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Awe geez, I washed and dried a $125 memory card :(

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Chris Wolfgram

Chris Wolfgram

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Maybe not the stupidest thing I've ever done.... But pretty dumb, nonetheless. Faceplant moment for sure :-(

Anyway fortunately, I had already uploaded all the shots on it anyway.... But, I had not erased it, so that was good to test it, to see if it still worked ?

Well surprisingly, it worked just fine. My question now is, is their any chance that it could have gotten a tiny bit of moisture inside of it, which could cause a failure on the next trip... or 10 trips from now.... or in the middle of a once in a life time trip next year ? I guess what I'm asking is, is this card (oh, its a ProGrade 300mb/s read, 250mb/s write 128mb) going to be 100% as reliable now ? Good thing is, my R5 uses dual cards, so I guess even if it failed, I'd be safe. Figures I'd wash my one $125 card, instead of one of my four $25 cards :(

Your thoughts ?
 
Did you notice the removal of any dirty images?
 
Chris Wolfgram said:
is their any chance that it could have gotten a tiny bit of moisture inside of it, which could cause a failure on the next trip... or 10 trips from now.... or in the middle of a once in a life time trip next year ?
Click to expand...
No, everyone knows compromised electronics are polite enough to only fail when it doesn't matter much. :-D

Seriously: the moisture will dry up at some point (a week? a month?) and if it still works at that point the likeliness of it failing later is still non-zero, but also not super high.

This is why having two card slots is a good thing.
 
Fishchris said:
Well surprisingly, it worked just fine. My question now is, is their any chance that it could have gotten a tiny bit of moisture inside of it
Click to expand...
Yes, 100% that it got moisture in it. The question isn't did it get moisture in it, the question is will the moisture do anything long-term? Is it like a cell phone, where you dunk it, dry it, it works for a while and then dies later?

If this is an SD card you should be fine. I would use it as the backup in a dual card slot camera and not the primary card for a while, 3-4 months and make sure it keeps working just to make sure.

Google "I washed my sd card", there are tons of people who have done it, read the replies
 
Been there, done that. Boiling wash and tumble dried. Has been working reliable since the incident in 2012.. (I also washed/dried my wrist watch in the same batch, still working as well).

You don't state type of card, but based on the read/write speed I assume it is an SD card. They should be fairly safe.
 
How else can i make sure my memory cards are clean?

*Also, what was supposed to happen during said washing, since memory cards are basically plastic and a tiny bit of copper on a miniature pcb?

027c9cf581a2419183425c6f4d46b78d.jpg



 
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I would have a backup available
 
I'm sure it's complete trash. Send it to me and I'll see that it gets disposed of (in my camera)
 
Fishchris said:
Maybe not the stupidest thing I've ever done.... But pretty dumb, nonetheless. Faceplant moment for sure :-(

Anyway fortunately, I had already uploaded all the shots on it anyway.... But, I had not erased it, so that was good to test it, to see if it still worked ?

Well surprisingly, it worked just fine. My question now is, is their any chance that it could have gotten a tiny bit of moisture inside of it, which could cause a failure on the next trip... or 10 trips from now.... or in the middle of a once in a life time trip next year ? I guess what I'm asking is, is this card (oh, its a ProGrade 300mb/s read, 250mb/s write 128mb) going to be 100% as reliable now ? Good thing is, my R5 uses dual cards, so I guess even if it failed, I'd be safe. Figures I'd wash my one $125 card, instead of one of my four $25 cards :(

Your thoughts ?
Click to expand...
$125 card...

Well for sure the detergent removed any inadvertent hand acids from the points. Card may last longer for it. Unless you used fabric softener.
 
It's a shame because it's so expensive, but I wouldn't trust it.

It might also be a sufficient lesson about not removing the cards from the camera. ;) Was the card full, so you had to switch to a backup card out in the field?

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This is from the San Disk web site:

Water proof:
SanDisk SD, SDHC, microSD and microSDHC memory cards are tested to withstand up to 72 hours in 1m salt or fresh water; IEC 529 IPX7. Product must be clean and dry before use.

Temperature proof:
SanDisk SD, SDHC, microSD and microSDHC memory cards are capable of withstanding operating temperatures from -13ºF to 185ºF (-25ºC to 85 ºC).

