# About Sulphation...



## qu4k3r (Sep 13, 2015)

Hi there...

If an electronic component (integrated, SMD, etc.) is dipped in salt water may come loose from a motherboard through sulphation in less than three days?

As far as I know, the only way to remove these pieces out of an electronic board is... using a hot air station, or the like, or alternatively... using brute force.

But be sulfated, be loose, and fall in 3 days? 

Well... I'm 99% sure I'm right, but I need a second opinion to confirm my suspicions.

Why am I asking this?

My sister went to the beach last weekend, as she stepped off a boat fell into the water with her bag and inside the bag was his tablet.

The next day, she took it to a repair shop where they had 3 days. When she left it at the workshop, the tablet could be power on but there was no video signal. They said the screen/display was damaged. But when she went to pick it up, the tablet was dead, they said that the motherboard was broken and had some fallen parts due to sulfation.

I do not buy it. I think the tablet died due to electrolysis, but...

I also think they took away several pieces to use as spare beacuase they didn´t want to return the parts supposedly fallen, saying they were too small to look for them in the workshop.

There is something fishy.

I opened the tablet at home, took some photos., and downloaded the service manual. Then I compared the photos with the diagram of the motherboard, and of course there are several parts missing where it is marked at red circles on the pictures.

http://www.s-manuals.com/pdf/tablets/samsung/samsung_gt-p5200_service_manual.pdf























Backing to main question...

If an electronic component (integrated, SMD, etc.) is dipped in salt water may come loose from a motherboard through sulphation in less than three days? YES or NO?

Thanks a lot.-


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## Ferrum Master (Sep 13, 2015)

LoL

Why are you marking those blank spaces? Those are good. They are not missing. 

Yes the soldering iron starts to degrade. It simply turns to clay. And if it gets even electrolysis it torns out the metal atoms even faster. The board is busted as it itself absorbs the salt and becomes conductive, You have a really missing pads at voltage regulator at the bottom. The caps may be shot through. There are still salt/oxide underneath the components. You screwed already with soldering the power gouge IC near the battery contacts. There are also problems under the shields.

Emerging into sea water a piece of electronics - instant death and complete dumbness. Carry a mobile to beach is idiotic habbit, as also sand particles intrude tha case thus causing other problems. It is warranty voiding thing.

Get a ball and play some volley or something... not poke your nose in the gadget... gosh people these days...


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## qu4k3r (Sep 13, 2015)

Thanks for your answer.



Ferrum Master said:


> ...You screwed already with soldering the power gouge IC near the battery contacts. There are also problems under the shields...



No, I didn`t screw it.
I just opened it up to see if something was missing as they said.
According to my sister, they spotted at least ten places of fallen parts.
That blowed/melted thing was like that when I opened the tablet.


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## Ferrum Master (Sep 13, 2015)

I daily work as repair technician for these things... not for sammy thou, I personally don't like them - each device like a soap holder.... but eventually yea there are mostly fisherman accidents for sea water... for salty water there are no real success repairs on whom you can guarantee stable 3 month working period. Always some problems emerge. The only repair attempts we do lately is to recover sensitive data, so make it at least bootable. And it is tough also... we once made an experiment and removed on the oven all carrying components, leaving bare PCB. Afterwards we still could measure resistance to power pins and the board leaked current itself. No wonder the darn thing went into bootloops.

Ah I see, that's a rare sight then, it looks like soldering flux there and I've seen things. Anyway the battery limiter should have reacted and cut of the power, so in terms of safety it should be okay.

The main problem that your sister still would do that, as she would get one for free again


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## qubit (Sep 13, 2015)

Ferrum Master said:


> we once made an experiment and removed on the oven all carrying components, leaving bare PCB. Afterwards we still could measure resistance to power pins and the board leaked current itself. No wonder the darn thing went into bootloops.


Interesting. Yeah, once the board conducts the device has had it.

