Brings back memories…of the time my girlfriend accidentally dumped a glass of orange juice into my fairly new HP41 CV calculator. Yes, this was a few decades ago.
She was horrified.
I was as relaxed as can be. I immediately took the batteries out and ran it under cool water while I filled a pot with water.
I dunked it in there repeatedly and changed the water a few times until it felt it was enough.
From there it quickly went into a mesh bag that I spun rapidly to centrifuge most of the water out.
Finally, it went in the sun while I warmed up the oven to the lowest possible temperature.
Once it cooled down the batteries went back in. It worked fine. In fact, I still own it. It works. Perfect condition.
Yes, I did marry her later. Now I make sure that calculator is nowhere near her…just in case.
Yeah this is pretty standard for PCB-type electronic (less so for eg LCDs, although it's worth a try if the alternative is throwing it in the trash). For best results use a small amount of baking soda in (only) the early washes if the spill is acidic (eg orange juice, coffee), and use distilled water, especially for the final rinse, to avoid any mineral residue.
The retro repair videos on YouTube are so quickly becoming my favorite content on there. I don't know if I just find the inside of computers neat, or it hits hard in the nostalgia, or realistically both, but it's so cool to see talented people keeping tech alive instead of letting it become trash.
His "Trying to Fix" videos are a pleasure to watch, and mostly (not always!) deal with older tech or toys. But he'd also try to fix a dead Playstation, for instance. Or a 2010-ish Macbook.
Mr Carlson's Lab is also excellent, restoring old radio equipment in excruciating detail. A lot of the videos are over two hours long, but it makes excellent background viewing.
Also it's always mentioned, but CuriousMarc and Ken Sherriff have some amazing restoration videos. In particular the excellent series on restoring the apollo guidance computer.
Similar here, I love restoration videos in general - specifically Baumgartner Restoration [0], who restores paintings, and anyone who repairs rusted tools or old wooden furniture.
I recently realized that this kind of video is at the intersection of two of my interests (filmmaking and crafts) so I am, in fact, preparing to launch my own channel. Stay tuned ;)
Same, except that there's so much obviously fake content out there.....it's awful. Videos where someone pulls out something that barely looks like maybe it was a VCR at some point, and then in the next scene we're looking at a "repair" of an old VCR that had some dirt thrown on it. Very obviously two completely different devices.
I spilled orange juice down in to the automatic gearshift of a car once. It would have cost a fortune to take it apart to clean it, so I just left it. It was sticky for a while, and then just gradually went back to normal.
Well, some people don't like to cleanup old wallpapers and paint when renovating their home. They all rely on the one-in-ten owner who will take appart all the previous layers and build fresh to ensure the wall stay healthy and beautiful.
I am really addicted to repair videos and the best channel I found by far is My Mate Vince. He does a mix of good and old stuff, along with both mechanical and electrical fixes.
She was horrified.
I was as relaxed as can be. I immediately took the batteries out and ran it under cool water while I filled a pot with water.
I dunked it in there repeatedly and changed the water a few times until it felt it was enough.
From there it quickly went into a mesh bag that I spun rapidly to centrifuge most of the water out.
Finally, it went in the sun while I warmed up the oven to the lowest possible temperature.
Once it cooled down the batteries went back in. It worked fine. In fact, I still own it. It works. Perfect condition.
Yes, I did marry her later. Now I make sure that calculator is nowhere near her…just in case.