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My battery has gone to hell. After getting it down to 5% one day, it just would not hold a charge long. Then I got it down to 10% a week later, and it really got bad. Life is about 1/3 what it used to be. I also have some dust and even small hairs or flecks in the screen.
So...I ordered a new advance replacement unit from T-Mobile, and it just arrived. Simple enough? Well, I have the memory upgrade in mine, so I need to do some component swapping. What's the best way to go about this? What parts can be disconnected easily (or more importantly, reconnected)? Where is the damn battery (didn't see it in the disassembly photos on the site)?
Hi,
Carlos said:
So...I ordered a new advance replacement unit from T-Mobile, and it just arrived. Simple enough? Well, I have the memory upgrade in mine, so I need to do some component swapping. What's the best way to go about this? What parts can be disconnected easily (or more importantly, reconnected)? Where is the damn battery (didn't see it in the disassembly photos on the site)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Please specify 'component swapping' in more detail... Are you actually thinking about swapping the memory upgrade??? You do know that that would mean desoldering the 2 big memory chips on both boards, cleaning them and the boards, and soldering them back... How good are you at smd soldering??? We haven't dared doing that, yet... (some pics of upgrading memory of an iPaq are available at http://www.linearlogix.com/ipaq/upgradereview.html
There are commercial services doing the upgrade (32 -> 64 mb), if I were you I'd contact one of those.
Other than that, we're currently swapping lcd screens, touchpanels, mainboards from 3 broken units to create 2 working units and 1 very broken one. So, what do you need to know exactly?
BTW, the battery is stuck on the inside of the back cover.
XDA developer bigmac (taking pictures of the open units right now...)
No, no, I can solder normal stuff, but not that. I mean, I assume what I need to do is keep my own motherboard. I'd like the screen, case, and battery from the new unit. On the radio section, I suppose it doesn't matter either way. So I incorrectly said "component" when what I really meant was "board," and desired advice on doing that.
The hazards of posting in the middle of the night after too much work.
Carlos said:
No, no, I can solder normal stuff, but not that. I mean, I assume what I need to do is keep my own motherboard. I'd like the screen, case, and battery from the new unit. On the radio section, I suppose it doesn't matter either way. So I incorrectly said "component" when what I really meant was "board," and desired advice on doing that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, so you want to use the screen/touchpanel/backlight assembly from the new one (smart move, not taking that apart; besides the fact that it's glued together and you need to separate it on the correct separation, that also leaves the risk of forgetting the correct orientation of the glass panel with little dots on it, used to distribute the backlight evently onto the lcd; and, there are slightly different assemblies out there which need slightly different panels...). You should keep all boards from the old unit (old mainboard including old radio unit, use the new screen/touchpanel/backlight assemly, and the new case (which includes the new battery).
You could consider swapping IMEI numbers on the units... Although _shops_ never register the numbers when they give out units, service departments might. You know where to find the tool to do that...
The screwing around of the parts should not take more than half an hour if it's the first time you take apart this unit (but have taken apart small electronics before) and less if you've done it before.
Beware of the really thin clear plastic rings used under the screws to screw down the display...
We won't be publishing a very detailed 'how to swap your screen' instruction any time soon but do have some raw unedited pictures of the operation. I'll see if we can get them online any time soon.
Have fun,
XDA developer bigmac
I ended up doing the change and ran into a snag--the plastic pin that sticks out of the top power button was loose or broken (probably happened in one of the many drops the unit has experienced). When I opened the case, I lost that. Had to send it to PPC Techs to have them solder in a new power switch.
Other than that, disassembly is pretty easy and straightforward. You mentioned you won't publish a how-to...is that because of not wanting to have it on the site, or that nobody wants to write one? If the latter, I'd be happy to write it up and include my detailed pics.
If you want to make a detailed howto on how to open and close the unit, and how to exchange certain parts, we will gladly put it on!
Do make sure to stress that people need a certain level of experience or be willing to risk losing the device though...
