Does rice really dry out electronics?
Liquid damage in electronics is a bit like pancake batter on the counter: on Sunday morning, it's relatively easy to wipe off. Dried pancake batter on Sunday night—that's a different story. The same thing happens with water/liquid damage.
When we put a phone in rice, it is the same thing as doing nothing. It just FEELS like we're actively trying something. Corrosion is instant when a phone hits water. Sometimes the corrosion hits important components, sometimes not. If we resist turning the phone on until it dries on the counter, in the rice bag, or anywhere else, sometimes we get lucky. If we had the phone in the rice bag, we think the rice saved the phone. But it didn't! Even if the phone seems to be working, it will have oxidized solder joints that are weakened and brittle. Corrosion will continue to spread inside the phone. We have done nothing but experienced temporary luck.
The real secret to water damage? You don't want to dry it!
How to dry a phone without rice
What you want to do is first displace the water—or more specifically, all the conductive stuff in the water. You can do this best by using 90%+ isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol and a toothbrush. Open your device as soon as you can, take out the battery, and get scrubbing. Submerge the whole motherboard in alcohol, and scrub away. Only then, dry it and see where you stand. By getting the liquid displaced before it can dry, we are cleaning the pancake batter on Sunday morning. This is your best strategy for liquid damage.
Of course, it's tempting to just put the phone in rice—you never know, it might be okay. We want to ignore all that work above and just hope for the best instead.
You'd be hard pressed to find any experienced professional in the repair industry that doesn't roll their eyes when they hear the word "rice." We see the sad result of phones/devices that have been carefully placed in the Mahatma bag with fingers crossed.
To all repair professionals out there: please join in sharing some pictures of what a phone/device really looks like inside when we open it up after its romp in the rice. A picture is worth a thousand words. Maybe it will help show folks the reality of the role of rice in water damage.
Team
31 Comments
Hi, ok fair enough, but it has worked for me before . I don't open up the items, all I do is place them in the rice then place them it in direct sunlight and under the light globe. After that I open them and see how things look. In the bebops case all looked good so I fired it up.
Dave - Reply
It did not work. You think it worked because you did something. You could have wrapped up your phone in Toilet paper and probably would have received the same results. Be sure to use the extra absorbancy kind. What worked was evaporation, but the corrosion will remain.
jods kin -
All very true. And if the loquid contained any amount of sugar, you actually need to first scrub and rince the parts with demineralized water as sugar is almost not soluble in alcohol. Then you rince with alcohol to wash out the demineralized water so it will dry properly, as it could leave moisture in small parts otherwise.
And you can check for the water marks inside. if they haven’t change color than you’re lucky and liquids most probably didn’t get in.
I saved a few devices this way (scrubbing with demineralized water and/or alcohol, not the rice). The rice is actually worst than letting it dry vertically. Depending on the rice you use, and how you put the device in, you can get rice dust particles inside the device, which will get stuck to the water droplets, and potentially burn up when you power on the device depending on where the are.
But like you said, scrubbing still is not magic, if you waited too long, tried to turn on your devices, or dropped it in some peculiar mix, no amount of scrubbing will do. I once forgot an iPhone 5 in the washing machine, turned on (sleep mode). Let’s just say the full cycle with soap, banging, spinning (too make sure everything got real wet. Let’s just say that one never walked again. Who knew metal could get so green so fast…
Olivier Gagnon - Reply
Almost every time we have had a customer bring a phone that has been in contact with rice, there is a piece stuck in the charge port and the headphone jack. So even if rice was able to dry your phone, you are possible damaging your phone by introducing foreign objects into the exposed ports.
Damon - Reply
Just thinking about the amount of dust in rice makes me cringe when a person says that they put their phone in rice
clifpip - Reply
i came home an hour after dropping android in water, when i tried to use it was overheating battery only in rice, only have 50% alcohol so im drying in front of fan. hopefully would work
Mabel Lloyd - Reply
You don’t want to dry the water that’s allowing for corrosion? What kind of nincompoop would ever believe that?
