Blog Archives

Don't drink and phone

6/30/2015

Turns out, alcohol and phones don't mix. By referral, I received a message via Facebook about helping someone out with their wet phone. No other information was given. I met up with the customer and asked a few questions about the situation. Turns out a sugary cocktail was spilled on the phone. We're not talking about a splash either. The 4S was "dead", with the exception of the camera flash stuck in flashlight mode. It took a little while to remove the back panel on this 4S. It was held on tight by whatever sticky concoction had surrounded and penetrated the phone. Once the rear panel was off, a sticky mess presented itself on the battery and logic board. I could immediately tell this phone had been worked on before due to the foam pads missing on the LCD and digitizer flex connections - the screen had been replaced before. Removing the camera and logic board, if any doubt remained that someone had been tinkering around in there before, it was instantly stripped away by looking at the camera. There's a gold grounding clip that is secured to the logic board by a screw. This grounding clip makes contact with the camera's metal case. Someone apparently broke the screw hole off the grounding clip and decided to just tape it to the camera with electrical tape!!! (photo below) Who does that??? Someone who shouldn't be repairing phones, I would guess. The grounding clip is connected to ground by the screw, without the screw, it's just a piece of metal taped to a camera!

How crazy is that??
After removing the shields from the logic board and running it through the ultrasonic cleaner, rinsed, and dried, it fired right up! Photo on left shows the backlight glowing and on the right, the screen is attached by a test flex and there are two batteries because the one in the phone is the original and dead. Rather than remove it, I just placed a known good battery over it and plugged it in.

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Dropped my phone in water...currently in rice

6/24/2015

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Received this voicemail recently after someone was referred to one of my Facebook pages. I cut out his name and number. I tell people not to put wet phones in rice, but he informs me that "everywhere else they do" - recommend putting your phone in rice. Rice did nothing for his phone, and I handed him back a working phone after working a little magic. Stop the insanity. Stop putting your wet phone in rice!

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Now you can find a better, tastier purpose for your rice

6/23/2015

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Far from complete, we've added a new tab to the website - one for rice recipes, so you'll know of a better use of those rice grains than wasting them on futile things, like saving wet electronics.

Click here to visit our "rice (and other) recipes" page

You may notice that our first recipe has little to do with rice. :)

Well, here at http://www.riceisfordinner.com, we are self-proclaimed foodies and we spend almost as much time in the kitchen as we do in the repair shop. On a recent trip to San Francisco, we discovered a local favorite - cioppino! If you love seafood, you may love this dish as much as we do.

We'll be adding more recipes soon - including rice dishes.

Enjoy!

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5C, DOA has been resurrected

6/17/2015

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This iPhone 5C arrived last week, lifeless (one of my microscopes can be seen in a reflection on the screen). It came to me from another repair shop 2,100 miles away. That shop reported cleaning it in an ultrasonic cleaner (with the board shields on), but had no luck reviving it.

Opening it up, the first thing I did was inspect the board under a microscope. Three things immediately stood out. The LCD connector was damaged. There was a tiny SMD component knocked off the board (a noise reduction filter), and there were still trace amounts of corrosion on the logic board.

This is the logic board near the LCD connector under the microscope. The circled area shows damaged pins on the LCD connector (they should resemble the pins on the top side of the connector in the photo). The red arrow points to where the filter (an inductor - more on that in a bit) should be. The bottom left solder pad still has a piece of the filter's corner.

I suspect that a tool being used to pry the LCD connection loose either slipped and scrapped/crushed the area in the circle and pried the filter loose or the connector wasn't in alignment when someone tried pressing it into place - so they increased the downward pressure and caused the damage seen in the photo in the process.

I de-soldered the board shields (below is my video on how I do that - shown on an iPhone 5. It is the same for a 5C and other models). After removing the shields, more corrosion under the shields could be seen (photo to the left). The board was then placed in my ultrasonic cleaner (link to that at the end of this post) with some Branson EC cleaning solution. After being cleaned again, the board was rinsed in isopropyl alcohol to displace water in the tiny crevices of the board, to remove the ultrasonic cleaning residue (the Branson EC), and to speed up drying the board since alcohol evaporates faster than water - though rinsing in distilled water is okay too.

