Like the title says, what are the damage mechanisms when there is no current flowing in the electronics? Additionally, what methods do hardware manufacturers use to “waterproof” electronics?
In: Engineering
The gold standard for water protection is [conformal coating](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conformal_coating ). This is expensive, renders repair impossible, and reduces heat dissipation. It’s the sort of thing the military sometimes does to protect submarine parts, not something that happens to a laptop. You also have to design the product for this sort of protection, so that capacitors and batteries can’t do damage when connector pins get wet.
Normal things you might buy have IPxy ratings. The first digit (x) describes the size of particle kept out, for water you need a 6 here as water molecules are super tiny. The second digit (y) describes how much water the device can keep out, from 1-2 which mean it can resist rain touching it and running off to 7 which means it can resist being under 1m of water for 30 minutes to 8-9K which can resist pressure washers and the like.
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