So, I've been spending the better part of an hour scouring over the Anandtech teardown gallery of the prime trying to get a decent understanding of the GPS/WiFi antennas and the underlying design flaws which contribute to these features messing up; namely the giant metal shield of a cover and the placement of the antennas. They're not exactly in a bad place, but I guess Asus assumed that if you were using WiFi/GPS with your tablet then you would always do so with the screen facing the AP/satellites. In reality, mine at least, it's the back of the device generally pointing to these things. Maybe I place my network hubs in strange places and enjoy astronomy apps too much?
Now on to the actual question, especially to any of you who have gotten the device and been brave enough to peek inside it yourself; would creating my own plastic windows/metal grates within the aluminum backing actually help anything? Do these antennas broadcast a 360 degree signal or are they directional? The motherboard itself would allow decent signal to get to the transmitter wouldn't it, so long as the case does?
My order isn't set to ship for another month, but I think I'll be getting this tablet regardless of the known issues, though the audio/video problems with the miniHDMI port make me a bit nervous. This thing will still be a power-house even as better spec'd tablets come out, just like my single-core Desire Z is still pretty relevant and decent. Just not top-of-the-line, and it wasn't for any real amount of time, but that's just how these things go.
Ideally, the antenna would couple to the whole backplate, making a big slot antenna (but then it starts to risk being too directional). It's just as probably that the issue is noise or feeble pogo-pin connectors.
If you do make a cut-out, it needs to be about 1 wavelength larger than the outline of the antenna (and you risk de-tuning the antenna if it was designed to operate in close proximity to a groundplane)
tshoulihane said:
Ideally, the antenna would couple to the whole backplate, making a big slot antenna (but then it starts to risk being too directional). It's just as probably that the issue is noise or feeble pogo-pin connectors.
If you do make a cut-out, it needs to be about 1 wavelength larger than the outline of the antenna (and you risk de-tuning the antenna if it was designed to operate in close proximity to a groundplane)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Coupling to the backplate, though increasing power decreases accuracy doesn't it?
I hadn't thought of the pogo-pins as a possible culprit, that's certainly possible.
Couldn't I make a couple windows and retro-fit either some plastic or plexi-glass into the design? Would that help keep from de-tuning, especially if kept to a small size with accurate positioning?
Thank you for the response, I know nothing of the finer details on GPS and other wireless signals.
*Edit: After re-reading and thinking, I actually understand what you're saying. Plastic or no, any cutout would need to be a very specific size larger than the antenna itself which would take more than I would be able to do I'm sure. Oh well, I know I'll still love this thing, so long as the miniHDMI works properly, I'll be happy. Phone's GPS works like a dream.
And now I apologize. I found it odd not finding topics on this, but now I've found them and have a bit more of an understanding on the matter. Namely that the cpu seems to have a strong possibility of creating interference for the chip. The casing apparently just worsens the issue.
Sent from my HTC Vision using xda premium
buxtahuda said:
And now I apologize. I found it odd not finding topics on this, but now I've found them and have a bit more of an understanding on the matter. Namely that the cpu seems to have a strong possibility of creating interference for the chip. The casing apparently just worsens the issue.
Sent from my HTC Vision using xda premium
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Click to collapse
How sure are we about this? I've read that Apple puts their WiFi antenna behind the black plastic logo on their WiFi-only models for exactly this reason. Not only that, but on the 3g models they simply have all the wireless modules placed on top of the device where they are covered with black plastic as well.
It seems to me that a stupid plastic apple cutout - a complex geometric shape - is not likely capable of being as "tuned" as a rectangular cutout. Yet, I think it's safe to say that the 3G and WiFi versions of the iPad have similar if not identical WiFi performance. That is to say, I don't think manufactures are using the aluminum back for anything other than looking pretty. I think it's safe to hack away at.
Thoughts?
JazzMac251 said:
I don't think manufactures are using the aluminum back for anything other than looking pretty.
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Click to collapse
Maybe for some heat dispersion too?
