Is overnight enough time to dry out electronics with rice?

[Kawaii Koneko]

So I had a horrible event occur yesterday. I started driving my car during a rainstorm and all of a sudden my navigation started going haywire, followed by my radio. Well, I went back home, opened the trunk and found a pool of water in the cubby where my navigation box and radio box are located. So they were soaking wet. Also, my smart key and soft close door control box were a bit wet.

 

I disassembled the navigation and radio box, dried them with compressed air, rubbed isopropyl alcohol over them, and then put them in a sealed tub with white rice. The smart key and soft close door control box can't really be disassembled but I managed to get the front covers off and shake them out. I put them in the white rice as well.

 

I've had them in rice for like 14 or 15 hours now. Do you think that is enough time to put everything back together and put it in my car? I'll probably give the boxes that I couldn't disassemble a bit more time.

[AvocadosGuac]

Eh id give it like 24-48 to be safe.

 

 

[Wh0_Am_1]

3 minutes ago, Kawaii Koneko said:

So I had a horrible event occur yesterday. I started driving my car during a rainstorm and all of a sudden my navigation started going haywire, followed by my radio. Well, I went back home, opened the trunk and found a pool of water in the cubby where my navigation box and radio box are located. So they were soaking wet. Also, my smart key and soft close door control box were a bit wet.

 

I disassembled the navigation and radio box, dried them with compressed air, rubbed isopropyl alcohol over them, and then put them in a sealed tub with white rice. The smart key and soft close door control box can't really be disassembled but I managed to get the front covers off and shake them out. I put them in the white rice as well.

 

I've had them in rice for like 14 or 15 hours now. Do you think that is enough time to put everything back together and put it in my car? I'll probably give the boxes that I couldn't disassemble a bit more time.

No, wait at least a week, and rice isn't actually very good for this, if you really want to effectively remove all moisture get either lawn polymers or heat up some old silicon packets to boiling for a while and then put them in the bag.

[ARikozuM]

You should be okay since you basically went “overnight”. I hope you had openings above or pointing into the rice so that nothing invades the electronics that can’t be removed by lifting.

[Kawaii Koneko]

6 hours ago, Wh0_Am_1 said:

No, wait at least a week, and rice isn't actually very good for this, if you really want to effectively remove all moisture get either lawn polymers or heat up some old silicon packets to boiling for a while and then put them in the bag.

How effective are they? Do you think I could completely dry everything out in 12-18 hours?

 

6 hours ago, ARikozuM said:

You should be okay since you basically went “overnight”. I hope you had openings above or pointing into the rice so that nothing invades the electronics that can’t be removed by lifting.

You mean so no rice gets in the electronics and can't be easily lifted out? I didn't do any kind of openings or anything like that but I disassembled everything down to the circuit board so it shouldn't be a problem. The two boxes that just have openings in the front were positioned in a way so rice won't get inside.

[Wh0_Am_1]

8 minutes ago, Kawaii Koneko said:

How effective are they? Do you think I could completely dry everything out in 12-18 hours?

 

You mean so no rice gets in the electronics and can't be easily lifted out? I didn't do any kind of openings or anything like that but I disassembled everything down to the circuit board so it shouldn't be a problem. The two boxes that just have openings in the front were positioned in a way so rice won't get inside.

Modern phones take nearly a week for them to dry out in a fairly warm and dry climate even with all that, and the rice is just like tomato sauce and skunk smell it is better than nothing, but doesn't fully solve the issue, this would be a good time to pull out a 4-6 year old back up phone. Once again a week would be the shortest time I would wait, that doesn't mean that it won't work sooner, it just means that you are taking an addition risk of losing your phone.

[Kawaii Koneko]

6 hours ago, Wh0_Am_1 said:

Modern phones take nearly a week for them to dry out in a fairly warm and dry climate even with all that, and the rice is just like tomato sauce and skunk it is better than nothing, but doesn't fully solve the issue, this would be a good time to pull out a 4-6 year old back up phone.

This isn't on a sealed up phone though. This is the navigation box, radio box, smart key box, and soft close door box from my Lexus. I didn't just put everything in rice though. I actually took everything apart and placed the circuit boards in the rice, well, minus the smart key and soft close doors box.

 

I definitely think that the two boxes that I couldn't take apart should be left longer. I can live without them for a few days. It won't kill me to have to actually put my key in the ignition lol. But I was thinking that the other stuff might not take days since the bare circuit boards are making contact with the rice. 

 

Or do you think it just doesn't matter? They need a lot more time?

[Wh0_Am_1]

Just now, Kawaii Koneko said:

This isn't on a sealed up phone though. This is the navigation box, radio box, smart key box, and soft close door box from my Lexus. I didn't just put everything in rice though. I actually took everything apart and placed the circuit boards in the rice, well, minus the smart key and soft close doors box.

 

I definitely think that the two boxes that I couldn't take apart should be left longer. I can live without them for a few days. It won't kill me to have to actually put my key in the ignition lol. But I was thinking that the other stuff might not take days since the bare circuit boards are making contact with the rice. 

 

Or do you think it just doesn't matter? They need a lot more time?

... I would still wait a week, and if you feel that you can safely open them do so, also see if you can get a fan aimed at it.

[WoodenMarker]

Rice is good for finishing up the job once most of the moisture is already removed. I used some fans for a friend's system that went through something similar as opposed to rice and checked periodically. How quickly things dry can depend on the air temperature and humidity. 

