iPhones and Water Damage. Great 3 Initial Steps For Troubleshooting.

There Is Aways Water Involved

You are enjoying an amazing Saturday afternoon by the pool when suddenly the unexpected arrives, iPhone + poll = tragedy.

If that happened to you or any of your beloved ones, this post is for you. But be aware that when that happens, your precious iPhone on the water, then screen problems, freezes, and suddenly goes down. Is frustrating not only for you but for technicians too. Liquid damage has always been a frustrating and a stressful scenario. Is the kind of issue that bothers everyone, literally.

Today designers and engineers working in companies like Apple and Samsung work hard for mobile devices to acquire better water resistance or even waterproof. And on top of that, it can also be much worse when it comes to the iPhone X generation (X, XR, XS, and XS Max). Duo to the implementation of multiple layers in the logic board structure.

What did you suppose to do? Just dry it? Any unique repair thoughts or methods of yours? Feel free to share in the comments down there. Well, don’t panic! Our iPhone X water damage repair blog today shall enlighten you. Here are some very simple steps to have a better repair experience.

Getting Started

First things first. Press the power button to turn on the phone but there is no response at all. Let’s take apart the phone and remove the display assembly first. Connect the battery connector with the DC Power Supply. The current reading on the ammeter jumps to 100mA and then stays still, which is abnormal.

Step 1 - Disassembling and Analyzing the iPhone's Motherboard

Here we'll be placing the Logic Board, also know as Motherboard, on the specialized Heating Platform, as carefully as you can. With temperature of the platform reaching the set temperature. Now what you have to do is detach the upper layer and the lower layer from the platform with tweezers.

Step 2 - Finding the Root Problem

On this step we gonna be using a Microscope, on my case I'm using an industrial one which have gives you a batter insight over visual analysis and so forth. But any non-simple microscope may work well. Now, with the Motherboard well positioned, try to check those two layers and we can see that nothing goes wrong with the upper layer, apparently.

Ok, let's move forward. What you have to do now is focus your attention on these areas localized on the lower layer, we can clearly observe signs of water damage throughout the surface. Let’s clean the motherboard. The recommendations and best practices on this step, which is crucial for a better recovery is using an Ultrasonic Washing Machine. You can easily find one of those on amazon or any general retailer store for around 50~80 each.

Step 3 - Fault Analyzing

At this point, we may have enough information to proceed with our analysis. Carefully, attach the upper layer directly to the power supply of your equipment and gently try to get your device powered on, meaning having an electrical current flow by using the tweezers. you may see the current reading on the DC monitor or display if will. The ammeter jumps to 100mA and then stays still, which is abnormal and a good sign. Now let's try to connect the battery connector on the upper layer enabling the device to be powered on. The current reading on the ammeter is normal as we noticed. Judging by these observations, the upper layer has nothing to do its turning on. So our next move is to further measure the lower layer. Simple Ways to Troubleshoot Water Damage on iPhones