I wish they would start selling the back plate only (like they do with ipods etc)
That way i'm sure someone could cutout a shape and try the antenna behind a plastic window etc, but youd always have the option to put the original back.
I wouldnt mind modding mine after the garantee has ran out.
I think Asus might consider making an after-market backplate that they would fit to your Prime after they have fully tested the issues.
Docaroo said:
I think Asus might consider making an after-market backplate that they would fit to your Prime after they have fully tested the issues.
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Click to collapse
I've been thinking that even if Asus didn't some third party will. And I'm willing to get to cutting the day it arrives if I can determine it'll help. However, I don't want just an open grate for dust and junk to get into. Maybe just a thin fabric filter, or should I close it up with some plastic/plexiglass and epoxy?
Sent from my HTC Vision using xda premium
buxtahuda said:
I've been thinking that even if Asus didn't some third party will. And I'm willing to get to cutting the day it arrives if I can determine it'll help. However, I don't want just an open grate for dust and junk to get into. Maybe just a thin fabric filter, or should I close it up with some plastic/plexiglass and epoxy?
Sent from my HTC Vision using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't see why plastic wouldn't work. It's what the iPad has and it seems to work out in that case.
You should consider cross-posting this in the "General" forum. It is a "question", but the General forum gets a LOT more eyeballs.
JazzMac251 said:
I don't see why plastic wouldn't work. It's what the iPad has and it seems to work out in that case.
You should consider cross-posting this in the "General" forum. It is a "question", but the General forum gets a LOT more eyeballs.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i agree, this post should be on general... this would be a great solution, a homemade plastic ipad-like hole... we need it, and if third party doesnt do this, we will have to do it...
well, but anyone tested the device without the case to see the real power of the wifi-gps-bt ?
Yakandu said:
i agree, this post should be on general... this would be a great solution, a homemade plastic ipad-like hole... we need it, and if third party doesnt do this, we will have to do it...
well, but anyone tested the device without the case to see the real power of the wifi-gps-bt ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I will be, but it's still a good two-four weeks before I have mine. All mentions of it I've seen in general never get answered, I haven't seen anyone comment on whether or not they've tried without the backing. Probably because most aren't willing to try and heat up the glue to do so or damage the thing in the process...
Some expertise required
Does the aluminium back plate attenuate both wifi and gps signals? From what I have read it seems to be confirmed that this is the situation, although other factors such as internal interference have NOT been discounted, nor has the connection method (gold pogo pin) between motherboard and the antennae (blackened out pcb strip). I have noted on the TF101 Transformer teardown, a very similar placement of both WIFI and GPS antennae to that on the TF201 Transformer Prime - near the top edge and adjacent each other. Looking at similarities between models, an obvious and perhaps too simple explination would be the aluminium back plate. There does seem to be some interest in experimenting with making some holes (similar to the speaker grill), on the back plate in front of the antennae in the hope that it MAY improve reception. I have read numerous posts and was hoping that someone may have tried this. I don't want to hear about the merits of having or not having a GPS and how it matters to them personaly etc - lets focus people, but whether someone has had the ability and knowledge to try it. I am unsure given the wavelength of both GPS and WIFI (1.2 / 1.5 Ghz) whether mutliple small holes would do it. I feel that a transparent plastic window may be required. I do not believe the back plate is used a coupled ground plate etc. and it is used purely as the chasis. Come on - there has to be some smart engineering graduates/professionals who are willing to give this a go...it would have been nice if they were paid by ASUS but that seems unlikely. Point to note - that the GPS and WIFI antennas (there are two for the WIFI on the TF201) would be obtaining some reception through the front gorilla glass and plastic (on which the antennae are mounted). My question is - what and IF modifications are necessary to the back plate to obtain better reception. Any ideas?
I have not seen a single test where anyone proved it was the back plate. Anyone have a link to a test that shows the prime navigating successfully without the back plate?