I'm curious, would washing that test board in washing up liquid or some special solution get rid of the conductive contamination, or has it actually altered the chemical properties of the surface?


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## Mussels (Sep 13, 2015)

those missing parts are just empty solder pads for alternate variants of the device. i've got a bunch of samsung mainboards here with similar all over them.


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## MIRTAZAPINE (Sep 13, 2015)

This remind me of my smartphone that I just killed last week due to condensation. Water damage is pretty much instant death to electronics especially the ones where you can't remove the battery immediately to prevent short circuit. Those with battery immediately remove have a good chance to survive again. I have another very old phone where I drop into the toilet bowl and I remove the battery and it survive.

I never drop my phone into water that week. I was in very cold room and when I left the room I felt my phone was wet and it keep vibrating.There are condensation in my camera module. I was pretty surprised. First time I kill my phone this way, and my money is gone like that  with my data inside. My reaction was to take out the battery but new smartphones I am not able to that!

I don't trust storing data on smartphone now and would backup a lot now. Next time when I go to a place where my phone would be wet I will get a waterproof case or bags with silica gel inside to get rid of the remaining water vapors.


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## Iceni (Sep 13, 2015)

The term sulphation is incorrect.

Sulphation is when batteries create crystals that are too large to conduct electric correctly and thus break down.

The term you need is "Galvanic Corrosion". This is where dissimilar metals touch and have slight conductive differences. The joints will naturally corrode but this is accelerated by the salt water as it increases the conductive surfaces from the normal contact area to the total wet area. Salt water again accelerates this as the ions in the salt increase the waters conductivity, and aids electron flow just like in any electrolysis reaction.

The problem isn't that the components fall off, It's that the more reactive metal will suffer from accelerated corrosion. This involves pitting and the production of oxides. And neither are wanted when you come to resolder new parts on as they will cause poor soldering. Or in a worse case scenario copper trace degradation in the PCB layers.

Use heat.

To clean the copper PCB connections you will need copper safe acid flux like "carrs red label flux". It'll etch the copper contacts before you do the real soldering with rosin flux and a good solder like 37/63 eutectic.


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## qubit (Sep 13, 2015)

Here's a detailed description of sulfation to back up what @Iceni has just said.  This website will teach you more about batteries than you ever wanted to know.

http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/sulfation_and_how_to_prevent_it


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## qu4k3r (Sep 13, 2015)

Thanks for clarifying the difference between the terms.

I said sulphation becuase that was what they told to my sister at repair shop.


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## FreedomEclipse (Sep 13, 2015)

that first picture looks like the map of a shopping mall....


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## Ferrum Master (Sep 13, 2015)

FreedomEclipse said:


> that first picture looks like the map of a shopping mall....



Funny, few of my girlfriends have told me the same  

@qubit

We do washing in ultrasonic bath with chemical additives... didn't help... the salt is in between the layers somewhere, the PCB expands when being wet, the through-hole jounts give a good way to get into middle layers also. And the gaps inbetween power lines are so small. It was wet, the currents were high, it turned to coil, it could be in the middle layers also, so it cannot be seen. So it conducts now permanently. Electronics are really so fragile actully. Sometimes I wonder why really they withstand the average user .


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## qu4k3r (Sep 13, 2015)

@Ferrum Master

If there are neither missing nor fallen parts in that motherboard, why they said so?

They tried to do something but the tablet died midway?


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## Ferrum Master (Sep 13, 2015)

qu4k3r said:


> @Ferrum Master
> 
> If there are neither missing nor fallen parts in that motherboard, why they said so?
> 
> They tried to do something but the tablet died midway?



There are only two missing parts that I saw... the one that leaved the burning, and in the bottom part besides the SD card rader. Well PCB's are made universal, to fit many hardware variations, so there are places for additional components, that are unused, basing on your specific model. Many of them are left for debugging or from R/D phase. You marked the gold plated item places. If they are like that still, they were never used.


