Comment on It just plain doesn't work, please stop telling people to do this
MotoAsh@piefed.social 2 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 is totally useless, 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 PCB and chips even with the water gone.
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.
Again untrue whatever you think is “whole” water, any dessicant will absolutely 100% 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 if 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.
sulfidedisburseangledafternoontipper@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 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 2 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!”
Ephera@lemmy.ml 2 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 2 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 2 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 2 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).
agent_nycto@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Rice is literally one of the easiest things to cook on the planet.
We probably don’t use rice for shipping because if it did get wet it would get moldy, unlike sciatica. Doesn’t mean it isn’t effective.
JusticeForPorygon@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
Good point. I’ll use diatomaceous earth next time.
JillyB@beehaw.org 2 days ago
Is this how I debug my phone?
hallettj@leminal.space 2 days ago
Dammit - now I’m cringing at the thought of datomaceous earth in the USB port!
TheOakTree@lemmy.zip 1 day 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.