Hi there,
as i wrote in the Rainbow Mod for Lumia 800 thread, i'll try to restore DLOAD, update to latest FW, and restore Qualcomm (all with ATF Testpoint) again, that i can give you updated files on Partition 3 of the phone, that the latest rainbow mod build will be working on all phones...
But it seemed that i had a pretty shaky hand, when i was soldering my device, that i "destroyed" a component.
First, it was still fitting, but a little "twistet" as you can see on the pictures attached.
I checked if the phone is still working, and it did, except the "light sensor" which turns off the display when making a call... I can now cancel the call with my ear accidently
I realised an extreme heat and battery consumption when making a call... but maybe it just seems so, because i'm looking for "mistakes" because of the broken component...
Then, because of this, i disassembled my phone again, to check the component... and i just touched it a little bit, and now it fell off...
The component i'm talking about is called "L1605" in the schematics plan, so it should be a "coil" (hope this is correct, as English isn't my native lang...)
Of course, because it "fell off", i don't know how it was placed before. Does a coil have a "polarity", i mean "+" or "-" ? or can i just solder it back onto the mainboard?
i hope you can help me
cheers
hi there,
i searched again and found out, that the "L1605" is an "27nH_0402". In the schematics plan it's part of the "reciever", as you can see in the image attached.
Can you tell me if this coil is important? It "just" goes to GND, so maybe it would be enough to just connect the to pins (were the coil was placed) with some solder ?
It also seems to be part of "FM & GND", so maybe it's just important for FM Radio? I don't use this anyway...
pls help!
i guess it has no polarity...but if u could upload a more detailed picture maybe i can see it clearly..
or search for ( as u can see the black component which has a white sign near the two condensator - it has polarity ) signs, i mean +, or a little colored circle on the component, or some cut-off and if it has one of these it has polarity.
what kind of paste did u use for the soldering? leadless or pb? it does matter.
ps : L means Inductor
It's a simple inductor. You can just solder it back in. It has no polarity.
Do not shorten the contacts. The circuit will probably behave bad.
hi there,
can you recommend me any "special" hardware?
With links would be great!
I only have an ordinary soldering-iron, whrere the tip is 3 times larger then the component
cheers
Here is some of the equipment I use for such a fix:
* Weller WES51 soldering station
* Weller ETU soldering iron fine tip
* curved fine tip tweezers
* straight tip dissection probe
* 20x stereo microscope
* solder
The WES51 soldering iron is available for under US $100 online (Amazon and elsewhere) with a variety of replacement tips available for about US $5 each, and I recommend it if you will be doing much soldering. Otherwise, you can probably find a cheaper one with a fine tip, but without temperature control. When soldering and desoldering small two contact components such as your broken inductor, the best method I've found is to use a second soldering iron so you can melt the solder on both the pads at the same time. Small components are hard to handle, so tweezers and a long sharp needle / dissection tip are very helpful. It's hard to see what you are doing at that scale, so a stereo microscope is almost mandatory. AmScope has some cheap microscopes that are adequate for this purpose, or you can find a fancier used one on eBay. My only complaints with the AmScope microscope I have is that the depth of field is somewhat shallow and I need to get my face closer to the work area than I would like. You can use and lead/tin alloy or lead-free solder designed for electronics use to do a fix like this. Lead / tin alloy solder melts at a lower temperature and is much easier to work with than lead-free solder but may not be as easily available in some countries.
I can't tell for sure without a bill of materials for the phone, but based on what you've said it seems like the replacement part is a 27 nH air core inductor 0402 size such as Murata LQW15AN27NJ00D, which is easily available through Digi-Key and possibly other online electronics component vendors.
Here's a question for a hardware modification: Anyone know of anyone modifying the charging base to make it easier to charge when on the go? I use my watch while sleeping to wake me up thanks to Gohma's sup'd up vibration and sometimes don't have time in the morning to charge it while getting ready for the day.
I've ordered a second base to take with me and am thinking of taking it apart to get it set up to just connect to while at the computer without taking off the watch. Has anyone else done something similar so I don't have to fully reverse engineer this thing to get it working nicely?
