Things I learned from the 15PM teardown video
1. The adhesive for both front screen & back glass is very gooey/sticky. This basically makes a mess when opening the phones. Black gooey stuff all over the frame & very visible on the natural titanium model.
Not sure if it's just the 2 phones I have or the technique I used to open them. Or it's like this by design.
2. In order to remove the logic board from the housing, you MUST open the back glass first & remove the screw & plate that is holding down the wireless charging/rear flash flex.
So expect to see lots of torn wireless charging/rear flash flex torn. I already see a ton of 12-14 series with torn "5G Flex" that are torn, due to technician not aware there's a soldered flex on the board.
Although, maybe there's a way to lift the board carefully enough out, so you can reach the screw/plate from the front side.
3. The 15PM ALSO has a 5G flex soldered to the board. So those will be ripped, for the above reasons.
4. The overall insides were very similar to the 14PM model. So if you've worked on a 14PM, then 15PM won't be much different.
5. In the US, we have eSIM models only. But where is there room for the international model's SIM Slot? On the 14 series, there was just an empty spot where the sim slot would be located. I couldn't find any spot where an international model would have a physical SIM Slot located at.
So that means, either the international model also is eSIM only OR international model has a totally different internal design (unlikely).
6. The confirmed parts to create a "unknown part" notification have not changed. Battery, Display, Rear Cameras. And of course, Face ID/TrueDepth Camera is still paired.
7. Battery Cycle count is now in the settings > general > about > bottom of the page. It then says "unknown" when you replace the battery.
8. iPhone 15PM does NOT support "Fast Charging" via USB C. It was only charging at 5V/1.13A (5W), when on the same charger, my S22 Ultra was at 9V/3A (27W). Maybe it's due to the battery was around 80%.
I will do more testing to confirm later.
9. iPhone 15PM USB C to another iPhone 15PM USB C does charge the other phone. But it does NOT allow any data transfer.
10. iPhone 15PM USB C to my S22 Ultra, would detect on both phones, that data wanted to transfer, as we got pop ups on both asking access to data. But ultimately, I found no way to access data from either phone.
11. Action button flex is still attached to the volume flex and power button flex. It is also not paired.
12. iPhone 15PM will restart every 3 minutes when the back glass/wireless flex is unplugged. The panic log showed 0x400000. Same as iPhone 14/14P.
13. USB C accessories seem to work. I tried a USB flash drive, USB mouse and USB keyboard.
14. USB C Data Transfer speeds seem slow. Took a "long time" to transfer a 435MB file from iPhone to PC. Unfortunately, the PC didn't show the actual transfer speeds.
I'm sure there are more. But just what I can remember from the livestream.
What did you learn or find the most interesting?
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! ...
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 👇👇
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...
This board came in looking really bad, so I didn't even bother trying to repair it.
Instead, I went straight for a CPU Swap
Unfortunately, still working on it.
First attempt, it was just bootlooping
I checked UFS health & it looked good
Will keep working on this & let you know how it goes.
Anyone else have trouble with Samsung S21 Ultra CPU Swaps?
I feel like these are the most difficult cases I have to deal with & I have 2 more in my queue 🥹
A guy flew in from New York to have me try to recover the data for his Billionaire client, who was willing to pay anything to get data from his smashed iPhone 13 Pro Max.
It was hit with a 🔨
Unfortunately, the patient arrived dead at the operating table 😭
The NAND had a crack running along the side, plus it was a curved.
When attempting to remove the NAND, the top layer of it just flew off
Majority of the pads were ripped from the bottom.
This was probably the worst damage I've ever seen 🥹
