Hi!

Units exposed to water can have all sorts of weird problems occur,
especially in electromechanical devices like cd players where there are
very fine tolerances.

You don't say. :-) I recently had a major sewer failure cause a backup of
water into my basement. Nearly none of the CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drives that
went under remain functional. It seems that the oldest drives took it a lot
better (and held up to being cleaned in a much better way) than did any of
the new ones. The drives run and "try to work" but I think that things
inside the laser pickup got dirty when the water came along. I don't really
know how to take laser pickups apart, if it can even be done. (And I have no
desire to accidentally fry my eyes if the pickup were not to be quite
correctly put back together.)

Impurities deposited by the water , grit etc. can
find their way into connectors, transformers , and almost all other
places. If the unit is left as-is, corrosion and other problems can set
in.

This player was just set out in the trash, along with some computer monitors
and a VCR. All of them were rained on, but the CD player and VCR were still
mostly dry inside. The only places I found water in either one was around
the openings on the case.

Needless to say I mopped it all up and used gentle heat to encourage drying
of components. It didn't look like any transformers had taken a "hit".

Faults can take time to appear, even when the player has been dry for
considerable time.

Perhaps so. I haven't seen that effect myself--it has been my experience
that if the device is cleaned up and dried out promptly that its chances of
surviving are really pretty good. As it stands now I have played nearly my
entire CD collection in this thing multiple times and it remains rock solid.
I am going to hope for now that the connections had simply become marginal
(this player is not exactly new) and that my reinserting them cleaned them
enough to allow proper operations. If the player breaks again--I'll fix it
if it is feasible to do so.

I really think that the issue could have been one with a grounding contact.
I have heard of electronics acting strangely when the grounds are not
working for some reason.

I have found that dismantling the device totally (as
soon as you get it away from the damp before rust sets in!), drying,
re-lubing, checking all areas for deposits and cleaning can minimize
the risk of problems.

Indeed. I am very reluctant to grease or lubricate anything unless the
material is clearly contaminated or I'm dealing with a fan. (Fans of all
sorts, it would seem, act rather badly after they have been wet.) What
lubricating material I can see in this player looks to be good, well
distributed and not at all dirty.

Given that it was picked up from a "high income" part of town and the fact
that it is in nice condition, I'd say it lived a very nice and calm life
until its owner found that it would no longer play CDs properly. Then out
the door it went. Happens more often in that part of town than I'd care to
talk about it. I've gotten a lot of really nice stuff just by waiting for
trash day and then picking up whatever I find interesting. TV
sets...Microwaves...whole computer systems (including some very modern
ones)...misc stuff...

I think that fully 90% of what I pick up could be resold for profit, but
I've never done it that. What I can't use I give to others who need it more
than I do. I find this kind of thing to be fun...and I think in my own
little way that I'm saving the world from one more piece of equipment flying
into an already overburdened landfill.

As you have found, reseating connectors is at
least a good place to start!

It should have been the first thing that I did, but it was the last thing I
expected given that it looked like the player had been well cared for and
everything inside seemed to be in place. I think a lot of us could say that
in regards to some things we have repaired! :-)

William