Water damage on 3ds

[TheTunaSandwich]

I accidentally placed my new 3ds xl on a shallow puddle of water, but was it not completely submerged in it (i.e. the bottom of the 3ds only became wet), while the system was on sleep mode. powering it on it still works, but just to be safe i turned the system off and removed the battery, and placed both the system and the battery in a room with an electronic dehumidifier. i'm planning on leaving the system in the room for a day before checking on it. in order to improve my chances of ensuring my 3ds's survival, what should i do now?

 

[KleinesSinchen]

, what should i do now?

Disassemble it carefully? If water got it it is not likely to get out anymore just by waiting a bit. Instead water will cause corrosion.

Note that 3DS disassembly isn't fully trivial. There are a lot of things to break (ZIF connectors, cables) and reassembly might be a hard piece of work doing it the first time.

Decision is obviously up to you.

Good luck and have fun!

 

[The Real Jdbye]

I accidentally placed my new 3ds xl on a shallow puddle of water, but was it not completely submerged in it (i.e. the bottom of the 3ds only became wet), while the system was on sleep mode. powering it on it still works, but just to be safe i turned the system off and removed the battery, and placed both the system and the battery in a room with an electronic dehumidifier. i'm planning on leaving the system in the room for a day before checking on it. in order to improve my chances of ensuring my 3ds's survival, what should i do now?

Disassemble it as much as possible and leave the pieces in front of a fan.
You don't need to unplug all the ribbon cables, you just need to get it disassembled enough so air can blow on both sides of the main PCB, since it sounds like that's the only part that got wet.
Water will get trapped and take a very long time to dry out without disassembly which leaves plenty of time for corrosion to occur, which can cause issues long term.

 

[TheTunaSandwich]

Disassemble it carefully? If water got it it is not likely to get out anymore just by waiting a bit. Instead water will cause corrosion.

Note that 3DS disassembly isn't fully trivial. There are a lot of things to break (ZIF connectors, cables) and reassembly might be a hard piece of work doing it the first time.

Decision is obviously up to you.

Good luck and have fun!

if worst comes to worst i might bring my ds for professional repair. might mean replacing the motherboard and stuff (no issue since my saves and games are probably stored in the sd card) but its worth the price for saving my almost decade year old ds alrdy. besides, they have a better knowledge of disassembling and reassembling a ds than me

Post automatically merged: May 31, 2024

Disassemble it as much as possible and leave the pieces in front of a fan.
You don't need to unplug all the ribbon cables, you just need to get it disassembled enough so air can blow on both sides of the main PCB, since it sounds like that's the only part that got wet.
Water will get trapped and take a very long time to dry out without disassembly which leaves plenty of time for corrosion to occur, which can cause issues long term.

i don;t really have the technical knowhow to fully disassemble (and reassmble my ds). would removing the back plate and leaving the ds to dry without its backplate also work?

 

[KleinesSinchen]

(no issue since my saves and games are probably stored in the sd card)

Unless you dumped saves in decrypted form or at least the encryption key, the data in the SD:/Nintendo 3DS is just random garbage.

You don't need to unplug all the ribbon cables,

Yeah, sure. Just pull on the delicate cables after partial disconnecting. That is surely not putting any stress on them and the connectors.
I know how hard it is to reconnect the three cables going to the upper assembly. But that sounds like something I'd not try

 

[TheTunaSandwich]

Unless you dumped saves in decrypted form or at least the encryption key, the data in the SD:/Nintendo 3DS is just random garbage.


Yeah, sure. Just pull on the delicate cables after partial disconnecting. That is surely not putting any stress on them and the connectors.
I know how hard it is to reconnect the three cables going to the upper assembly. But that sounds like something I'd not try

i didn't. oh well good luck to me then (made good progress on tomodachi life, mk7 and picross 3d and i dont wanna lose it T_T)

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Unless you dumped saves in decrypted form or at least the encryption key, the data in the SD:/Nintendo 3DS is just random garbage.


Yeah, sure. Just pull on the delicate cables after partial disconnecting. That is surely not putting any stress on them and the connectors.
I know how hard it is to reconnect the three cables going to the upper assembly. But that sounds like something I'd not try

Ribbon cables aren't as fragile as people think. Just be careful, and prop things up to avoid putting stress on them. Never pull ribbon cables taut, there should always be some slack.
I've never damaged a ribbon cable taking things apart or doing repairs and I usually unplug as few as possible because I know how much of a pain they are to get back in. I end up breaking other things instead. Ribbon cables are far from the most fragile thing inside of electronics.
Not to say they aren't fragile, but they are not going to break from being handled gently.
If there is not enough slack to leave it in place then you have no choice but to unplug it of course.

 

[KleinesSinchen]

Each to their own. If the method works for you this is fine.
3DS are finicky. I've asked a phone repair shop once for help and they told me they wouldn't touch 3DS because of how easy they are to damage.

Cables to the upper screen assembly on 3DS regularly tear from normal usage without any disassembly.