 

[Christophe Corazza]

Depending on how valuable those electronics are to you, I would highly suggest to get yourself some decent dessicant. Rice simply ain't gonna cut it.

Silica-based dessicants are widely used in scientific laboratories (inside desiccators) to keep things dry or to dry things out.

I don't know where you're from, but you can get them in bulk (realatively cheaply) from for example Amazon.com.
This one for example: Lab Consumables - Silica Gel Desiccant

 

You can reuse them afterwards by simply drying them inside a regular oven. So no money wasted.

[Zodiark1593]

For best results, you will want to open up the device as far as is feasible, and disconnect all power sources. Desiccant will not do much good if liquid is trapped. Even so, corrosion can occur in a very short period of time with power running through the components.

 

Use of very pure isopropyl alcohol can aid the liquid cleanup, assuming you have access to the board.

[Canada EH]

Quote

Is overnight enough time to dry out electronics with rice?

Nope

[AvocadosGuac]

You've blown it off with compressed air, lets not forget that.

 

To be 100% safe, if everythings not already dead, a week.

 

I personally would wait 2 days with rice especially if you used compress air and rubbing alcohol. 

[Kawaii Koneko]

16 hours ago, Wh0_Am_1 said:

... I would still wait a week, and if you feel that you can safely open them do so, also see if you can get a fan aimed at it.

Like I said in my original post, I disassembled the navigation and radio box so the circuit boards are loose but I couldn't get the smart key and soft close door units open. I'll give them extra time to dry. I do happen to have a fan in my trunk aimed at all the connectors. At about 1 PM tomorrow, I'll have had the fan on them for about 48 hours.

 

I can't put a fan on the components though as they are in a tub of rice with a lid covering them. I could take them all out and put a fan on them though. I'll lose the absorption of the rice but they have been in rice for over 24 hours now so maybe I should switch over to setting them on my desk with a fan on them? I think I might do that.

 

16 hours ago, WoodenMarker said:

Rice is good for finishing up the job once most of the moisture is already removed. I used some fans for a friend's system that went through something similar as opposed to rice and checked periodically. How quickly things dry can depend on the air temperature and humidity.

 

 

Well, I think I got most of the moisture out. You really couldn't feel anything when I put it in rice and I couldn't see any moisture hiding anywhere. So hopefully it was rice time.

 

And wow. That is one impressive cleaning job you did! Mad props!

 

14 hours ago, Christophe Corazza said:

Depending on how valuable those electronics are to you, I would highly suggest to get yourself some decent dessicant. Rice simply ain't gonna cut it.

Silica-based dessicants are widely used in scientific laboratories (inside desiccators) to keep things dry or to dry things out.

I don't know where you're from, but you can get them in bulk (realatively cheaply) from for example Amazon.com.
This one for example: Lab Consumables - Silica Gel Desiccant

 

You can reuse them afterwards by simply drying them inside a regular oven. So no money wasted.

The electronics are incredibly valuable to me. They belong to my Lexus LS430. They are vital to not only my navigation working but even just basic radio functions. I can't even pass sound through without the radio box working, no aux, no cd, no sirius, no nothing.  This stuff also controls the smart key system and soft close doors. If I have to replace everything, I'm looking at $600-$700 on eBay. 

 

As for the desiccant, by the time it arrived, it would be Tuesday. Basically, I'd be on the on the fifth day after getting the components wet. I'm not sure how much it would help me at that point. By that point, after having them in rice and then putting a fan on them, would it still be worth it? I would think the components would be dry by then, shouldn't they?

 

I'm definitely going to pick some of that stuff up for the future though. Hopefully I won't have a water incident again though. 

 

12 hours ago, Zodiark1593 said:

For best results, you will want to open up the device as far as is feasible, and disconnect all power sources. Desiccant will not do much good if liquid is trapped. Even so, corrosion can occur in a very short period of time with power running through the components.

 

Use of very pure isopropyl alcohol can aid the liquid cleanup, assuming you have access to the board.

Like I said in my original post, I disassembled the two main boxes. I couldn't open up the smart key and soft close door modules (fortunately they are only like $30 USD on eBay). So they aren't in the car anymore, there is no power going to any of them.

 

I do have access to the boards since I took them apart. I really took them apart, completely. So I did rub them down with isopropyl. Hopefully that helped.

 

 

11 hours ago, Canada EH said:

Nope

Okay... so what would you recommend?

 

7 hours ago, Jrock said:

You've blown it off with compressed air, lets not forget that.

 

To be 100% safe, if everythings not already dead, a week.

 

I personally would wait 2 days with rice especially if you used compress air and rubbing alcohol. 

Yeah, I used compressed air. Are you saying that's good or bad? I had the circuit boards out so it wasn't a situation where I could blow air farther into the unit. Everything was exposed fairly well. So that should not only be okay, but beneficial... no?

 

You said to be 100% safe, give it a week but then you said you would wait two days if I used rice, compressed air, and isopropyl alcohol. Do you mean a week if I didn't do anything to try to combat the water? Or would you still give it a week?

[avg123]

In one of Louis Rossmann's videos, he explained rice is actually good for nothing. It does nothing. 

 

What damages the circuits after it becomes wet is not the water itself, it is the salts dissolved in the water. Those salts corrode the circuit and when the water drys out, the salt is deposited on the circuit and these salts can conduct electricity and short out the circuit.

 

Best way to save your electronics is to remove the water before it dries.

 

Professionals use centrifuges and machines that vibrates the circuit (cannot remember the name) to remove the water.