My poor wireless speaker

[drumr]

After bragging on my new Acoustic Research AW871 yesterday in another thread my wife calls me at work and told me a big gust of wind came up, broke the umbrella, knocking the table over, sending one of the speakers right into the pool!! :x I just got these things 3 days ago!!!

Fortunately they are low voltage so no one got hurt and the speaker came unplugged before it hit the pool, even though my wife did not realize this and it gave her a good scare.

I am trying to bring it back to life, but have had no luck yet. The other one hit the deck and is still working fine. Maybe if I can get the electronics dry out they will work again, the speakers themselves look fine.

So if anyone purchases these they are faily light weight and you may want to secure them in some fashion so they don't end up in the pool!!!

JD

 

[The Mermaid Queen]

man, that's just bad luck! Hope you can get'er working again!

 

[DaveNJ]

I use to regularly wash electronics equipment with a soap water solution. Blew out excess water with air then put it a drying oven for a couple of days, doesn't hurt anything.

 

[drumr]

Thanks Dave, I think I got the water out of it (I still haven't figured out how to get it apart) so I took a hair dryer and blew it in any of the openings I could find and it tried to come on for just a second then quit again. I don't have access to a drying oven, we have one at work we keep welding rods in. My clothes dryer has a shoe rack that I could put in that does not rotate with the drum. I wonder if I could set the heat on the lowest setting and run it a cycle? Any thoughts??

Thank you too Mermaid Queen...I haven't given up hope on it yet!!

 

[DaveNJ]

Your looking for dry air. Air circulation, don't want to go above about 110deg F.

 

[JohnT]

I've dried things out by setting them on the dash of my truck during the day. Give it a good shake every few hours to spread out any water that pools.

 

[vejadu]

my grandmothers big tv sat in flood waters for about a week 13 yrs ago. After drying out, it works great. Here's hoping the same happens for you.

 

[pooladdict]

Hi Dave:

I found out recently that Blackberries are not good swimmers, nor floaters...of course it fell in the deep end, and immediately dove to the bottom. I went in after it, and ran directly to the phone company..long story short...its dead and I had to replace it....grrrrrr.

Rik

 

[Abxflyr]

If you have outdoor central A/C you may try placing the unit on top of the condenser. This would allow the hot (but not too hot) air from the unit to blow and perhaps allow drying. Of course you have to bring it indoor if there is a chance for rain. I'd give it several days or a week plus before giving up on it.

Lee

 

[KurtV]

I'd rinse it in distilled water and then dry it out. The water itself isn't a problem, it's the things that are dissolved in it. This is especially true if your water is salted but true even if you have freshwater.

I knew a guy who worked for the Weather Service and he would take the electronic equipment (old tube stuff) out of the racks once a year and to the fire station and have them hose it down to get rid of the dust.

 

[Rob]

Any electronics will die a pretty fast death when exposed to water.

The copper traces are so thin that they oxidize (rust) fairly quickly. You'll probably be able to salvage the speaker, but not the wireless component.

 

[haze]

the speaker came unplugged before it hit the pool, JD

Wait a minute, you said they were wireless ! :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[drumr]

haze,

LOL!! That is funny!! They run off of a wall wart power pack or you can put batteries in them. I had them plugged in with the wall wart......BUT...

Now neither speaker is working!! I don't know if it is the transmitter or the speaker. The one that didn't die in the pool incident is now very crackly sounding even when right next to the transmitter. I fooled with it for the last 2 days with no luck of clearing it up. When I unplug the power and plug it up it sounds good for about 3 seconds and then starts to crackle.

So today I went pawn shopping and happened across a pretty nice Pioneer receiver and I had some KLH indoor/outdoor speakers from a previous surround sound and wired it all up and mounted it to the side of my house and so far it is working very well....Hopefully I won't jinx it with this post.

 

[wardsntx]

Just in case you need a replacement or two

These guys have everything:

http://www.outdoorspeakerdepot.com/index.html

 

[tagprod]

I'm really leery about any outdoor electronics. I have some outdoor speakers mounted under a patio by the pool, but they were only 80 dollars a pair from best buy. They sound great and I'm not going to flip out if the humidity or weather here in Houston mess 'em up.