Gotta say, Not a fan of having to take it off to charge it.
Findings and going forward
Ok, For future reference: the sticky backing can be peeled off to reveal five or six small screws. These hold the base together and removing them allows for fairly easy separation. I discovered this after a good long while of trying to separate the two pieces. I was working under the impression they were being held together by clips and had mangled the side pieces pretty well until I discovered the screws. Probably should have looked closer and removed the backing first but....
Inside are the following:
1 board with the pins on one side and usb port on the other. The majority of it looks to be straight through with a few places for diodes and such but unless they are situated inside the pcb, I don't see them and they just dead end at the marking points.
two layers of metal and another layer attached to the top of the base sufficient to hold the screws pretty well in place. I assume that at least one or two of them are there to help with any possible electromagnetic interference. I haven't had a chance to delve too deeply into testing it.
Really simple and could be done very cleanly with the right tools and enough time. I am working on getting a suitable setup to slim up the base. I'm thinking of a more oval shaped setup and will stop by a radio shack on the way home today to get some molding putty to play with.
The hardest part with running the card on its own is the placement of the pins. They won't stay in place with any sort of movement. I have a feeling I will still use some if not all of the original magnets/metal pieces just in a slimmer casing. Possibly include a battery pack strapped to my arm with a short length of usb cabling.
The original idea was to reverse engineer the card to fit a smaller placement but I have a feeling that would be beyond my skill set right now. For version 1.0 I'll just use the current card and make it fit in a smaller area.
Any thoughts on any of this would be greatly appreciated as I continue forward.
Hallo, i have a bit of an unconventional question
I bought cheap LG V30 with broken display glass i planned to repair.
While disassembling phone i accidently peel off and lost 3 small components from main board PCB.
I just want to ask if someone have opportunity to make macro photos from functional phone or possibly to idetify (i belive they are all resistors?), measure them, or any help.
Attaching photos of affected part.
Thanx!
still needed?
Hallo, yes.
This photo came from iFixit.
https://imgur.com/a/dobA2Xx
It's the best quality photo i can find.
Based from it, it looks like it has a contact pin, no idea if it's really that important, but you can short out the resistors that is connected to the cellular module
Edit:
Label 1 and 2 can be shorted, label 3 is not that important, and you will need to resolder a contact pin again, get from other phones that has one
What model is that?
I wanted to make photos from a V300S (korean), but the pcb looks different, sorry.
Next week I can make photos from a H930 (european), but I think it looks different too, I will see.
I can send you a motherboard that I think is a soft brick if you like....
It is a vs996.
Hi, thank you much guys!
I bought that phone as H930 - european, not chcecked what model is it exactly before disassembly. But then i noticed PCB is marked as H930DS - it makes this phone even more valuable for me... But it might be same board for single and dual SIM, so i don't know...
so, here are pictures from a european H930 Single Sim.
The parts are so small, I can`t measure the components.
I hope it helps nevertheless.
Yep, definitely a contact pin for the cellular module.
As i mentioned before you can try shorting out the two resistors so it can directly go to the contact pin
raillpl said:
Hallo, i have a bit of an unconventional question
I bought cheap LG V30 with broken display glass i planned to repair.
While disassembling phone i accidently peel off and lost 3 small components from main board PCB.
I just want to ask if someone have opportunity to make macro photos from functional phone or possibly to idetify (i belive they are all resistors?), measure them, or any help.
Attaching photos of affected part.
Thanx!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi Have you solve your problem yet? I had a similar question and I got help. I think in your situation it would be better to give the circuit check board. I did so and they told me where my mistakes were and made a complete diagram. One day I decided to collect a circuit for a device that would control electrical technique from a distance. This is an expensive system and I decided to do it myself, but it was very difficult and I had to ask for help from experts. Of course, can be experts on the forums, but if not, I recommend following my steps I made a diagram with several errors and everything was fixed for me. Now I know more. If someone has a similar experience, share, I'm interested