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before i start, here is a link to the gallery of all of the images i have taken... so you can jump there and see what i am talking about.
okay, so here is my story: i have a Star/Ulefone Note 3 clone that is model N9002. about 2 months ago, the thing started refusing to charge. the usb port in the bottom was extremely loose and it wouldn't charge/wouldn't connect to a computer. i checked a bunch of advice online about cleaning out the port and about trying to tighten up the port by squeezing it a bit with a pair of pliers. none of this helped. i thought maybe something inside might be broken, i had no idea (at the time) how these things were assembled, and thought maybe the usb port just needed to be re-soldered on to the motherboard. i looked around for a shop, but all of them refused to work on it because it was a clone phone, not an original Samsung. fine by me... after talking to a couple of people over in , they told me i could probably do it myself. i opened it up and found that the microusb port on the flex cable had several broken connections, including the ground. i really didn't think you could solder on the flex cable, and i realllllly hate soldering surface mount stuff (i wont say i suck at it, but i am no expert), so i checked around on the Chinese sites, and on ali-express i could get a new flex cable assembly for it for 6-7 bucks! to me this was the way to go. i got 3 of them (my wife has the same phone and a spare is always good to have, right?), plus i got various other flex cables for the phone... the power button, the volume control, and the home button/microphone (which turns out was a great idea, more later).
it took 3 agonizing weeks of using an external battery charger on my phone to get the parts in, and everything looked right. so i took my phone apart when i had a free day and started.
here are some pictures of my initial repair... sorry for the potato quality pictures... i was taking upclose ones and my camera refused to really focus well.
so the charge port flex cable was bare bones. on the cable is mounted what i thought were 2 things. the speaker and the vib motor. if you look at the picture of the new flex cable you can see the spots where they go. i had to take apart and remove the cable from my phone and de-solder these items from the old cable and solder them on the new cable. it peeved me a bit, but hey, what to you expect for a $6 cable, right?
so i put the phone back together
i realized that the home button flex cable attaches to the charge port flex cable directly by solder.
so, does anyone have any advice/experience here? is this close to the way a Samsung note 3 is assembled? i was told the charge port flex cable looks almost identical except the connector points up instead of down. either way, i'd like to try to get this fixed... unless i am over my head here. any advice would be greatly appreciated!!
okay, so here is my story: i have a Star/Ulefone Note 3 clone that is model N9002. about 2 months ago, the thing started refusing to charge. the usb port in the bottom was extremely loose and it wouldn't charge/wouldn't connect to a computer. i checked a bunch of advice online about cleaning out the port and about trying to tighten up the port by squeezing it a bit with a pair of pliers. none of this helped. i thought maybe something inside might be broken, i had no idea (at the time) how these things were assembled, and thought maybe the usb port just needed to be re-soldered on to the motherboard. i looked around for a shop, but all of them refused to work on it because it was a clone phone, not an original Samsung. fine by me... after talking to a couple of people over in , they told me i could probably do it myself. i opened it up and found that the microusb port on the flex cable had several broken connections, including the ground. i really didn't think you could solder on the flex cable, and i realllllly hate soldering surface mount stuff (i wont say i suck at it, but i am no expert), so i checked around on the Chinese sites, and on ali-express i could get a new flex cable assembly for it for 6-7 bucks! to me this was the way to go. i got 3 of them (my wife has the same phone and a spare is always good to have, right?), plus i got various other flex cables for the phone... the power button, the volume control, and the home button/microphone (which turns out was a great idea, more later).
it took 3 agonizing weeks of using an external battery charger on my phone to get the parts in, and everything looked right. so i took my phone apart when i had a free day and started.
here are some pictures of my initial repair... sorry for the potato quality pictures... i was taking upclose ones and my camera refused to really focus well.
so the charge port flex cable was bare bones. on the cable is mounted what i thought were 2 things. the speaker and the vib motor. if you look at the picture of the new flex cable you can see the spots where they go. i had to take apart and remove the cable from my phone and de-solder these items from the old cable and solder them on the new cable. it peeved me a bit, but hey, what to you expect for a $6 cable, right?
so i put the phone back together
i realized that the home button flex cable attaches to the charge port flex cable directly by solder.
so, does anyone have any advice/experience here? is this close to the way a Samsung note 3 is assembled? i was told the charge port flex cable looks almost identical except the connector points up instead of down. either way, i'd like to try to get this fixed... unless i am over my head here. any advice would be greatly appreciated!!
