VCC Board Repairs
Education • Science & Tech
The goal is to share solutions & techniques for microsoldering & data recovery repairs. I'll cover mostly iPhone & iPad motherboard repairs.
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iPhone XR - I Ripped Some Pads

iPhone XR came in for no power.
After prompt to boot, I saw it jumped and hung at ~500mA. After removing the CPU shield, I found Hydra was lighting up under the Thermal Cam.

Since Hydra is pressed up against the CPU, it's a super risky job, because it's also underfilled.

So i made an oopsies... i ripped 3 pads under Hydra. I wish i would have taken more pics, but i was able to dig out the traces of those pads & run jumpers.

Then I installed tristar & now it hung at 200mA. Once again, I checked with thermal cam & found the chip next to it was shorted. Looking closer, I see where I nicked the IC & damaged it.

It's U6150 which it looks like it's called Gecko.

I pulled that IC and ripped another pad lol. What luck.

I was able to dig out that trace as well & ran the jumper.

I was able to find a replacement Gecko from an XS board, since it's not underfilled and installed it.

Now this XR is fully fixed!

Check out all the pics for reference.

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Which Thermal Cam Do You Have?

If you have a Seek Thermal Cam, you're missing out if you don't have a VCC Seek Stand: https://www.vccboardrepairs.com/buy-seek-stand

Injured Gadgets just got these back in stock, so get them while you can!

It can take us a while to build these out sometimes, so they're sometimes out of stock for a while, but we're working towards always having inventory ready to build more as they sell out.

This stand makes using a thermal cam so easy. So much better than any other thermal solution on the market.

It allows you to get real close up (using my Macro Lens), and easily find where the short is coming from.

Plus it's hard free, so you can have your hands free to try to boot the device from DCPS, while having an image that is in focus & not moving around.

You can even record a video through the app, while you inject voltage into the short, so you can go back & see exactly which component was it that was heating up.

Save yourself lots of time by getting a Seek Cam, Stand & Macro Lens! ...

00:00:12
If you do consoles, you need this.

Anyone who is doing game console repairs, knows how many screws you need to remove to access the motherboard.

Especially the PS5, with the 5,000 screws or so.

If you don't already have an electric screwdriver, GET ONE ASAP.

🌟 Cordless Screwdriver with T9 Bit: https://amzn.to/3E5duCj
🌟Extended T9 Bit: https://amzn.to/3c4YJac

It's rechargeable through micro USB and allows you to easily swap the tips out. You can also fold it to be straight or L shape.

Let me know below if you are already using an electric screwdriver 👇👇

00:00:03
Very Sad Data Recovery Case (iPhone 15 Pro)

I got an iPhone 15 Pro mailed in from New Hampshire for Data Recovery. The front & back were smashed pretty bad.

Took the phone apart & found the bottom board was dented pretty bad

Separated the sandwich to just the top board only and found I had a short before prompt to boot. Tracked it down to a shorted C4222 on PP_VDD_SNS_BPIC

Removed the bad cap & I still had a short. Found the next short on C3499 on VDD MAIN

After that, no shorts before prompt to boot. So I thought that was it...

Well I was wrong. There was a 700mA short after prompt to boot.

Looking at the board under the thermal camera.. heat was coming from the NAND. Although the NAND looked in very good condition with no signs of physical damage. See first pic.

So I decided to remove the NAND to check further.

Without NAND, no short. It would just boot to DFU mode

Closer inspection of the NAND, I found there was a small crack running along the side wall.

When the NAND is cracked, it's GAME OVER. There's no way to ...

I hate these!

I got this Samsung S22 Ultra for Data Recovery. The display connector had some water damage that caused a short on the FPC

After removing the FPC, I found the short was within the layers.

I tried digging it out & it worked, but after placing the FPC back, the short came back.

These are really annoying lol

So I've offered to do a CPU Swap & waiting for the customer to reply 🙏

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July 09, 2025

iPhone 13 water damaged throwing this panic logs. Which part is faulty and needs to be replaced?

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