[Mark Rejhon]

Sometimes a BlackBerry doesn't survive exposure to liquids, but that's not always even the end of the BlackBerry. Here's how to successfully resurrect a BlackBerry that's damaged by liquids...

My BlackBerry 7280 was a former Cingular that was damaged by a bath in a dirty puddle sometime ago... I repaired this over a year ago (April 2004) via disassembly and I gave the BlackBerry motherboard a fully immersed underwater bath for 10-minutes in distilled water, and then baked for 2-3 hours at 150-180 degrees F to dry it out. I still use this BlackBerry to this day.

If your BlackBerry ever gets immersed, there's a good chance of recovery if (1) The battery is removed immediately; (2) The BlackBerry is dried out for a few days under an incandescent/halogen desk lamp before you reinsert the battery. This is shortenable to 2-3 hours if you disassemble with a Torx T6 screwdriver and bake at 150-180 degrees F.

Exception is if you get immersion in chlorine or salt water (or salty winter road slush), you must disassemble IMMEDIATELY and wash the BlackBerry parts in water (use tap water if distilled not available) to arrest damage by salt/chlorine. You may only have 10 minutes to do so. You may have to wash the whole saltwater-damaged unit, battery removed, for quite a while under running tap water if you can't find a TorxT6 screwdriver "on time" within 10 minutes or so of saltwater immersion. As this is "Lesser of two evils" as they say - your BlackBerry is going to be broken anyway otherwise. Once this is done, you now have more time, likely a few hours, to dissassemble and purchase distilled water to finish rinsing the BlackBerry motherboard, and then after a 2-3 hour bake at 150-180 F (under boiling point), and then reassemble the BlackBerry. You must detach the BlackBerry screen if possible. (Note: Early RIM8XX/9XX units had fragile screen connectors that got easily damaged by water, when rain went under the edge of the screen. Screen replacements will be required on these units. Newer BlackBerries are much more immune to raindrops accidentally seeping underneath the edges of the screen.)

If your BlackBerry gets wet inside and/or starts acting strange after a recent liquid exposure, it is VERY IMPORTANT that the battery be removed immediately, and never reinserted until the BlackBerry is totally dried out (if you do not disassemble, this may take as long as one week). Clean water doesn't damage the BlackBerry components - electricity in water does!