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## CjStaal (Sep 15, 2015)

Ferrum Master said:


> Funny, few of my girlfriends have told me the same
> 
> @qubit
> 
> We do washing in ultrasonic bath with chemical additives... didn't help... the salt is in between the layers somewhere, the PCB expands when being wet, the through-hole jounts give a good way to get into middle layers also. And the gaps inbetween power lines are so small. It was wet, the currents were high, it turned to coil, it could be in the middle layers also, so it cannot be seen. So it conducts now permanently. Electronics are really so fragile actully. Sometimes I wonder why really they withstand the average user .


It is funny that he made that comparison, because it's pretty accurate. Both are optimized for the fastest travel from one point to another. The macro/micro of the universe all have similarities, it's astounding.


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## cadaveca (Sep 15, 2015)

nobody says damage is right in the middle? It's parts falling off? man o man.


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## silentbogo (Sep 23, 2015)

Here's my 5 cents on your problem:
The missing components you've marked are not actually missing. Those are most likely empty pads for some filtering caps that were intentionally omitted.
The reason why your tablet is no longer giving any signs of life is because repair guys tried to replace couple of components right above battery connector (second photo). Even without a better picture I can see that placement pads for one component were burned off with soldering iron and another component was replaced with a huge blob of solder. Apparently these guys do not have a rework station either 
"Corrosion" or "Sulphation" is just an obfuscated way of telling you, that they've  'up and cannot repair your device.


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## Ferrum Master (Sep 23, 2015)

silentbogo said:


> repair guys tried to replace couple of components right above battery connector (second photo) ..."Corrosion" or "Sulphation" is just an obfuscated way of telling you, that they've  'up and cannot repair your device.



Are even reading this thread? Your arguments are rubbish.


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## blobster21 (Sep 23, 2015)




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## silentbogo (Sep 23, 2015)

Ferrum Master said:


> Are even reading this thread? Your arguments are rubbish.



And how is it less valid than your nonsense, mr. Repair technician?



Ferrum Master said:


> Yes the soldering iron starts to degrade. It simply turns to clay. And if it gets even electrolysis it torns out the metal atoms even faster. The board is busted as it itself absorbs the salt and becomes conductive, You have a really missing pads at voltage regulator at the bottom. The caps may be shot through. There are still salt/oxide underneath the components. You screwed already with soldering the power gouge IC near the battery contacts. There are also problems under the shields.



I doubt textolite is able to absorb water, unless you forget about it for a day or two.


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## lilhasselhoffer (Sep 23, 2015)

So, short answer is no.


Long answer is that there is no sulphur in modern electronics.  There isn't sulphuric acid in a battery, the masks and PCBs generally don't contain it because the environmental regulations related to using a sulphur as flux are rather extreme, and there's no need to have is anywhere else.

As such, this is an A*hole technician trying to sound like they didn't screw the pooch and fry your device with a particularly poorly controlled soldering iron.  That huge black blob in the pictures is generally only seen when somebody does a crappy job at fixing things, because SMD devices are generally soldered in a reflow oven when new.

If the repair person wasn't full of crap, they'd have cited oxidation of critical components.  At the same time, that's crap.  Unless the batter was dead shorted through a saline solution (which would have fried the phone in a bunch of other ways), oxidation wouldn't have occurred that quickly.



Side note, there aren't any components overtly missing from your phone.  They design one PCB for multiple models, and solder the appropriate components on when a model is decided.  Empty solder pads, that are copper colored, mean nothing has ever been there.  Empty pads, that are silvery, mean a missing component.



Edit:
Another side note.  Good repair technicians will use a hot air pencil to repair SMD devices.  They can get to areas that traditional irons don't, they don't bridge connections, and by nature they require precise controls.  Amazing technicians use a soldering iron, and nerves of steel.


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## RealNeil (Sep 23, 2015)

The Tablet is dead,................long live the Tablet.


