Jump Drive – 128 MB Unscientific Test

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I did an unplanned unscientific test on my Lexar 128 MB jump drive. I thought you would find the results to be interesting and the test procedures funny. Here is what I did – I inadvertently left the jump drive in my pants pocket – and today was my wife’s day to wash slacks. Yes – the jump drive was in the wash machine with the slacks. By the time I had figured out what happened, my wife was putting the clothes out on the clothes line. I inspected the jump drive – it is one of those clear plastic ones – and I could see no sign of moisture inside. I did leave it under a fan all day and just now plugged it into a USB port – and HOORAY – it is working just fine. So now we know that jump drives are possibly water-proof. No need to thank me for sharing my test results.

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Perhaps if you do a testimonial for Lexar you can get some free products.

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Perhaps if you do a testimonial for Lexar you can get some free products.

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Did it clean the contents of the drive?

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Did it clean the contents of the drive?

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This doesn’t really surprise me, especially if the circuitry didn’t appear to have gotten wet.

I adopted a motherboard from a friend who’s little girl had spilt an entire cup of sugared tea over it, just moments before it was to be fitted into a client’s machine. Being curious, and having nothing to lose, I took it home and soaked it in lukewarm soapy water and gently scrubbed all over with an old toothbrush. (Please note, ESD precautions were completely ignored throughout). After leaving it in the airing cupboard (where the house hot water tank resides) for a day and after giving it a few blasts with my wife’s 2kw hairdryer, I gave it a close inspection under a magnifying glass. Most of the components were clean but some of the more intricate connectors, especially the processor ZIF socket and the PCI sockets, were still gummed up with the sticky mess. A second bath with hand-hot water and an electric toothbrush followed by a further day’s drying, did the trick.

At first I assembled only the bare minimum of parts outside of the case to show me whether or not it had survived the cleaning – an old CPU, one stick of low-capacity RAM and a redundant AGP graphics card. One flip of the power switch and I was up and running. I powered down and fitted it into an old case and it was still working. All went well for a few weeks until I accidentally smashed through some of the PCB tracks with a screwdriver blade whilst try to clip on the heatsink, but with a bit of micro-soldering by a very helpful engineer friend, it lived again!!

It is now seeing out it’s winter years as the workshop television.

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This recalls for me an previous employer where the on-site folks would refurbish the keyboards by running them through the dishwasher and letting them dry. Nearly every one survived the process and worked as if new, which was a great bonus – they were units with programmable keys, and the manufacturer had quit making them. Thus, two lessons were learned: it’s amazing what electronic components can survive, and never, never code your software to be dependent upon a particular make of device!!

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This recalls for me an previous employer where the on-site folks would refurbish the keyboards by running them through the dishwasher and letting them dry. Nearly every one survived the process and worked as if new, which was a great bonus – they were units with programmable keys, and the manufacturer had quit making them. Thus, two lessons were learned: it’s amazing what electronic components can survive, and never, never code your software to be dependent upon a particular make of device!!

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This doesn’t really surprise me, especially if the circuitry didn’t appear to have gotten wet.

I adopted a motherboard from a friend who’s little girl had spilt an entire cup of sugared tea over it, just moments before it was to be fitted into a client’s machine. Being curious, and having nothing to lose, I took it home and soaked it in lukewarm soapy water and gently scrubbed all over with an old toothbrush. (Please note, ESD precautions were completely ignored throughout). After leaving it in the airing cupboard (where the house hot water tank resides) for a day and after giving it a few blasts with my wife’s 2kw hairdryer, I gave it a close inspection under a magnifying glass. Most of the components were clean but some of the more intricate connectors, especially the processor ZIF socket and the PCI sockets, were still gummed up with the sticky mess. A second bath with hand-hot water and an electric toothbrush followed by a further day’s drying, did the trick.

At first I assembled only the bare minimum of parts outside of the case to show me whether or not it had survived the cleaning – an old CPU, one stick of low-capacity RAM and a redundant AGP graphics card. One flip of the power switch and I was up and running. I powered down and fitted it into an old case and it was still working. All went well for a few weeks until I accidentally smashed through some of the PCB tracks with a screwdriver blade whilst try to clip on the heatsink, but with a bit of micro-soldering by a very helpful engineer friend, it lived again!!

It is now seeing out it’s winter years as the workshop television.

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See a “confirmation” in Tony’s thread here. (excluding cell phone batteries )

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See a “confirmation” in Tony’s thread here. (excluding cell phone batteries )

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