Dead iPhone 7 - my fault but need help

I know this is a bit old but there is a nice channel on youtube. Ipadrehab

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ipadrehab

ps. It is really amazing how bad water affects these phones. Here’s the real issue. Unless a phone uses this special stuff that coats all the electronics making it “water resistant” it could be catastrophic.

The devices use chips that have whats called ball grid array on the bottom. tiny balls that connect to the board with very small spacing between. The problem is the water causes corrosion and contact between these contacts. I have revived a samsung phone that sat in 6 inches of water over night using the ez bake method, and it still works fine to this day. But that samsung was the sport model, with gasket on the back and the coating stuff.

I’ve also used the rice and bake method on an old ipod (silver), and it still works. The lcd is a bit disfigured but it works.

Watch some of the water damage videos on that channel. It’s crazy how bad it can get quickly.

And data recovery? Forget it on the iphone. Soon as you lock it, the flash memory is encrypted.

It won’t cause corrosion overnight… but does loosen and move around any bits of crap left under the chips. Water soluble flux doesn’t get fully washed out and keeps solder remnants trapped under the chips. This can move around with introduction of more water and can cause shorts.

Also the minerals in the water are left behind when the water evaporates and can cause unwanted current paths under those chips.

Happily the early days of RoHS are behind us and most solder formulations of the past few years are long past tin whisker growth. :slight_smile: