have never tried it. I don't recommend trying it, just keep scrolling.)

[-] Lightfire228@pawb.social 0 points 3 days ago

This makes me curious how effective that would actually be

It probably depends on the electrical conductivity of WD 40, and whether it corrodes

[-] JamesBoeing737MAX@sopuli.xyz 2 points 3 days ago

It def. doesn't corrode or it would also fuck with machinery.

[-] certified_expert@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago

iirc, WD literally stands for "water displacement". 40 is because it was the 40th formula

this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2025
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