Yes, in an ideal world displacing the water and ions that allow for corrosion, then drying it off is the procedure, but good luck doing that on a wet device if you are not a professional with tools and isopropylic at your disposal.
Rice works by absorbing moisture from the air around it - surround a device in a dessicant and most of the remaining water will dry faster. Dissicants. And it is A LOT better than letting it soak .
Isopropyl alcohol is also relatively safe, but that relatively gives room to A LOT, from damaging screens, coatings, paint, and even some lower-end rubber used in some, rather bad tactile switches, oh, and most adhesives, as in the ones holding your screen to the rest of the device adhesives. Also, good luck displacing that tiny drop of water unless you open up your device (do you already have the tools at your disposal? what about the ones needed to reassemble it?).
Pedro Rezende - Reply
Except rice is a horrible desiccant, there are much better options.
Kerry Garrison -
How about an iphone that you can not open up…. would placing the whole thing in a baggy full of rubbing alcohol work? (Turned off of course)
ken - Reply
It would destroy the display.
Duck -
How do I share this to facebook? :)
shinhee - Reply
Good report, thanks, yet.. how to open an iPhone?
(ifixit.com shows some ways..)
vjrott - Reply
There’s a guide on how to open and repair every model of iPhone on ifixit’s website. If you don’t believe me, i’ll show you.
James -
My iPhone 8 went through the wash cycle of my Fischer Paykel washer. It works, should I be worried? This washer uses very little water, only enough to wet the clothes, no soaking.
aocolyer - Reply
this happened to me just yesterday I was so confused and searched different websites
what I did was to squeeze in some mattress foam into the headphone jack for 20 MINS then I removed it and shook my phone vertically against the palm of my hands and suddenly it started working again, and the microphone too, glory be to God
MAN - Reply
Your very BEST bet is that extended warranty just sayin
digitalbrian - Reply
Corrosion is not instant. Please give me what your definition of corrosion is… Here are the definitions i have found online: “destroy or damage (metal, stone, or other materials) slowly by chemical action” “(of metal or other materials) be destroyed or damaged slowly by chemical action” “destroy or weaken (something) gradually.“
Michael Lambert - Reply
So my phone was ghost typing in glitching I put it in a bag of rice now ever time I power it on my screen looks yellow in glitching what do I do?
Brazzy frm918 - Reply
Worked for me with a Kindle my wife would of been !#^&@@
Zachary Cantrell - Reply
I was on my bike with a bar b q dinner i had bought and put my phone in the bag ( dum) and green bean juice got inside
Jerri Dittman - Reply
Does this work also in key alarms
doreenjoneslee - Reply
Does it work on car alarms keys
doreenjoneslee - Reply
this article is OPINION based
and is not factual
Sir Galahad - Reply
What's your argument then? Your not even an expert in the field of electronics lmao
Mi Meng -
i used to put any electronics that got wet into a speedvac (a vacuum desiccator) and that has saved more than 50%. pre drying with 100% iso is also a really good idea.
ralph - Reply
For those that think, "but it worked for me," beware of confirmation bias. Being consistently lucky is different from having a working mephod.
Tang Tang - Reply
its not fool proof.... the water has to NOT destroy components for it to work. Thats just common sense
Otherwise, this works 100% of the time.
Its ok to be wrong, just as long as you know. You are wrong
If everyone is calling a swan, a swan. And you call it a dog. Yet it has wings. Who is right?
Sir Galahad -
Bro I killed like 5 phones with water damage then I learned Abt the rice thing and I would've killed like 3 phones and a switch with water damage but I saved them 4 thing with the rice &&^&^$^ dumbass the water need to have not damaged in order to save it
Giga_21 - Reply
I have an iPhone….. the battery doesn’t just come out.
Jay Williams - Reply
Nice idea but iPhone doesn’t let you open it. The only thing you can open is the little slot on the SIM card and that’s it. You can’t open the back to access the battery.
Serena Morris - Reply
LOL common sense, over your head
Sir Galahad -