FR Battery fell into water, is it still useable?

[Tobias Diedrich]

Mikhail Umorin wrote:
> It was fresh (tap) water. I pulled it out within 1 min. 
> 
> Has it been damaged (did it retain its capacity and won't damage the FR)?

Well, surely a small amount of stored charge was lost due to current
flowing between the contacts, but it can't lose capacity from that,
since the battery contents are encapsulated very well.  (If water
could manage to reach the lithium, it would go up in flames, so
lithium batteries themselves are pretty much watertight I think)

However the contacts can corrode, especially since there is voltage
on the contacts.  And water could manage to get between the charge
counter / protection pcb and the lithium battery.

IMHO your safest bet would be to put the battery in an airtight bag
together with a desiccant which should remove any remaining moisture I think.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_desiccants
Maybe you got some silica gel packets somewhere?  If the silica gel
has been exposed to air for some time, you can remove the absorbed
moisture by heating it in an oven and reuse the dried silica gel
http://www.southernexposure.com/library/drying-seed-silica-gel.html

HTH,

-- 
Tobias						PGP: http://9ac7e0bc.uguu.de