Rescuing a drowned Casio.

[iamsupersam]

Hey guys,

So i was testing my PRT-30's performance against my new PRG240T, dunking them in warm and cold water to test how sensitive the barometer was to temperature. Surprisingly, both of them only showed differences of +/-1 hPA over a range of 40 degree celsius, which i found interesting as i didn't think such an old watch like the PRT-30 would perform at the same level as a brand new watch. Either that or i've done the test completely wrong.........

Less surprisingly, the PRT-30 flooded due to a missing gasket. I was an idiot not to check it when i first got it off a friend, and let this be a public service message to all you guys out there to always check and relube the gasket if neccessary before putting watches through stunts like that.

More importantly however, (and this is the reason why i'm posting this here instead of the ABC forum), is how i revived the watch. Upon opening the watch, i discovered beads of water inside. Remembering what i heard about salts in water messing up the electronics (think it was from a phone forum) i cleaned it out with distilled water, dried it out as well as i could with a bit of tissue rolled into a fine tip, and laid it to rest on a warm bed of silica gel in a tupperware box(warm because i had to dry them lol). Surprisingly, after only 10 minutes in the tupperware box, it came back to life. Now i might just be lucky this time round but if anyone out there had accidentally flooded their watch this could be something worth trying out. I was thinking of using silicone caulking to fashion a gasket for this poor watch; not that i'll be exposing it to water again, but i just don't like the idea of a watch being gasket-less, and might do so this afternoon if i manage to find a compound suitable. In the meantime, do you guys have any recommendations? What do you guys use for old watches that have oddly (non-circular) shaped gaskets?

No pics of the rescue operation as i was crapping my pants. will put up pics of the PRT 30 in its rescue box this afternoon once i figure out where android stores my pictures on the memory card.

Cheers and good morning to you all.

Sam

[LUW]

Sam, never had to "fabricate" a gasket before (fortunately!), so I can't comment on that. But about the flooding. With tap water, as long as nothing gets oxidized or shorts out, if you thoroughly dry it right after the accident, usually there will be no damage at all to the module. Salt water flooding however is a lot more dangerous, since because of it being an electrolyte solution it's a lot easier to corrosion (oxidation) and/or a short to appear, so it's a good policy to immediately rinse it with distilled water and then dry the case and module ASAP.

[shockerman]

Try a hair dryer,always help disconect battery before, without voltage, you dont have to worry for s/c.

[iamsupersam]

Thanks for the replies guys, just spoke to my brother who likes to dabble in computers and stuff, and he says after rinsing with distilled water it might be good to spray the whole thing out with electronics cleaner, just so to be sure all the stuff that isn't supposed to be there is rinsed out.

An update on my PRT30, 2 out of 4 screwholes of the caseback were stripped, but I used this stuff i picked up called Styrene-butadiene rubber to fill the gasket trough.. its far softer and stickier than a usual rubber gasket when dry, so i don't know if its going to do the job but i guess its better than nothing.

I've sadly relegated my PRT30 to a desk clock/ barometer role as with 2 screws stripped it probably is as water resistant as a sponge.
On a brighter note, while messing around with watches today I hydro-modded an AQ158 and a G5600. Will put it up once i find out where android stores the pictures on my memory card.. :S

Cheers guys!

Sam

[J.D.B.]

No contact cleaner. Just dry it out and try to clean what you can if necessary.

Josh

[Mike Hughes]

andriod pics are stores in DCIM folder.


hope that helps

[iamsupersam]

andriod pics are stores in DCIM folder.


hope that helps

Checked under that and it has all my old pictures before i updated my phone, but the new pictures show up as 0 byte files.. :S

@josh Hey josh, are electronic cleaner and contact cleaner the same stuff? would it do anything bad to the watch like the plastic parts or something?