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OT : Electronic board / Memory stick can be cleaned with Acetone ?

Spud

Spud

Diamond
Joined
Jan 12, 2006
Location
Brookfield, Wisconsin
USB memory stick.

Jumped into salt water swimming pool, forgetting I had memory stick in shorts pocket :dopeslap:

Memory stick contacts have whitish deposits. I ran it under warm fresh water but some deposits still remain. Can I use Acetone?
If not Acetone, then what about alcohol?

Needless to say memory stick won't work :cryin:
 
It may take awhile to dry it "completely" out. I ran 1 of mine thru the washing machine, lucky it was during the winter. I placed it on the floor under the woodstove. left it there for 3 days tried it and nothing,did not work. I left it there and tried it every couple of days took over 9 days, even under the woodstove where it is nice and warm and dry. I had it apart with the plastic covers off so the heat would get right into the eletronics and the water could get out. rather than condensate inside the plastic case.

So don't clean it with and chemicals just yet, give it lots of time to dry out first.
 
Do NOT use acetone. You will dissolve the plastic, and will not fix the performance. In any case, the white stuff is inorganic (minerals) and acetone wouldn't be the best solvent for that anyway.

First, accept that your thumb drive may be knackered. That said, I would soak the thing with distilled water, shaking the water out and reimmersing in clean distilled water several times. The distilled (or deionized) water should get all the mineral deposits from tap water and salt and stuff from salt water out. It is unlikely that, having gone swimming for a bit, distilled water will do further harm. The you have to get the water out of all the little places in the drive where it has hidden. You can try letting it dry in a warm, dry environment for many weeks, as Racen487 states. The problem is really that water is in places where it creates electrical components that aren't supposed to be in the circuit, these places are small, and it's really hard to get the water out of the small places.

I have had great luck over the years fixing electronics by putting them in a vacuum oven at room temperature (over night) then at low (about 50°C, or 120°F, again, overnight). This seems to dry the thing physically, and then the low heat drives off bound water.

Good luck.
 
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The minerals got there by water, they will go away by water. it was almost certainly washed at the manufacturer, to remove soldering flux.

The difference may be anything that was attacked & corroded by the SALT water. Salt spray tests are not normally performed on stick memories, let alone salt water immersion tests....... The "deposits" are most likely salt corrosion products.

If you wash it off/out several times with distilled water, and then dry it with a hair dryer, not allowing it to get 'too hot" (hotter than you would want to touch) it will either work, or not.

Ideally you would open the case allowing you to wash/dry it better. DO NOT plug it into the computer until it is dry inside. All that is in there is a circuit board, possibly a lock switch, possibly no switch on newer ones.
 
I was just thinking how it would be quick to make a memory stick sized vacuum tank with a piece of steel or copper pipe. One end would have fittings for a refrigeration vacuum pump, the other end could be sealed with threaded fitting and a pipe cap. In such a system, do you think the vacuum would need to be ramped up slowly, or could it be brought to refrigeration levels quickly?
 
Wash it in distilled water and put it on the dash of the car for a couple of days out in the sun. What is on it? Do you have a copy? Memory sticks are pretty cheap these days.
 
I would use denatured alcohol before acetone, it's much more gentle and IIRC, that's what is used to remove flux after soldering at the factory...
 
Well the good news, after much flushing with fresh water and cleaning with a tooth brush, the USB stick is working again.
The Bad News, I could not retrieve the data because it insisted on a format.
 
Gently rubbing contacts of electronics, batteries, battery terminals with a pencil eraser cleans off visible and invisible crud.

I agree about the free recovery software, and rinsing with distilled water or even tap water and letting dry on the dashboard or on a window sill in the sun.

I resurrected a cell phone I dropped in a toilet with the above method. It did take months before it quit discharging and the light coming on by itself.

Paul
 
One way that sometimes works if Windows won't read flash memory is to boot a live Linux CD/DVD/USB key and try that. Worth keeping in mind for the future.
 
Isopropanol is generally considered a safe solvent cleaner for electronics. I'd imagine that denatured (usually ethanol adulterated with methanol) would probably be ok too.

The suggestions of using distilled water prior are good. Followed by an alcohol rinse to help get the moisture out.
 
I think the dashboard idea is okay,... if you did that here I think it would get too hot.

I had an iphone go to the bottom of a swimming pool this summer. We tried leaving the phone in a big bowl of uncooked white rice over night. The phone came back on in the morning and has never missed a beat.
 
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