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 X CPU Swap - All this work for 5GB of data 😂

This iPhone X came in for no power. At the initial inspection, I noticed that the whole housing inside was rusted out.

Then I noticed the sandwich was already separated.

Looking under the microscope, there had been a tech already in here working on it. There were a ton a capacitors that were removed from the board.

I noticed there was a partial short, pulling about 150mA before prompt to boot. Checking with my Seek, the heat was coming from under the shield next to NAND.

Removed the shield & noticed Acorn (U5600) was corroded, along with the ARC IC U5100.

Removed both since they're not needed for booting (for now) and short was gone.... but the phone was stuck in DFU mode.

Since this was an intel iPhone that's actually normal with top board only.

Since I wasn't sure if it was truly ready to boot, I decided to try an update.

It failed. It was like 11%, which is usually a bad sign. I tried iTunes flash, but forgot what code I got. But it seemed like a CPU issue at that point.

I checked with customer about attempting a CPU swap & customer approved.

So I went for it.

It took me maybe 2-3hrs in total to complete it, but it was successful.
I also ripped a pad, which was for Racer (touch), which I was able to rebuild the pad & get a Diode Mode reading back afterwards.

So stoked this was a win!
(and yes, the customer did just have about 5GB of data on the phone 🤷‍♂️ lol)

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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
Shop Upgrade!

Got 2 new workbenches built out at my shop!

One is a larger & more robust shipping bench, where we do all the packing/shipping. So all the boxes, packing material like bubble wrap & packing paper, etc will be on there.

Then there's the actual workbench where I plan on hiring another associate to help us with handling all the shipping tasks & device intakes.

Was this a good investment??

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My apologies... but it's been over 8 months since I posted a full length YouTube video.

Mainly because it's been super busy at the shop. Maybe it's the warmer weather that caused the demand for data recovery to go up.

But also, we had the pregnancy & then a baby to deal with

This video was recorded back in March but never got around to editing it either

So after back to back to back "no-fix" jobs, I figured I take a break from that stress & try to finish editing the video I started months ago.

So it's finally complete & available to watch (link in the comments)

It's a great video for people who want to learn how to diagnose board level faults, like a blown filter

And how to use your multimeter to find it.

Enjoy!

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How to fix a USB flash drive - THE EASY WAY

Basically, all USB flash drive will have USB 2.0 pins. That's just 4 lines that you need for USB communication.

If it's a USB 3.0 drive, it will have those 4 pins + the extra 3.0 data pins

Get any USB A cable & splice it to find the 4 wires, Black, Red, Green, White. Then proceed with the next steps:

Find the 5V power rail, which typically is a thick trace or there's a duplicate pin. I found that by probing around & found the 2 pins that had continuity to each other

Ground is just any anchor

Then the tricky part was the 2 data lines, green & white

If you loose closely at the design, you'll find there's three pairs of 2 pads, which run together to resistors

Solder the green & white to those 2 pads & connect to PC.

If not detected at all, then you're on a USB 3.0 lines, so it's not that pair

If it's detected, but Device Manager gives an error, then you found it! But Green & white are reversed. So swap them & that should solve it

I've attached a diagram of how I wired them

Then...

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