[RESOLVED] Argggh - Diet Coke Leaked On My MP3 Player

[Nix]

I was walking to work and put a half full bottle of diet coke with the lid on in my bag.

When I was in the lift someone said "there's something dripping out of you bag".

I muttered some expletives and the door opened for my floor.

Quickly to my desk to find pretty much 300ml / 10oz of diet coke had leaked in my back.

Instantly I grabbed my Creative MuVo2 and the protective case was saturated

I pulled out the player and took the back off and there was DC in and around the battery.

I dried it off and tried to power on. Nothing

I shook it and diet coke dripped out

It's almost 2 years old so I will take it apart when I get home as it's out of warranty, hopefully just some moisture (DC) causing short circuit or something.

Also my Sharp electronic organiser doesn't work but it's protective puch was hardly wet and the organiser has no visible signs of DC on it. I replaced the CR2032 batteries to no avail.

It's only a 64Kb model and is 10 years old so I don't care too much, but I'll take it apart anyway.

Hopefully my MP3 player can be bought back to life.

[Teknophobia]

Very corrosive that DC! Good luck!

TEk

[fink]

At this point it may be a lost cause, but what I'd do if it were mine is give it a soaking in distilled water and dry it thoroughly with a hair dryer on low or medium. That will clean out any remaining Coke and residue it's left behind. If it still doesn't work it probably would cost more to fix it than to replace it.

[Nix]

Well I took it all apart pretty much as per http://gear.ign.com/articles/498/498316p1.html and dried all visible diet coke (which wasn't much).

Left it exposed to the air for a few hours and then plugged the power cable in.

Wohoo it powered up and I could here the microdrive spinning up etc.

Removed power and attached the switch assembly seen sitting on top of the blue case in this image http://gearmedia.ign.com/gear/image/...ion_92_big.jpg

Attched power again and tried playing or navigating but nothing, so it seemed as if the button assembly was malfunctioning or not connected properly.

Reassembled just in case it was to do with not being fully assembled and tried again to no avail.

Connected it up to PC and was able to browse, run full scandisk, defrag, dragged and dropped some MP3s to it and deleted them played MP3s from it through the PC.

Buttons still didn't work so left it overnight.

Tried it this morning and it powered on and allowed me to navigate and everything.

Got ready for work and when I tried it on the bus the buttons wouldn't respond

Tapped them a bit and it started working again.

So, I'm guessing that either there is still some moisture in the switch assembly that I can't see or some residue on the connector where the switch assembly connects to the main circuit board see http://gearmedia.ign.com/gear/image/...tion_9_big.jpg and it's that little white area with the gold pins.

For now I've left it running, in a hope that the electrical current and or heat generated from the drive might evaporate any remaining moisture if that's the cause.

Also took apart the electronic organiser and dried off any moisture / liquid I found, reassembled and it powered up and told me the memory had been violated and did I want to remove all data - which wasn't surprising since I removed all the batteries.

Answered yes and it works fine.

[104456]

Good recovery Nix.......so no more DC for you then?
BTW you might consider getting one of those waterproof bags that you can get for cameras and the like.

[Nix]

My wife said "for heaven's sake you should know how to put the lid on the bottle properly by now, that's the sort of behaviour I'd expect from a 5 year old"

[Nix]

Well the buttons stopped working again so I'm thinking that since the rest of it all functions correctly maybe I should soak the button assembly in distilled water as suggested by Fink.

Alternately I'm looking at getting the wired remote off ebay since it has all the control buttons on it.

[fink]

An alternative would be contact cleaner but my experience with that stuff professionally is that it may work for a short period of time but ultimately it can gum things up worse than the way it started. It dissolves and moves the gunk away from the contacts but only temporarily.. it eventually moves back in and you need even more contact cleaner to get it out thus beginning a never ending cycle. That's why I'd suggest distilled water because it would run out of the unit and take the coke with it. (hopefully)

[Ridgerunr]

Naww,,just throw it in the dishwasher.

http://www.moddingzone.com/articles/keyboardwashing/

[SuperSparks]

As it happens they tried an experiment on a TV program here recently (The Gadget Show for the Brits). The best solution turned out to be washing the sugary gunk out with clean water, and then to let everything dry out naturally over several days, resisting the temptation to turn it on until the device had dried out fully. They got pretty much everything working that they tried, including a mobile phone, didgital camera and MP3 player.

[Nix]

Since Diet Coke doesn't contain sugar there was no sugary deposits, but I guess it would still leave some form of deposit.

I might try it on the switch component only which is where I think the fault lies.

[ProfessorU]

You can use a cotton swab and rubbing alchohol, then wait for the alchohol to dry. This will also remove oxidation. I used to do it all the time to my Nintendo cartriges.
If you ever dump any electronics in the drink again, don't turn them on until you're CERTAIN they're dry, or you can blow capacitors, etc.

[Nix]

You can use a cotton swab and rubbing alchohol, then wait for the alchohol to dry. This will also remove oxidation. I used to do it all the time to my Nintendo cartriges.
If you ever dump any electronics in the drink again, don't turn them on until you're CERTAIN they're dry, or you can blow capacitors, etc.

I was thinking of going down that track last night, but the buttons have become a bit more reliable.

Maybe it's still drying out ?

[Nix]

You can use a cotton swab and rubbing alchohol, then wait for the alchohol to dry. This will also remove oxidation. I used to do it all the time to my Nintendo cartriges.
If you ever dump any electronics in the drink again, don't turn them on until you're CERTAIN they're dry, or you can blow capacitors, etc.

Ok the buttons stopped working again so I got a cloth and wet it with distilled water, layed it on the circuit board and gently pressed all over.

Then got a dry cloth and did the same.

Then concentrated on the area where the button assembly connects to the mian circuit board and patted it all dry.

Reconnected it all and it seemed to work.

Next day sat it in a sunny spot for about 40 minutes, was going to try 10, but forgot I had put it there.

Anyway, every time I have tested over the weekend it has worked correctly.

[Nix]

Well after a month and a half of pretty much problem free operation, some really wet days this week have resulted in the buttons playing up again.

Too much moisture in the air ?

Short circuit ?

I found a new 5Gb model with built in radio and remote for A$239 so ordered one - $130 cheaper than what I paid for my 1.5GB model 2 years ago.

For the old one - experiment time.

Might try the switch assembly in distilled water first and if that still doesn't work I might sell it for parts - the micro drive's were sought after at one stage.