How-To: Recover from a Soda-Spill Disaster
How-To: Recover from a Soda-Spill Disaster
Posted 05/28/2010 at 9:37am
| by Alex Castle
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There are few moments in life quite as sickening as realizing that you’ve spilled a beverage on one of your gadgets. The feeling can range from mild infuriation (spilling a Bud Light on your PlayStation controller) to near-coronary levels (knocking over a Mountain Dew: Code Red onto your brand-new laptop). Either way, it’s never something you want to go through. Because of that, we’ve put together a simple disaster plan for dealing with beverage-soiled electronics. We hope you never have to use it, but if you do, you’ll be glad you read it.
1. Act Fast
Yeah, we know. You’re pissed. You just splashed merlot on your expensive gaming laptop. And while we do feel your pain, there’s no time to sit around and pout. Every second you waste is another second that whatever you’ve spilled gets to dry into a sticky, short-circuiting, corrosive mess. So act fast.
Start by unplugging your gadget from the wall, if it’s plugged in. If it’s a laptop, remove the battery. If it’s a keyboard, disconnect it from the PC. Liquid will create short-circuits inside your electronics, so getting it unplugged quickly will improve the chance of recovering your gadget intact.
2. Assess the Damage
Now that you’ve unplugged your device, take a second to assess the location and quantity of the spill. If it’s just a few drops on a keyboard, you might be able to get away with prying off the surrounding keys (image A) and wiping down the affected area. For this, we recommend alcohol swabs, which break up stains and dry very quickly. You can get enough to last for years for about $4 in the first-aid section of a drug store, so get some now, before you need them.
(Image A)
If it’s just a matter of washing down some keys, remember to wipe off both the keyboard and the keys that you’ve pried off. Your keyboard might be safe from electrical harm, but if you don’t thoroughly clean off every contaminated surface, your keys will start to stick as the mess dries.
If the spill doesn’t appear to be limited to the surface of your device, then scrub up—it’s time for surgery.
3. Take it Apart
You can’t clean a bespoiled device without first taking it apart. If the thought of opening up your expensive toys scares you, that’s understandable, but just remember that any chance is better than no chance at all, which is what you’ve got if you let that spill just sit there. Of course, if you don’t know which end of a screwdriver goes where, it might be worth calling a more electronically handy friend to help you out.
(Image B)
Using your tiny screwdriver (you do have a tiny screwdriver, don’t you?) open up the device (image B). Obviously there’s no one-size-fits-all guide for taking apart gadgets, but here are a few guidelines to follow:
- You may need to use some force to pry apart your device, but be careful, especially with circuit boards. If something seems to be taking more force to pull apart than it should, check again for hidden screws.
- Be careful to save all your screws as you go. Don’t just throw them all into a coffee mug, either, because most gadgets have several different-size screws in them, and you’ll need to remember which goes where when you put everything back together.
- If something is particularly complicated, and you’re afraid you won’t be able to put it back when you’re done, grab a digital camera and snap some photos before you start taking stuff apart.
- Your ultimate goal is to expose any circuit boards or other electronics that might have gotten spilled on. If you’re taking apart a laptop, this means you’ll need to isolate the motherboard and any daughterboards.
4. Wash It Off
Once you’ve exposed the circuitry in your device, you’ll have to clean off the stain. If you can see that the stain is contained in a certain part of the board, you can use alcohol swabs, as described above, to clean it off (images C and D). If an entire circuit board is soiled, you’ll need to resort to more drastic measures: completely disconnect it from the rest of the gadget and run it under soapy water.
(Image C)
Yes, that’s right, run it under water. We’re all conditioned to want to keep our electronics away from liquids, and that’s generally a good policy, but sometimes you’ve got to fight fire with fire, so wash that sucker off. Don’t scrub, just gently wipe, and let the soapy water do its thing.
When you’ve removed the stain, rinse off the soapy water. For the best chance of success, you’ll want to rinse with distilled or deionized water, which can be bought at most supermarkets. Tap water will leave deposits on your circuit board when it dries.
(Image D)
You’ll want to see whether your device will work right away, but you’ll have to wait a little longer. The next step is to make sure every part that you washed is completely dry. It’s best to air dry it, since cloth or paper towels can leave behind lint, although you can speed up the process by packing the wet parts in a desiccant, such as silica gel or plain old white rice. You can also speed the drying process by using a fan or even a hair dryer, although if you do, be sure to do so from a distance and using the low-heat setting, as you don’t want to warp the circuit board.
Finally, once all the components are clean and dry, it’s time to put everything back together. Refer to your photographs if you took them, and make sure that everything fits back together securely. We can’t guarantee that your device will be working again, but at least you’ll know you did everything you could.
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To avoid this immidiately disconnect your battery and tilt your laptop. Make sure you immidiately disconnect the keyboard from the laptop and clean the liquid with a dry cloth. As much as you can do it in order to save the laptop being short circuit by the liquid.
