Hi all, I have been lurking for a little while and apologize for my first post being a request for help.
I have been attempting to unlock the bootloader on my Fire 7" 9th gen. I managed to make the tablet unresponsive, so had to disconnect the battery. In doing so, I damaged the terminals on the main board (I didn't realize how delicate those pins are). So I had the idea to remove the pins and solder the battery wires directly onto the board (I know, I know...).
Anyway, I managed to destroy the pads (see picture).
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So I started probing about to see where the non-damaged pads are connected to (as shown above). There are some things that aren't clear to me however.
1) What is the function of that third pad, I suspect it is also the ON trigger, but for a second cell?
2) The two positive pads go to VBAT, are these connected in parallel? Ditto for negative.
3) I can't quite work out from the traces if the labelled pads bypass the components in the photo, or if they are just additional connection points for diagnostics.
4) What is the circuit that these components form? Is it a BIM?
It looks to me as though what I have is a 2 cell battery, with individual positive, negative and control lines for each cell. If this is indeed the case, I'm thinking that I can "repair" my damage by connecting to these labelled pads instead. Of course, if these pads bypass the pictured electronics (a BIM/balance charging circuit?), then this is obviously not safe to do.
Any input would be greatly appreciated.
Well, you see how easy it was to damage them... what makes you think you can repair them?
Repair is much more difficult and tedious than simply unsoldering them.
You need a temperature controlled iron, tools, flux and most the skill level to do so.
You get that by practice and learn from failures.
Not being condescending but after doing this for decades I know how it goes.
Many times you get one shot at repairing it especially when you damage a trace or pad. Damaged plated through holes will need a fine wire inserted to replace the missing connection.
The foil traces and non through hole pads lift up very easily when heated. Multilayered PCBs can be damaged by excessive heat as well. Heat must be controlled, applied fast and accurately. To be soldered metal needs to be clean oxide free and tinned first, this includes fine wire jumpers. A lot of little skills are needed.
Solder tip must be completely tinned with lead based rosin core solder 63/37. Do Not use lead free solder. Wipe tip as needed and always keep it tinned and shiny.
Have extra rosin flux available and desoldering braid. Pad repair kits are available but hard to use and not as good as the original.
A skilled tech may be able to salvage it...
Hi, thanks for your input and advice on dealing with such delicate devices.
I have got another with a broken screen on eBay rather cheap, so I'll take the main board out of that.
Hi, thanks for your input and advice on dealing with such delicate devices.
I have got another with a broken screen on eBay rather cheap, so I'll take the main board out of that.
Related
Hi
My sister's G2 got wet and the lcd screen stopped working. The capacitive buttons, digitizer, and physical keyboard work fine.
However, someone took the phone apart before I came home and tried to diagnose the problem. I believe they may have damaged one of the connectors on the motherboard by bending (and perhaps breaking) some pins. I have attached a picture.
Should I go ahead and replace the lcd or is this damage just too much? The phone works save for the screen.
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Sorry, here's the pic:
http://tinypic.com/r/24y0gac/5
From physical appearance, it looks like the micro-sd card connector is spoilt, according to here. (Coincidentally, the touch panel ribbon is next to the Micro-SD connector)
After water damage, and probably some other motherboard faults resulting from opening the phone up without professional help, many things could've been probably either short circuited or damaged, besides the faulty connector. I'm not sure whether the phone will still boot up properly after these problems, let alone the screen not functioning.
I don't know about you, but if that happened to me, i think its best to get help from a professional or your service center.
xudsa II USERT said:
From physical appearance, it looks like the micro-sd card connector is spoilt, according to here. (Coincidentally, the touch panel ribbon is next to the Micro-SD connector)
After water damage, and probably some other motherboard faults resulting from opening the phone up without professional help, many things could've been probably either short circuited or damaged, besides the faulty connector. I'm not sure whether the phone will still boot up properly after these problems, let alone the screen not functioning.
I don't know about you, but if that happened to me, i think its best to get help from a professional or your service center.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the advice and the reply. I'll consider seeking some techs in the area.
However, the phone boots up and the backlight turn behind the capactive buttons as well as the physical keyboard. The digitizer works because I can swipe across the screen (even though I can't see) and feel the vibration of unlocking the home screen. Also, the volume rocker works as well as the audio.
So, I may have gotten lucky. But it appears the microsd connector is damaged (not by water - by a person). I wonder if the top pins are just tension pins?
Hi everybody!
I wonder if there anyone have a spare parts for DesireZ (G2)? I need the mainboard itself for the repair. Thank you in advance for your help.
InteLeeGent said:
Hi everybody!