Shock and vibration proof:
SanDisk SD, SDHC, microSD and microSDHC memory cards are capable of withstanding up to 500Gs of shock.

Impact proof:
SanDisk SD, SDHC, microSD and microSDHC memory cards are able to withstand drops up to 5 meters (16.4 feet) and being run over by a 5 ton delivery truck.

X-ray proof:
SanDisk SD, SDHC, and Micro SD memory cards are immune to airport X-rays.

Magnet Proof:
SanDisk SD, SDHC, microSD and microSDHC memory cards are immune to magnetic field damage.

I don't think I would worry too much about it being washed and going thru the dryer.
 
RLBur said:
This is from the San Disk web site:

Water proof:
SanDisk SD, SDHC, microSD and microSDHC memory cards are tested to withstand up to 72 hours in 1m salt or fresh water; IEC 529 IPX7. Product must be clean and dry before use.

Temperature proof:
SanDisk SD, SDHC, microSD and microSDHC memory cards are capable of withstanding operating temperatures from -13ºF to 185ºF (-25ºC to 85 ºC).

Shock and vibration proof:
SanDisk SD, SDHC, microSD and microSDHC memory cards are capable of withstanding up to 500Gs of shock.

Impact proof:
SanDisk SD, SDHC, microSD and microSDHC memory cards are able to withstand drops up to 5 meters (16.4 feet) and being run over by a 5 ton delivery truck.

X-ray proof:
SanDisk SD, SDHC, and Micro SD memory cards are immune to airport X-rays.

Magnet Proof:
SanDisk SD, SDHC, microSD and microSDHC memory cards are immune to magnetic field damage.

I don't think I would worry too much about it being washed and going thru the dryer.
Click to expand...
Good find! Two thumbs up...

-M
 
Fishchris said:
Maybe not the stupidest thing I've ever done.... But pretty dumb, nonetheless. Faceplant moment for sure :-(

Anyway fortunately, I had already uploaded all the shots on it anyway.... But, I had not erased it, so that was good to test it, to see if it still worked ? :(

Your thoughts ?
Click to expand...
Chris, I've read about quite a few cards going through the wash and I don't recall reading that one did not work?!

Also, most but not all cameras today have two slots. I usually shoot redundant in case one card fails. If you shoot redundant it may not be much of a risk?

John
 
I washed and dried an even more expensive smart phone. It had to be replaced.
 
I once washed a Sony sbh50 Bluetooth receiver with built in battery. To my surprise it worked fine after I let it dry up for a week. And it still works fine to this day 7 years later.

In general fresh water is not too damaging to electronics, but product with built in batteries may be damaged by fresh water. But the salt in sea water can be very destructive on any electronic component.
 
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RLBur said:
This is from the San Disk web site:

Water proof:
SanDisk SD, SDHC, microSD and microSDHC memory cards are tested to withstand up to 72 hours in 1m salt or fresh water; IEC 529 IPX7. Product must be clean and dry before use.

Temperature proof:
SanDisk SD, SDHC, microSD and microSDHC memory cards are capable of withstanding operating temperatures from -13ºF to 185ºF (-25ºC to 85 ºC).

Shock and vibration proof:
SanDisk SD, SDHC, microSD and microSDHC memory cards are capable of withstanding up to 500Gs of shock.

Impact proof:
SanDisk SD, SDHC, microSD and microSDHC memory cards are able to withstand drops up to 5 meters (16.4 feet) and being run over by a 5 ton delivery truck.

X-ray proof:
SanDisk SD, SDHC, and Micro SD memory cards are immune to airport X-rays.

Magnet Proof:
SanDisk SD, SDHC, microSD and microSDHC memory cards are immune to magnetic field damage.

I don't think I would worry too much about it being washed and going thru the dryer.
Click to expand...
Wow ! I'm honestly surprised they would make all these claims. But hey, between this, plus the fact that my R5 has dual slots, which I always record to simultaneously, not consecutively, I think this card will be fine.

I actually used the card yesterday for about 1500 shots with no problems. I plan to use this card as my primary SD card for a while, just to give it a really solid test.
 
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