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tom_stone
June 02, 2010 at 6:23am
I do agree that the 1st step should be to turn the device upside down to prevent the offending liquid from penetrating deeper. Just to share a story, the place I work at has a Video Switcher, size of a small desk with a few dozen keys and knobs, Coke gets spilled on it, can't turn it upside down, so open it up (top flips up like a car bonnet) and turn off the 2 PSU from inside. It's got 3 layers of PCBs under the keys/knobs, the Coke made it to the top of the last PCB at the bottom, because each key/knob had its own hole on top, the Coke came in small drops and not one large puddle. Luckily, all the boards are removable, so there I am with a co-worker, a gallon can of 70% isoprophil alchohol a bag of cotton buds on long wooden sticks, taking apart PCBs, keys & knobs swabbing fown every brown coke stain we can find. Took about 2 hours, with all the resistors, ICs and capacitors in there, I prayed we didn't miss any Coke that would slowly dissolve and make trouble later.
mauriceh
May 31, 2010 at 3:59pm
Step 1: Remove power - should have been step 2.
STEP 1:
TURN the device UPSIDE DOWN.
Stop the fluid from penetrating any further into the device.
THEN, step 2, unplug it, remove the battery, whatever to remove power.
JohnP
May 29, 2010 at 8:11am
Keyboards are NOT made like they were 30 years ago. There are no switches, springs, or mecanical parts any more. The old days, you could sometimes wash the keyboard. No longer. What you DO have is three layers of mylar with printed lines and pads on them and a top layer of plastic membrane with bumps that "act" as springs. Once liquid gets between the layers of mylar, you are screwed. Yes you can carefully peel the layers apart and try to wah and dry them, but it rarely works and takes a long time. Throw away the keyboard and buy another.
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May 30, 2010 at 8:04pm
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May 28, 2010 at 7:10pm
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May 28, 2010 at 1:19pm
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I popped off the back, and just took the front "panel" part with me, the front part with all the keys attatched to it (and the LCD). I popped out ALL the keys, and put them in a bowl of warm water.
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When I was done scrubbing, I dried it with a blow dryer (temp. set to "cool", was afraid of melting it or something..).
Dried all the keys with a paper towel / blow drying. Also took a while.
Popped all the keys back in, and now it's nice and clean, root-beer free, and working great. Lucky none of the root beer got anywhere deep inside the keyboard, it was just all over the keys, nothing electronic damaged.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
|Intel Corei7 920|BFG Tech GTX295|Corsair XMS3 6GB RAM|Caviar Black 1TB|Lexa Blackline Red|Razer Mamba + Carcharias + Moray + Destructor|Logitech G15 + X-540|
Zune HD = Happiness
SuperiorBeing
May 28, 2010 at 1:00pm
I was under the impression that most desktop keyboards could be safely washed by hand, maybe even in a dishwasher (probably not the ones with lcds etc.) and laptops usually have easily replaceable keyboards.
JoeBlow
May 28, 2010 at 12:06pm
For a typical keyboard, you can only pry off the square keys because anything bigger has small wire hinges embedded into the plastic. If you try to pry these bigger keys off, you break the plastic and that's the end of the keyboard -- I've made this mistake because of incomplete instructions from someone. Presumably laptop keyboards are different and one should be even more careful -- haven't done this myself.
You should change the article before someone messes up their expensive keyboard on account of this "helpful" advice.
robsoles
May 31, 2010 at 12:58pm
You will discourage people from trying to save their own device where they stand a chance to fix it themselves, learn a little more about their device and gain reasons not to bring their fluids near such solids.
I've cleaned so many keyboards for people it isn't funny, quite a drag but: The keys with wire stabilisers are easily removed and replaced where the keyboard costs more than $7AU - if you buy shockingly cheap keyboards then sure, go get another one without trying but be aware that I've never seen a full size keyboard I couldn't undo and do up those wire clip/stabilisers a few times before the plastic retention breaks.
A teenager put his drink in his laptop keyboard and (eventually) brought it to me, I carefully disassembled it till I could see the damage, then I asked him how long it ran after the drink went in - he told me it shut itself off immediately and he started it back up again (wanted to tell his girlfriend why he needed to go offline!) but it kept switching itself off. I put it to him that if he'd pulled the plug, removed the battery and turned the laptop upside down, keeping it open so both keyboard and display were facing the ground, IMMEDIATELY (like it switched off) after the drink went in, then he might still have a laptop.
The article above is a beauty, had the teenager read it before giving his lappie a drink he would have had a much, much better chance. The parrticular desktop PC I sold him severely discounted and keyboard I selected will be much more resilient to his lifestyle.
PCs don't have feelings and don't care how long you play with them, go play with your kids.
Mark17
May 28, 2010 at 10:46am
I prefer not letting containers full of liquid anywhere near my laptop or keyboard. It actually seems to work out pretty well.
linkmaster6
May 28, 2010 at 10:22am
For spills of even 1/8 of a cup onto a laptop, unless its water, you're pretty well suckered. Most drinks (pop, coffee, alcohol) will leave a sticky resin on the keyboard contacts leaving the keyboard pretty messed. I wouldn't advise trying to pry keys off a laptop, the hinges holding the keys are pretty delicate so there is a good chance of breaking them. Put in an attempt of desperation you would try warming up some 70% isopropyl alcohol and poring that down across the keyboard. For most of them I've seen though, the keyboard was always a writeoff afterwards (usually a good deal of time between spill and the person bringing it to me).
I'd suggest some radtech pry tools for getting casing apart, a fiberglass brush for cleaning corrosion off of contacts and chips, a tooth brush helps too.
For screw placements, I always sketch up what i'm working on andmark where the screw went and place the screw on top of that drawing.
popstop785
May 28, 2010 at 10:02am
Run it under soapy water... that is insane because I would have never considered that. Now that I think it over, it makes perfect sense though.
This is a pretty cool write up. Thanks!
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