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Help Urgent - Extra Battery left in washing machine: Discard or use?

theWUbear

theWUbear

Member
Hey guys,

I'm 6 hours from leaving the country for a few months, and accidentally put my spare battery (that I always keep around, so i have double the battery life) in the washing machine. I put it in the phone and the phone didn't work, plugged it in and it said the battery was at 1%, phone is now on with that battery and charging at around 6%. Of course, the water damage indicator is indicating water damage on the battery. Would you recommend me walking into verizon and buying another battery in place of the one that was in the wash, or do you think this one should be fine? I can always test it out over the next couple hours.

I am basically wondering if any of you have better knowledge of whether or not it is safe to use a phone with a water-damaged battery, or if you would rather spend 40 bucks to avoid any complications (if any are possible).
 
2012 said:
being in the water will have drained the battery. as long as you have let it dry out properly you should be fine.
Click to expand...

That jives with the fact that it didn't originally turn on when placed in the SGN, but it seems to be charging normally.

Thanks so much for your response
 
Just some information about Lithium batteries to be aware of:

Lithium batteries have a maximum and minimum safe voltage. As you charge the batteries, it's voltage increases, and as you discharge a battery, it's voltage decrease. The advertised voltage is simply a middle ground rating for that battery.

Unlike some other battery types, Lithium batteries have nearly no tolerance for exceeding it's voltage ratings. If you go above or below these ratings, the battery is permanently damaged. If you go well above it's maximum rating, the battery will overheat and will either explode violently, or cause a fire.

It's for that last reason that the vast majority of lithium batteries come with circuitry built into the battery to prevent it from exceeding it's specs. I can only assume that cell phone batteries also include such protection circuitry, but I do not know for sure. That circuitry may be built into the phones themselves.

If it is in the battery, there's a possibility that said circuitry could have been damaged by the wash. I can't say what kind of possibility. I do not know how well sealed the circuitry would be. I would, at the very least, keep a close eye on the usage of that battery while charging, and be wary of any signs of overheating during usage of the phone. If anything remotely abnormal is observed, I'd just toss the battery in the garbage and buy a new one.
 
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