• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Working with sealed back of 2017 J3 after water accident

S

Saddest Gavin

Lurker
Just dropped a J3 in the toilet. I rushed to dry it and quickly discovered the sealed back makes it impossible to dry the insides. How do I proceed? I turned it off immediately and popped the two drawers out and have put it in a bag of rice. But with the back sealed fully, I don't know what more I can do. A google search on this subject is not yeilding the results I need, with articles on different phones.

I need to know how to work with the sealed back of a 2016 J3 after a water accident.
 
From what I've seen in other posts and a few YouTube videos, the J3 has very low water resistance. Since yours was still working when you powered it off, it might survive, but I'd definitively NOT try to power it on again until it's spent at least 72 hours in the rice.

After that, there's not much else you can do, other than hope the moisture didn't get to anything critical enough to cause failure. Even if it does power on, though any moisture that got it could easily accelerate internal corrosion and shorten the life of your phone. :(

Good luck.
 
Thank you for your quick help. 72 hours. . . that'll be fun! :) I hope it's going to be okay... obvs. Also, I just want to make sure you're referring to the J3 from 2016. I have both, and the older one is definitely not water resistant, while this new one feels like it was built with water resistance in mind. . . I might just be optimistic though
lunatic59 said:
From what I've seen in other posts and a few YouTube videos, the J3 has very low water resistance.
Click to expand...
 
lunatic59 said:
https://www.verizonwireless.com/support/knowledge-base-204523/

Is that your phone? It looks like the back cover does come off.
Click to expand...

Ack! No, I was wrong, it's the 2017. . . You know how in January you make mistakes about what year it is? Yah, that' happened when I wrote this. The phone that fell in the toilet was a Samsung J3 2017 model. It's my understanding that this model doesn't have a removable back... At least I couldn't figure out how to do it in the few seconds I could spare before putting it in the rice
 
lunatic59 said:
Hmmm ... maybe this?

Click to expand...
It says it's my phone, but it isn't. There are no notches for removing the back to take the battery out. . I've found the user manual for my phone and it's definitely a J3 2017. The user manual doesn't tell me how to remove the battery. I feel like the water is already seeping onto the connectors yet I'm powerless to access the battery.
 
Do you still have the box? The exact model number would be helpful in identifying it. Samsung has this irritating habit using the same name for different models when the phones are similar.

As far as the battery contacts, as long as it's not salt water and the phone is off, letting it dry should be fine. Water is actually a poor conductor without some electrolytic properties (like salt).
 
No, like a loser I threw the box out, or lost it someplace "handy"...


The instruction manual I found online is the right one though, and it's for models:

SM-J330F
SM-J330F/DD
SM-J330G
SM-J330F/DS
SM-J330FN
SM-J330G/DS

By most accounts, the back is unopenable

Thank you for that info about water and the battery contacts. It wasn't salt water, and thankfully the toilet had been flushed recently.
 
Something tells me that if it's this hard to open, that water might not have gotten in in the first place, but who knows. It's going to be a long wait. Also, this video shows a different model, but I get that the similarity is the non-openable back.
 
Saddest Gavin said:
Something tells me that if it's this hard to open, that water might not have gotten in in the first place, but who knows. It's going to be a long wait.
Click to expand...
Once immersed, water will only take a fraction of second to seep into any opening (headphone jack, micro-USB port, the minuscule gaps surrounding power and volume buttons), and from that point there's capillary actions taking place as moisture works into all tight tolerances inside any phone.
 
A couple of months later I know, but I came across this post curious as to know how to remove the back of the J3 2017 version without a notch, my model is SM-J330FN, and thought the following could be useful knowledge for others curious too.
I believe the answer is IT IS NOT POSSIBLE. Here is a complete teardown of the entire phone and the "battery cover" is never removed and is therefore NOT a battery cover at all...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom