Drying a drill

[aricooperdavis]

Does anyone have any top tips for drying a drill and battery (it's a Makita DHR171)?

My drill and I went for an impromptu swim whilst bolting a travsere line above a flooded shaft yesterday. I scrambled out fairly quickly, but it was fully submerged for about 10 seconds, and was pretty wet through. I whipped the battery out ASAP but otherwise haven't done anything to it.

My plan is to disassemble as much as I can and leave it in the airing cupboard for a few weeks. Anything else I should do?

 

[pwhole]

I regularly hose down my DHR243 if it gets really muddy, and I haven't had any issues with it so far - granted it hasn't had total submersion, but I think they're pretty tough beasts when it comes to water ingress.

 

[alanw]

Was it clean fresh water? If not, best to rinse with clean water ASAP.

 

[phizz4]

Can you put it in a bag with rice to absorb the moisture?

 

[Steve Clark]

It will likely be fine. Just blow it through with a hair dryer or air-line and put it on the radiator. Similar with the battery but don't let it get too hot.

Be careful dismantling it. You don't want to open the gearbox / internal SDS bits. It's packed with grease and works as a sealed unit. You really want to avoid letting any water mix in with the grease. I think the left hand side of the handle / trigger area will come off leaving the 'guts' in the right hand side. i.e the 'front' if its on a table with the drill bit pointing to the left.

You can add a bit of sds grease into the chuck where the bit goes when it's totally dry.

 

[Chocolate fireguard]

alanw's advice is good. Clean water will leave no damage once it's gone.

 

[aricooperdavis]

Thanks folks, that's both very helpful and reassuring. I've given it a brief rinse and will tackle the gentle dismantling, drying, and greasing and let you know how it goes!

 

[Pitlamp]

I suggest not switching it on until fully dried. (Obvious, I know - but still probably worth mentioning.)

 

[Leclused]

We had a wet drill a while ago and our electronics specialist suggested the following.

After opening the drill clean it with

- isopropyl alcohol or RS safe cleaning fluid for electronics this to avoid corrosion afterwards.

In the end we did not do this because the machine was one of our older machines and was not performing 100% anymore. We bought a replacement body instead

 

[wormster]

Fresh water bath, followed by a clean with Lab Grade IPA then into a sealed container with plenty of dessicant (either rice or silica) popped onto a warm radiator overnight.

Unless you know what you're doing don't disassemble the battery pack unless you want it to go FOOM!!!

 

[legendrider]

Fresh water bath, followed by a clean with Lab Grade IPA then into a sealed container with plenty of dessicant (either rice or silica) popped onto a warm radiator overnight.

Unless you know what you're doing don't disassemble the battery pack unless you want it to go FOOM!!!

Dropped one of my Bosch 5Ah 18V Li battery packs in water along Rampgill Vein. Having just been rather vigorously discharged, the heat made it steam ferociously for several minutes. Parked it somewhere dry for it to sulk, and retrieved it a few hours later, no adverse effects!

I also have a 4Ah unit which had packed up, would not take charge and simply discharged itself when mounted on the charging station.
Dismantled it, cut the wires to, and discarded the Charge Indicator board, and Lo! battery now takes charge again. The damaged Charge Indicator board was causing the problem. Worth a try if you're contemplating binning the battery pack anyway.

MARK

 

[TheBitterEnd]

As an aside has anyone ever done any trials of air drying (radiator, hair dryer) vs desiccant/rice? I've dried a number of things from electronics to camera lenses close to a radiator after a blow and never felt the need for a dessicant. I guess it depends what your house is like but anyone who can still afford to run the central heating probably has a pretty dry house to start with.

 

[Bob Cromer]

Does anyone have any top tips for drying a drill and battery (it's a Makita DHR171)?

My drill and I went for an impromptu swim whilst bolting a travsere line above a flooded shaft today. I scrambled out fairly quickly, but it was fully submerged for about 10 seconds, and was pretty wet through. I whipped the battery out ASAP but otherwise haven't done anything to it.

My plan is to disassemble as much as I can and leave it in the airing cupboard for a few weeks. Anything else I should do?

My Bosch regularly gets a soaking, I hang it off a sling next to a humidifier which seems to bring it back to life

 

[Steve Clark]

As an aside has anyone ever done any trials of air drying (radiator, hair dryer) vs desiccant/rice? I've dried a number of things from electronics to camera lenses close to a radiator after a blow and never felt the need for a dessicant. I guess it depends what your house is like but anyone who can still afford to run the central heating probably has a pretty dry house to start with.

The ‘water holding capacity’ of air is very dependant on temperature. Very crudely, 10degC, 1kg of air can hold about 10g or so water vapour, at 40degC it’s about 50g and at 80degC it’s 500g. Hence hair dryers work how they do.

Desiccant is probably a good idea at low temperatures to continuously remove the vapour. Important to seal it in a bag or something. Good for exped or in a van etc.

This is also why desiccant-cycle dehumidifiers are better for low temp sheds/garages. Compressor based ones are more efficient for use in heated houses.

 

[wormster]

The ‘water holding capacity’ of air is very dependant on temperature. Very crudely, 10degC, 1kg of air can hold about 10g or so water vapour, at 40degC it’s about 50g and at 80degC it’s 500g. Hence hair dryers work how they do.

Desiccant is probably a good idea at low temperatures to continuously remove the vapour. Important to seal it in a bag or something. Good for exped or in a van etc.

This is also why desiccant-cycle dehumidifiers are better for low temp sheds/garages. Compressor based ones are more efficient for use in heated houses.

Sealed bags, and dessicant - brilliant idea especially those bags you can suck the atmosphere out of. We do something similar with our products at work, but we purge the double bags with dry nitrogen before adding the dessicant and then pumping it all out and vacuum sealing the bags up before they go in the shipping container.

 

[pwhole]

These are amazing, though obviously too expensive for merely drying a drill, but for long-term use they're very good, and eco-friendly.

https://www.dry-it-out.com/ruby-dry-amber-dry-dh600-dehumidifier.html

 

[aricooperdavis]

It lives! Thank you for your advice everyone, I ended up rinsing it in clean water then disassembling it and giving it a superficial clean with electrical contact cleaner. Then I left it for 2 days in the airing cupboard with the dehumidifier on.

The only ill effects are a slight smell of ozone when the drill is running that it didn't have before, but I'm going to pretend I can't smell that...

I was incredibly impressed both by how easy it was to dissemble the drill and battery, and by how well waterproofed the internals are. Both PCBs are well encapsulated (see photos), there's lots of grease on the gaskets, and the cases fit together tightly to reduce ingress. Really good build quality from Makita there!