Flood recovery of electronics.

[aargee]

I'm posting this in some of the other Electronics places on the net as well...

I live in Ipswich, Queensland, Australia, thankfully on high ground. Very soon the flood cleanup will begin and some friends and strangers will be re-entering their homes and starting the process of cleaning and dumping.

I'm pretty keen about (safely) re-using rather than dumping but in this situation it can only go so far and there is a line drawn (often at dumping everything) about what can be saved. In the past I have successfully saved CRT TVs, Amps and other gear subjected to flooding by stripping, thoroughly cleaning with fresh water and drying completely (sometimes aided by de-watering fluid).

The trick is to get the gear early, before the mud and contaminants start the corrosion process.

Question is... what gear is not even worth attempting? Is it a complete waste of time with the low construction quality of most electronics today.

I'm already considering flat panel TVs in this group, along with portable devices that are battery powered.

How do hard drives survive 48 hours of inundation?

Any constructive input would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[Chasm]

How do hard drives survive 48 hours of inundation?

They are most likely dead.
Hard disks are not water tight. They indeed need air to operate. (The heads "hover" on air.)  So there are air holes with filters and often silica gel packets.
Water enters the case, the surface of the disk gets contaminated/corrodes, dead disk. (If the fluid bearing spills it's oil the disk is irrecoverable.)

The best thing would be to talk immediately with a data recovery company to get actual advice if there is any chance and what you have to do not spoil it.

[Zero999]

Other parts of the PC should be fine but you may need to replace batteries and mechanical parts such as switches and fans.

[Uncle Vernon]

If your talking commercially there isn't much that is would is recoverable. Warranty on something now corrosion prone will see to that.

I've recovered lots of equipment that has been flooded with relatively clean water and even that has a very limited success rate. Most flood water is far from clean, most of the equipment will have been submerged for some time and it is unlikely batteries etc were removed ASAP.

That said if you get access to written of equipment there is no doubt some things could be recoverable but the success rate would be low.

Hard drives for example are ALMOST sealed but water under pressure will breach the breather hole, when drying them out there is only an the same narrow path for water to escape via evaporation as vapour, it's likely to sit there for days. (most got a bath Monday and is still damp today thursday) Data recovery may be possible but it will be as time consuming and as expensive as it always is.
 
The cost and complexity of most vehicle electrics/electronics insures almost every car that has taken a dip will become a statutory write off. I'd be very wary of automotive electronic spare from Qld and beyond for a year or so now. Those epoxy sealed modules may survive but odds on their terminations will be a corrosion nightmare.

[JohnS_AZ]

Trash any CD/DVD drives and scanners. Water in the optics and/or crud in the focusing mechanism and they're toast.
Any moving-coil type speakers will be done, but piezo types can survive about anything.
I'd replace any fans on principal. Grit in the bearings will leave them with a VERY short lifespan.
Dump any printers. The time it would take to clean them well FAR exceeds their replacement cost these days.

Flat screen TVs and monitors should be recoverable with a good cleaning and drying.

The killer is that people plug the things in before they have been cleaned and dried well just to see if they still work. If there's still moisture or crud in there, the unit can easily be destroyed.

[Psi]

After taking the item to bits and giving all the parts a good clean with meths i find putting them in the oven for about an hour at 60degC normally gets the last of the water trapped under the IC's out.

Anything with RF circuitry will be hard to get working again, it only takes a tiny amount if water to throw them out of whack.
Even if you do get all the water out they may still need to be re-tuned.
Using the above method I got mums phone mostly working again after she put it through a full load in the washing machine. Everything on the phone worked except it just wouldnt connect to the network.

[Uncle Vernon]

After taking the item to bits and giving all the parts a good clean with meths i find putting them in the oven for about an hour at 60degC normally gets the last of the water trapped under the IC's out.

Getting the water out is the easy bit, it's all the suspended particles of god knows what which wont evaporate back out that will be the real killer.

[NiHaoMike]

For all the equipment that could not be repaired or is not worth repairing, sell them at scrap prices.
http://repairfaq.org/sam/audiofaq.htm#audbeach

[tyblu]

I've also had success "washing" electronics after dips in the ocean, hot tubs, etc.. Get in there with Q-tips and toothbrushes, rinse, then drip dry in the sun. LCD screens are difficult as you have to get between all the optical layers, but I've done a few cell phones with water between the polarizers and backlight spreading thingamajig. I can't imagine doing a television, but it must be possible if one is very careful around the pixels and uses a very clean, dust-free room. Lithium-based batteries with custom'ish cases, like form-fitting cell phone batteries, may have water behind the packaging are should be chucked, but other types may be fine -- best to load test them and charge in safety shielded area.
Best just to ship it all to me.