I wonder if there anyone have a spare parts for DesireZ (G2)? I need the mainboard itself for the repair. Thank you in advance for your help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have mine!
rooted and rom. With 4ext TOUCH RECOVERY
HMU
-Tyler Debel
Do you sell youre G2? or you have a spare mainboard?
hi there,
I had spilled water on the top of my galaxy nexus this morning and it wiped out the ear speaker. so i decided to open it up and eventually after some tinkering around I managed to fix it, however, I hadn't realised when lifting the mainboard that the volume switch was soldered onto it, and ended up breaking the connection. you can see it from the picture below. how can I solder this back? its a very small connection. i cant seem to find any videos or guides on how to solder back connections like this.
any help would be grateful, thanks
everything else with the phone is working fine though, but i lost the ability to go to recovery or bootloader
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Can't be done, you broke 2 of the connections from the ribbon itself.
You'll have to either buy a whole new ribbon, or a whole new board with the ribbon already soldered on.
The picture also seems to indicate the pad being lifted from the other board. If that is indeed the case (feel the area of the board for a depression), your repair just got a lot more expensive - you may need to replace the board too.
Below point may be moot given the damage in question, but the actual soldering is best done with a high power but temperature controlled soldering station like the Weller WES51. You also need lead free solder, fresh tip, very steady hand, and quite probably a third hand (a tool that looks like two posable alligator clips, to hold your work piece).
motopig said:
The picture also seems to indicate the pad being lifted from the other board. If that is indeed the case (feel the area of the board for a depression), your repair just got a lot more expensive - you may need to replace the board too.
Below point may be moot given the damage in question, but the actual soldering is best done with a high power but temperature controlled soldering station like the Weller WES51. You also need lead free solder, fresh tip, very steady hand, and quite probably a third hand (a tool that looks like two posable alligator clips, to hold your work piece).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i assume you mean the pads where the connection was? its ok its just that the soldered bits are abit lifted. the board doesn't seem to have any damage.
I've contacted Samsung about this, i hope they get back to me in time. i can still use the phone though, just cant change volume or get any vibrations lol
IINexusII said:
i assume you mean the pads where the connection was? its ok its just that the soldered bits are abit lifted. the board doesn't seem to have any damage.
I've contacted Samsung about this, i hope they get back to me in time. i can still use the phone though, just cant change volume or get any vibrations lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I never said the board need replacement because it isn't working , just that if the copper pad itself was lifted (or worse, torn) from the board, you will never be able to fully fix the connection yourself because you have nothing on the board to complete the circuit with, without going for more drastic measures.
Samsung may very well ask you to send the phone in, then I'm willing to bet that they'll swap the board as well. That is if they don't try to void your warranty.
yeah, so i ended up buying a faulty GN with a broken screen off eBay ill swap my screen with that one and sell mine too as faulty..
sad times, but ill be back
Hi guys. Sorry if this is in the wrong thread but thought I'd post up to show how I fixed my note 2 wifi problem,
So my specific model is the sgh-i317m and I'm in the uk, bought the phone recently as I've always fancied one, anyhow when I got the phone home and set it up I had very weak wifi connection, no signal at all up stairs (would disconnect) and even if I was in the same room as the router I wouldn't have any wifi signal bars (unless I was smack bang next to the router)
Anyway I Googled the issues and saw 5 hat it is a common problem, tried all the usual stuff and nothing worked so decided to get my tools out. Anyway here is how and what I did, I'm not sayo g this will work for everyone but it worked for me.
I recommend you have a professional do this unless you have the knowledge and skills base.
Things you'll need;
Small screwdriver set,
Small tweezers
Magnifying glass (optional but makes it somewhat easier)
patience is key here.
Any how,
Once you've removed the back chassis from your phone and mother board you will see these prongs
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*this photo is from Google as I was doing this repair to my daily phone do couldn't use for photos* lol
Anyway on mine this prong had come loose and therefore wasn't contacting properly, I pinpointed this anyway as when you pressed on the back of the phone the signal would boost,
Anyway this is where you need your soldering iron, and a spare motherboard, you could possibly use something else but I had spare motherboards lying around so used one from a crapberry
So once you've let your soldering iron get up to temperature press it as close as you can to the underneath of this prong to liquidise the solder underneath, be patient, I held the soldering iron there for 10-15 seconds before it liquidised. you'll know when it's hot enough as the prong will move, I held it with small tweezers to make it easier.
So now you should have your old prong removed, move this away as not to get confused with the one your replacing it with. Repeat above steps for the one from your spare motherboard.
Once you've done that, if you have a flux pen lightly cover the solder pads, place your prong on them with the tweezers and hold it still, then hold your soldering iron on the prong for about 30-60 seconds to be safe, gently move away your soldering iron away from it and if it's tight on you've done it successfully.
