Sticky home button? How do I clean it?

[IronCat21]

I believe I got some sort of liquid from food or a drink in my home button, and it's causing a little bit of stickyness. I know this phone is water resistant, but how exactly do I clean out my home button? I saw a video for iPhones if I get 90% rubbing alcohol on a cuetip, I could use that. Does that apply for us, or is there a better method?

 

[nahoku]

Alcohol doesn't always clean away gummy residue, but worth a try. Personally, I would... very sparingly... use contact cleaner. I use it all the time on my digital camera switches. YMMV

 

[IronCat21]

Hmmm okay. It's safe to use either of those on our phones?

 

[nahoku]

If possible, you should get your hands on some pure alcohol. 90% is decent, but pure is better. Hard to find in Hawaii for me. I think you can find some at a pharmacy, but not sure. As far as the contact cleaner, I do use it on my cameras and it hasn't done any damage yet, not even to the plastic. Use very sparingly... like on a q-tip... just to get some going down around the switch. I use MG Chemicals Super Contact Cleaner from a local electronics store.

I guess all I can say is proceed at your own risk. I have not used any of this on a phone.

 

[Rukbat]

Pure alcohol (100%) is impossible unless you live in a laboratory. It's so absorbent that it'll absorb water from the air if you open the bottle in the Gobi desert. (Even Everclear, which is almost pure alcohol, is only 95% pure.)

70% alcohol (the kind Walmart sells for a buck a quart) is fine to clean phones (it's all we used, along with 70% alcohol swabs - the kind they use to clean your skin before giving you a shot). It just won't absorb as much water as 90% will. Depending on the substance, it may not remove it at all. (If it's not an alcohol-based substance it won't.)

Using contact cleaner you run into the same problem (if it's not <whatever kind of contact cleaner you use>-soluble, it won't clean it - and it may melt or craze the plastic. The same with lighter fluid, which will clean most gummy substances - but which can damage the phone.

The best way is to disassemble the phone, remove a tiny sample of the gummy substance, check to see what dissolves it, then rub the rest of the substance off the button with a coarse cloth. Then test a tiny drop of solvent on the inside of the plastic of the case. If it doesn't do any harm, use it to clean around the button hole. If it does, use small instruments (needles, tiny knife blades) to scrape all the substance off.