Debugging an airnote that failed after getting wet

Hi there,
my airnote got swamped by rain. After drying it, it came back with the low battery message, and I was able to plug it into USB and charge the battery. However, when I later turned it on, it got some way into its boot sequence and then the screen suddenly turned off. Subsequently the screen does not come on, whether on battery or USB.

I don’t see anything obviously shorted, everything seems clean and well-seated. I checked the battery voltage with a multimeter, and it’s OK. Any idea for things to try next (dip switches? check for voltage across pins on the board with the on switch?) to see if I can bring it back, or to diagnose which component is causing the issue?

Thank you,
Teri

Hi Teri,

As you might have guessed, the Airnote isn’t water resistant, and can’t be, otherwise it won’t be able to measure air particulate matter.

While any number of components could have failed due to moisture, the most vulnerable is the particulate sensor. I suspect that there was probably still significant moisture in this sensor, and perhaps shorted when it powered on during the boot test sequence.

Normally I would unplug the particulate sensor and see if the system boots (though it would display an error code because it couldn’t find the sensor) However, since the Airnote isn’t showing anything on the LCD at this point, it looks like the damage may have propagated.

I am forwarding your request to our support team to see what we can do.

Cheers,
-Greg

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