how long to dry?

ScoobyDoo69

ScoobyDoo69

ScoobyDoo69

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Joined
27 Aug 2003
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West Midlands
Hey guys,

I somehow managed to let my usb pen go in the washing machine.. as it's solid state with no electricity running through it unless plugged in, I presume I can leave it to dry for a bit, then plug it into the PC and all will be fine?
How long should I leave it? It's been over a day now :)

ScoobyDoo69
 
Depends where you're drying it really (and the type of pen used, e.g. a Corsair rugged one will take no time as other than the usb connector it's sealed)

I'd suggest an airing cupboard and as long as possible (to minimise the risk)

However due to the fact it's been in a washing machine I'd have rinsed it with distilled water straight afterwards to clean away impurities (such as washing powder which may be inside) before drying it.
 
If detergent got inside, good chance it will fail soon, if not right away. The PCB's are porous, and salt is corrosive, and the other cleaning chemicals are not pleasant either. The solder joints could be damaged, the pcb could expand, and contract stressing everything.

If it works right away, thats great, but I wouldnt trust it. Its risk of early failer is extremely high.
 
wash it in pure clean water(with no salt, chemicals etc...) then strip the outer casing and leave to dry naturally for about a week... then it should be fine. Ive done this before to a 64mb aiptek usb pen lol, and its still going strong 3 years later.
 
** lucky it still works, memory pens always have a very small current goin through it to preserve whats on the disk, so there was still change of short circuiting etc :eek: lucky you though ;)
 
Had the same issue about a month ago with a 256MB drive.

I put the soggy drive on top of the Central Heating boiler overnight to dry out :)

Mixed success though - The folder structure on the disk was partially corrupt and some data not accessible. I reformatted the drive, no errors and its still going strong a month later. Not sure if it will last though...
 
blighter said:
** lucky it still works, memory pens always have a very small current goin through it to preserve whats on the disk, so there was still change of short circuiting etc :eek: lucky you though ;)
Click to expand...
No, they don't. That's the whole point of having non-volatile memory, you don't need to keep it powered to make it work.
 
The flash chips themselves are almost bomb proof, they use them inside black box flight recorders these days. I remember watching the gadget show, as they fired some storage devices from a small mortar(cannon) point blank range at a concrete wall.

Hard drives, floppys, zips, dvd's, and the memorystick were all smashed into little pieces. HOWEVER, they actually located the pcb from the memorystick, most of the componants were missing, but the flash chip was still attached.

They took the 'remains' of the flash stick to a specialist in data recovery who build a new board for the chip (or they might have just replaced all the missing componants from the original pcb). Anyway they popped it into a usb socket, and the photos that had been stored on it were still readable!.

Glad to hear it still works, hopefully not too much water got to the PCB and it will last for you, but either way at least you got the data off :)
 
it just happened to be the day that i chose not to back it up (had made a few documents) that a) I thought I lost it b) I then find it in the washing machine c) thought it was fubared !!

so glad that it still works... even if I had to destroy the casing to get the hair dryer out on it :p


ScoobyDoo69
 
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