Yesterday, my MP3 player took a dive and is pretty much shot. But it had a 256 meg SD card in it. Would it have survived the dunkin’ or would it be down for the count too? I’m afraid to try it out in my laptop’s card reader or the digital cameras for fear of frying them. Is there any safe way to test this?
The first thing you should do when you drop a piece of electronic equipment in water is to remove the batteries and open it up, if possible, and shake all the excess water out. Then, get some distilled water in a clean container and rinse the parts in it to wash away any potentially corrosive chemicals. Again, shake out the excess water. Let the item dry completely for a day or two in a warm, dry area before reassembling it and trying it out.
As for the memory card, let it sit somewhere nice and warm, like the back of a TV set for a day or two before trying it out. If there was no power being applied to it at the time of the dunking, it’s more than likely ok. Even if it was powered, the data may have survived–flash memory is pretty robust. Good luck!
Let it dry out for a couple days, but I’d bet big money that it will be fine. For that matter, take the batteries out of the MP3 players and let it dry out for a couple days, and it will probably be fine, too.
I’ve immersed digital cameras, MP3 players, flash memory, and an iPaq over the years – all have worked fine after a few days of drying time (assuming fresh, not salt, water). Some devices have paper cone speakers in them, so you may lose sound.
Oh, one other thing you can do for your SD card: Dunk it in some >70% isopropyl rubbing alcohol and swish it around for a bit before setting is aside to dry as indicated above. Better yet, pure iso, anhydrous, if you can find it. The alcohol will displace much of the water, and it dries out faster. Plus, it’s a great cleaner for electronics. Isopropyl is used heavily in the industry for cleaning assemblies after soldering, marking, potting and other processes.