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Sep 23, 2015)

All high cost motherboards i have got have been conformal coated so the MAY is what really applies though the tarnishing and oxidizing of any metal May be accelerated.


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## qu4k3r (Sep 28, 2015)

Is there any way to recover data from this tablet?

I mean if a pc has hd or ssd that you can swap or switch to another pc... then the tablet has storage device (idk if a kind of ssd or integrated chip, etc.) can be extracted and put it into another tablet, memory reader or something like that to try to recover data?

Thanks to everybody for your contribution


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## silentbogo (Sep 28, 2015)

Only in a specialized data recovery lab. Your tablet has flash memory soldered to the PCB, and there are only 2 ways to recover it from a broken device:
1) Restore the functionality of the motherboard, so it is at least recognized by PC, and then simply dump the data
2) de-solder storage IC from motherboard and use very expensive equipment to perform data recovery


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## silentbogo (Sep 28, 2015)

But I still believe your tablet is fixable. Just need to find an adequate service center to perform diagnostics and repair. I've seen people with right skills and access to right tools do miracles with presumably dead electronics(even soaked in water and leaked batteries).


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## qu4k3r (Sep 28, 2015)

silentbogo said:


> Only in a specialized data recovery lab. Your tablet has flash memory soldered to the PCB, and there are only 2 ways to recover it from a broken device:
> 1) Restore the functionality of the motherboard, so it is at least recognized by PC, and then simply dump the data
> *2) de-solder storage IC from motherboard and use very expensive equipment to perform data recovery*



Somebody told me that de-soldering storage IC and then solder it back into another tablet (same model exactly) could work to extract data to a pc. But I don't know if this method can be trustable, and nobody can guarantee storage IC is not broken.


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## CjStaal (Sep 28, 2015)

Or desolder and then solder it on to a new device with less-expensive hardware. You can get a BGA template and workstation for less than a hundred bucks and a rework station with hot air for 200.

Yes qu4k3r, it's possible.


silentbogo said:


> But I still believe your tablet is fixable. Just need to find an adequate service center to perform diagnostics and repair. I've seen people with right skills and access to right tools do miracles with presumably dead electronics(even soaked in water and leaked batteries).





qu4k3r said:


> Somebody told me that de-soldering storage IC and then solder it back into another tablet (same model exactly) could work to extract data to a pc. But I don't know if this method can be trustable, and nobody can guarantee storage IC is not broken.


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## silentbogo (Sep 28, 2015)

It is doable if you have a architecturally similar device: tablet, phone, SoC. Maybe even a sacrificial flashdrive (may need some firmware manipulation). The only problem is that most phones and tablets have memory chips in BGA package, which makes it hard to re-solder at home (unless you are a hopeless nerd like me and sport a homebrew IR rework station). Flashdrives are easy, because they have SOP packaged chips and can be soldered with hot-air rework station, or even a regular soldering iron (requires steady hands and tons of patience).


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## qu4k3r (Sep 28, 2015)

Ok then it's doable.

I'm not gonna do it by myself, and certainly not at home becuase I don't have that kind of tools/equipment but...

Maybe at some repair shop which does laptop motheboard reballing and have the equipment shown in this?
http://reparacion-instalacion.merca...eparacion-tarjetas-madre-laptop-reballing-_JM

and I suppose nodoby can guarantee the integrity of data contained within storage IC and/or storage IC itself, right?


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## silentbogo (Sep 28, 2015)

qu4k3r said:


> Ok then it's doable.
> 
> I'm not gonna do it by myself, and certainly not at home becuase I don't have that kind of tools/equipment but...
> 
> ...


Yep. Not only you cannot know for sure that the transplant will be successful, but also this procedure will be relatively expensive.


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## OneMoar (Sep 29, 2015)

BGA work isn't hard provided you have the proper tools
the problem is usually sourcing a replacement chip 
if you are just removing the chip and replacing the solder balls then its not difficult at all if you have the correct tools (infrared soldering station and a suitable bga template


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