Mobile Phones Broken/Spares & Repair Etc

[Jonj1611]

Its incredibly tiny sizes you are dealing with, you are right about the gear, its a pretty hefty outlay to be honest. I think the microscope I got was about £360, then the hot air rework station, soldering station, various fluxes, soldering wire, multimeter, power suppy, repair heat plate and on and on it goes.

Reballing yes, though I currently only have the stencils for all the iphones, my solder paste is currently in the fridge I have done a few, for practice with varying success, just now at the point where things are actually working after being soldered.

Jumping wires is the trickiest thing I have ever done, the sizes are miniscule, 0.1mm wire :/

If you can get some hot tweezers does make taking filters etc out a lot easier in a crowded space, sometimes though depending on what it is, you can just knock it off the board entirely and the board continues to work.

Things have got a lot more complicated with the latest iphones, they have sandwiched the mainboard together in two halves.

I am finding consumables pricey though, like genuine flux etc

However depending on what needs to be done, most of the time can be spent taking a phone apart and putting it back together rather than the actual "job"

[watercooled]

I've found consumables can be hugely variable in cost, but thankfully decent cored solder seems to last forever anyway, so the initial cost for investing in 500g reels is generally worth it in the long run. Some made-in-2004 0.5mm 63/37 Kester #50/245 is my most commonly used and flows nicely.

I have some 20swg Omega for bigger stuff (power supplies for instance). Also got a reel of very fine Kester 60/40 331 flux stuff that I don't really get on with, it seems very spitty. If the list seems a bit random it's because it is! I generally just grab it when it's cheap on ebay and experiment with it.

As for fluxes, again I've experimented with a few, from Kester pens to some Termopasty paste/liquid (available on ebay, it's not a typo). They generally seem fine for what I use it for by YMMV of course with reflow work.

Annoyingly, some places like Rapid won't even sell leaded solder to individuals now. I'm tempted to try some of the more modern lead free alloys/fluxes to see how I get on with them. Do you have a stance on that? I do wonder how much of the lead-free fear is just a hang-over from the early days.

One thing I noticed a *massive* difference in was desoldering braid. I tried some mystery brand braid from ebay years ago which was dreadful. The Servisol stuff I use now is just so much better... in that it actually works. And I'm really not being pretentious about it, it just didn't work lol.


Regarding phone work, one unusual 'tool' I keep to hand is a pair of welding gloves. I managed to burn my finger quite badly trying to pry out a glued battery once so always try to wear gloves when doing that now. And do it outdoors of course, just in case...

[Jonj1611]

I use 0.4 or 0.5 63/37 with a resin core, have been using it with Amtech 559 flux. I found it worked well without spitting, I did try using the flux pens but not sure if I had a bad batch but found them just dripping out of the nib and didn't have much control with it, plus it was spitting all over the board.

I only buy leaded solder as it brings down the melting point of unleaded solder on phone boards. I have tried lead free solder but found the higher melting point can make it harder to work with, however depends if you are working to spec, depending on what you are doing some jobs would require lead free to be used but not really in mobile phone repairs.

Ah solder braid, yes I too have had some that did absolutely nothing and others that have done quite well. I am currently using gootwick.

I generally buy leaded solder from ebay, especially with the amount I am going through at the moment, however places like RS Online sell leaded solder

[Jonj1611]

I haven't needed any welding gloves yet but as you can imagine I am seeing a fair few batteries at the moment, some puffed up! Bloke at the local tip was a bit surprised today when I came in with about 20 batteries!

I should add I have a fume extractor for when I use leaded solder.

[jimborae]

Loving this thread! Wish I had the time & all the kit to learn how to do this. I have Switch motherboard that needs a new USB-C port soldered on, inherited a brand new Quick 861DW hot air station & managed to get the old one off but I've not yet managed to successfully solder a new one on and in the process of trying seem to have managed to knock off something tiny elswhere on the board that I definitely wont be able to put back on if can ever identify it!

Desoldering braid..........the stuff I got was crap and doesn't work at all, one was Silverline (should have known better and the other Ican't see a name on it...doh! )

[Jonj1611]

The Quick gear is really good, and pricey for that matter but a lot of people swear by it. It is so so easy to knock things off when you are trying to put something else on. Ask me how I know Half the fun is identifying the part you need and if you ever lose a component, just say goodbye to it as it enters another dimension never to be seen again. I have had that happen when the air speed has been too high on the hot air station. First of all its damn it followed by what was it, followed by bugger.

Take a look at this, it may help you, this bloke makes it look soooooooo easy.

[Jonj1611]

Video seems to be out of sync but his other videos aren't.

[jimborae]

Yeah watched all his vids re switch & mac repairs & Louis Rossman & Tronixfix etc. Loved the ones when they get kids come in & help with the repairs, at least they have the eyes for it.

Re knocking bit's off, you're not wrong there, they just disappear into the ether, I mean carpet!!. I only realised it had happened when I was studying the board schematic and comparing it to mine for the umpteenth time and realised it was missing. What I think happened was that the board holding device thingy (or whatever you call it) had allowed the motherboard to shift slightly and it must have caught the component when it was hot as it was well away from where I was working with the hot air station and was right around where the board was being held.

[Jonj1611]

Yep when things are hot they just fall off, it is so so easy to do and once that bit is lost, its never coming back. If you buy the components from somewhere like Mouser you would be surprised how cheap they are, one of the filters on a mainboard you can buy 100 for about £1.50

Using a microscope makes things a lot easier, and you feel like you are entering another world, I actually find it quite peaceful looking through the microscope and soldering, it is still fiddly and any hand shaking will cause no end of problems so a steady hand is a must! I was doing some soldering a couple of weeks ago and was just at the critical point of putting a filter on the board when I had a twitch in my hand and wiped out a load of capacitors :/

[Jonj1611]

Here is my current setup



The silver thing at the back next to the PSU is my laptop which I use for phone schematics etc

[jimborae]

Can't see any photos.

[Jonj1611]

Your right, I can see it though. Will get on it

[Jonj1611]

Hopefully can be seen now

[jimborae]

Hopefully can be seen now

Yep that's a sweet setup! If only I had the time & money

[jimborae]

Fancy having a go at soldering a USB-C port back onto a switch motherboard then for me?

[Jonj1611]

Yep that's a sweet setup! If only I had the time & money

Thanks There is more of it but can't get it all on the desk at the same time, also have an ultrasonic cleaner for liquid damaged boards and a few three drawers full of consumables, iphone and android power connectors and broken devices etc