Next, the board was re-inspected under the microscope. No other evidence of damage could be seen, so repairing the LCD connector and replacing the missing filter came next.

Search the internet and you'll find there are several ways to remove logic board shields that are soldered on. This is how I do it on iPhone boards after experimenting with a few methods.

To help demonstrate just how small this missing component is, I sat one next to a dime and took a photo through the microscope. The red arrow is pointing at the filter. The top side is visible. Underneath it are 4 solder pads - one in each corner. All 4 need to be soldered to the board. The component is barely wider than the i in the word dime!

I decided to dissect one under the microscope. Carefully scrapping the bottom off reveals the tiny coils of wire inside! The upper left corner of the pic (below) is one of the solder pads. A drop of alcohol was placed on it to rinse it off for the photo and the white streak is light glare on the alcohol from the microscope.

Below is a photo of various other inductors like the one to the left and above. An inductor is essentially a coil of wire around a core. Sometimes the core is "air". The inductor in photo on the left is less than a millimeter long. Some of the inductors below can be up to an inch or more!

As you can see in the image to the left, the missing filter (inductor) is literally a tiny black spec to the naked eye.

Using JBC's hot tweezers and soldering pencil (shown below), soldering the tiny component to the logic board was a piece of cake under a microscope (link to the microscope I was using at the end of this post).

With the cleaning and soldering done, it was time to test it out. Assuming the battery was dead, rather than press the power button, I plugged in a charge cord. A second later, the Apple shows up!

There's nothing better than taking a "dead" device, working on it, then seeing it power on for the first time. The battery showed 5% when the phone powered on and changed to 6% a short time later - indicating the battery was charging. Unplugging the power cord, the phone stayed on - indicating the battery circuit was functioning as it should.

The 5C, DOA on the left and after some more cleaning and micro soldering on the right!

Below are some links to some of the tools I use to bring wet phones back to life. Description on left, image on right. Click the image for more info or to order via Amazon.

This is the ultrasonic cleaner I primarily use for restoring wet electronics. It's large enough to hold iPad and even MacBook boards. The basket is sold separately. Click on the images to view on Amazon. Yes it's pricey, but it's worth it! Trust me, ultrasonic cleaners can run well over $1,000! ;)

If you prefer Crest ultrasonic cleaners, this 3/4 gallon will hold phone and iPad boards and includes the basket, but for a little more money than the Elma machine shown above that I use. Both have analog heat and timer switches and both have a "sweep" function built in to ensure uniform, consistent cleaning within the tank. Ultrasonic cleaners that don't sweep are not "good" for cleaning electronics as hot spots can develop in the cleaning solution, risking damage to sensitive components.

This is the microscope I use 95% of the time for micro soldering. It's an AmScope SM-4TZ-144-10MT Digital Professional Trinocular Stereo Zoom Microscope and includes a 10.7mp camera to make videos or snap photos of what you're doing under the microscope.

This is the soldering station I use for a lot of SMD work. I have a separate station for hot air and a larger Hakko iron for larger jobs or where more heat is needed. This JBC station can do so much that it deserves its own future blog post. In the meantime, you can google it or click the link (image to right) to read more. :)

This is the Hakko iron I use for larger jobs, like battery connectors and charge ports.

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What do you mean you "cracked your screen"?

6/11/2015

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A whole month in rice... :(

6/9/2015

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Purpose

#1 Blogging to inform the masses of the silliness that is: "put your wet phone in rice". Rice cannot save your phone; follow the blog to find out why. If you feel like rice saved your phone, you got lucky. Nothing more. Nothing less.

#2 To offer high quality repair services, phone, and of course, rice accessories at a great price. Be sure to visit the store. New products and services are continually being added, so check back often.

Don't drink and phone

Dropped my phone in water...currently in rice

Now you can find a better, tastier purpose for your rice

5C, DOA has been resurrected

What do you mean you "cracked your screen"?

A whole month in rice... :(

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