Ideas on fixing my 17BII that had one drink too many

[John Hinz]

Hi

I just spilt a small amount of wine on the unit.It was turned off at the time. I quickly flicked as much liquid as I could from the keyboard area, then tried turning it on again (retrospectively, probably a mistake although at the time I thought that the amount of liquid being tiny it was OK). The screen fired up, but it was locked in a setup mode for date and time. To turn the unit off I had to remove the batteries. After re-inserting the batteries, the unit wouldn't boot up. I then took the batteries out again and dried the unit for several hours in front of a heater, making sure it didn't get too warm. After putting the batteries back in, it still won't boot up but the darker shaded part in the bottom 2/3 of the screen can be seen. Maybe it was like this before I tried to dry it also. Is the unit a bin job or is it worth trying to dry it out more? If so, how do I pull it apart? Any other suggestions are welcome.

Many thanks

John

[John B. Mosand]

Around 12 years ago I had a similar accident with my 48SX. A flower vase tipped over and spilled all over the calc. The water had an amount of flower fertilizer in it. I took out the batteries and flushed the keyboard thoroughly with water and shook it out. Then left it for some hours in our convection oven at the lowest heat. Has worked perfectly ever since!

[bill platt]

Randy has posted some great stuff on this in the past. The essentials area s follows:

1. Never turn on a mchine htat has a liquid short.

2. Immediately remove the batteries.

3. With batteries out, thoroughly wash the calculator--soak it through and through-- with clean water with low mineral content. A 20 minute flushing is good if you can manage it.

4. Air-dry the calculator for a minimum of 3 days--a week is better, in warm dry air.

5. Reinsert batteries and fire up!

Wine, coke, etc will act as conductive electolyte.

[Randy]

Follow-up to Bill's post: Recent thread on this topic The first paragraph doesn't apply but the cleaning method would be the same for a wine spill.

[John Hinz]

Hi everyone

Thanks for the good advice.Doug sent me his solution via email and as I'd started it before I read your posts I used his procedure. FYI here it is:

1. Remove the batteries
2. Get a bottle of rubbing alchohol
3. Remove small cap
4. Fill cap with alchohol
5. Poor evenly over the keyboard into and over each key
6. Immediately turn upside down and let it drain out
7. While it is upside down wipe off exceess so it will continue to drain quickly, then press all the keys a number of times
8. Place unit on paper towel upside down
9. Never turn right side up after pouring alchohol on keyboard
10. Let set over night
11. If present, set unit right side up in bright sunlight for 10 minutes
12. Remove from sunlight and let cool
13. Replace batteries making sure each is in correct direction
14. Reset unit

The unit runs A1 again. Again, I appreciate your interest.

John

[Les Wright]

A new offense in some jurisdictions: HPHHCUI = HP Handheld Computing Under the Influence :)

Les

[Les Wright]

No comments?

Jeez, I thought it was pretty funny....

Les