I will post up some photos of the full process but this should be easy enough to follow. And I'm sure you'll be able to find a guide on you tube (if not I'll upload one)
Hope this helps. Feel free to comment with any questions etc.
There are some posts suggesting some hardware mods including foil e.t.c. not being to fond of this kind of tinkering I decided to read into the service manual (found on several different places, so not going to link it again) and came to the conclusion they were not targeting the correct location.
The following procedure is fairly simple (the g3 is actually fairly easy to work on), but requires bending two sensitive switches (other than that it does not even require removal of the motherboard).
WARNING: I am NOT responsible for ANY damage, problems or anything else you do to your phone, please ask someone to help you if you are uncertain or lacking experience!
Symptoms:
Long time to lock
Lock is intermittent (random signal loss)
No lock in crowded areas
Random location jumps
Inaccurate positioning
Fix:
Given that a GPS lock was possible and the problems occurred on multiple roms a hardware issue was the biggest suspect. For some time I held of opening the phone because previous phone's had proven quite difficult to disassemble and warranty still hadn't run out. Turns out it is nice and easy to open and look inside the g3:good:
Reading the D855 service manual on page 139 there is a section called "Checking GPS RF Signal path" (if you do not have a D855 please consult the correct manual, there could be differences between models), which points to a location on the top left side of the motherboard with some spring contacts. Given that these contacts are small my best guess was they were bent and would not connect properly anymore.
Get a small screw driver which snugly fits the screws beneath the cover (as a general tool tip always ensure the screwdriver (or bit) is the correct size)
Get a bowl/tray (or similar) to retain any removed items (this helps against missing screws/other small objects)
Power down the phone and remove the cover and battery
Remove all visible screws, take note of the one shorter screw by the camera (all other screws are the same length)
Open up the back plate
Bent the two connectors (see image below) slightly upwards away from the motherboard (DO NOT overdo this, breaking them would result in bigger issues, metal fatigue is easily triggered)
Reapply the back plate (should click into place quite easily)
Reapply the screws
Reinsert the battery
Add the cover (the cover contains the antenna)
Boot the phone
Test your GPS outside
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This thread is cool!
One of the few posts about this topic which point to the correct (GPS) antenna. This antenna is also used for diversity reception on one of the LTE bands.
The only thing I can add:
It is also possible to fix the issue by modifying rear housing. You can carefully remove the glued plastic tape with GPS antenna terminals from the rear housing and re-glue it using some double sided electrical tape (or something similar). This way antenna terminals will be more firmly pressing against the mainboard.
This method is a bit safer as upon failure only the rear housing needs to be replaced (instead of soldering the terminals to the mainboard). Of course modifying rear housing leaves visible trace (so warranty will be void).
if you're looking for charging port fix, here is a small tip i hope could help you..
you can read all the thread or just jump to bottom line
my charging port stopped working after about 3 months of usage.
this was very frustrating, and didn't happen at once. at first i had to put the charging cable in certain direction, and later on i had to put some leverage on that direction, until eventually i couldn't charge at all.
it is known that this phone is one of the hardest to open, and once you put it on the "surgical table" it's hard to finish the job without "scars" , so i do understand those of you who chooses repair stores over fixing adventures. on the other hand, at least in my country, HTC repair cost so much that you ought to think about other options.
So then my tip is for those of you who have the willing and repair equipment.
You'd probably look for replacement charging board, which indeed are very cheap, and then just check out one of the many tear-down youtube videos explaining how to open the phone and replace the port.
i chose to fix the exist port instead.
to be honest, i also bought replacement. but not only it got damaged, i've found out after opening the phone that there are the two different boards for 32G/16G versions. so instead of buying another part, and waiting another month or so until arrival, i figured i can try and check out what went wrong with the current one.
i did use lab microscope to find out the problem, but there weren't many suspects to begin with.
turns out for 3 out of the 5 micro USB pins (the middle 3) - the connection to the board got broken.
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so i just used friend help and soldered the 5, and voilà, phone charging again..
note that -
1. the pins were barely soldered to the board. very little amount of tin
2. I've checked my USB cables and it does look like the metal connector length differ in sizes from one to another. even if not by much, it's clearly visible. so it's very likely that inserting a cable with long connector time after time just broke the connection.
bottom line,
if your charging port malfunctions, and you happen to have soldering equipment, or a friend who does, just carefully solder/strengthen exist soldering of the 5 USB pins to the charging board.
i guess you can even take the board and ask for any electronic repair shop just to solder those. will cost much less than expert store repair