No good deed goes unpunished was: to Pentalobe or to Android, that is the question.

[Steve Smith]

YAY!   After 2 hours of stripping, swabbing (no visible corrosion or
even water detectors triggered!) with alcohol (no, not Rye Whiskey, that
came later)...  and re-assembling (damned glad to have Owen's Goggles
for that) I fired up the phone and *nothing*!

A friend had happened by to watch me drip sweat into the device and he
asked innocently if maybe the battery was drained.  "Of course not!" I
insisted as I plugged it into my USB to prove the point and *VOILA!* the
pretty little silver apple with a bite taken out of it popped up and it
booted right up and except for having a totally bogus idea of the date
and time, all was good!

3-4 days later, it continues to function fine.   And my confidence in
Apple and DIY returns!   After seeing the inside of the iPhone and all
the seals and parts (and lack of triggered moisture sensors) I'm pretty
sure my only problem the whole time was a bit of moisture in the on/off
switch.    When I pulled it out of the pond in 5-10 secs, the screen had
gone to "do you want to power off?" which is what it does when you punch
the on/off switch... and of course 5 minutes later when it had powered
itself on spontaneously, that could easily have been "just" the power
switch shorting *again*... and then the several more times it powered on
after my powering off ... ditto.

On inspection of the on/off switch mechanism, it was evidently more open
to water infiltration, while being sealed itself well enough to prevent
further infiltration into the case.   I soaked a bit of paper in
isopropyl and ran it between the button and the contacts (as best I
could tell from the view I had without gutting the iPhone *completely*,
so I'm suspecting that alone would have resolved my problem... the rest
of the disassembly and swabbing with alcohol was probably a total red
herring and/or good drill and/or a big risk of insulting some other part
of the phone with my clumsiness.

The "good deed punished" part comes from having a neighbor stop in
whilst I was sweating into the pile of parts and then (after it was
working) ask... "do you think you could help me replace my broken screen
on my iPhone?" to which I boldly answered (in the euphoria of my phone
being back in order) "of course!" without first checking the intricacy.  
I had done 3 other iPhone screens in the past (two 2s and a 3s) which
were almost trivial compared to what I find the 4 is.   And also no way
to replace just the glass... so $125 in screen and a plan to completely
disassemble (kind of like eye surgery but having to go in through the
back of the head to do it!) is on the table.

It is all part of the pay-it-forward Karma I suppose.

- Steve


============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

[Owen Densmore]

Sounds *very* familiar.  Having the advantage of greater separation from the euphoria, I would be really reluctant to do for someone, but I would let them in on the fact *they* could do it.

I used iCracked for the screen and videos.  Around $75 for parts and 2-3 day shipping and includes sufficient tools, IIRC.  But mainly .. if he gets the parts and decides its too tough (I came close), he can mail the phone to them or get a local iCracked tech to finish the job.  They *dont* want you to fail!

After doing it I keep remembering the questionable events like getting the thing back together right and hoping I didn't break anything with the spudgers and did that "snap" back on or oh God what was that noise!

   -- Owen

On Sat, Aug 4, 2012 at 10:21 AM, Steve Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:

YAY!   After 2 hours of stripping, swabbing (no visible corrosion or even water detectors triggered!) with alcohol (no, not Rye Whiskey, that came later)...  and re-assembling (damned glad to have Owen's Goggles for that) I fired up the phone and *nothing*!

A friend had happened by to watch me drip sweat into the device and he asked innocently if maybe the battery was drained.  "Of course not!" I insisted as I plugged it into my USB to prove the point and *VOILA!* the pretty little silver apple with a bite taken out of it popped up and it booted right up and except for having a totally bogus idea of the date and time, all was good!

3-4 days later, it continues to function fine.   And my confidence in Apple and DIY returns!   After seeing the inside of the iPhone and all the seals and parts (and lack of triggered moisture sensors) I'm pretty sure my only problem the whole time was a bit of moisture in the on/off switch.    When I pulled it out of the pond in 5-10 secs, the screen had gone to "do you want to power off?" which is what it does when you punch the on/off switch... and of course 5 minutes later when it had powered itself on spontaneously, that could easily have been "just" the power switch shorting *again*... and then the several more times it powered on after my powering off ... ditto.

On inspection of the on/off switch mechanism, it was evidently more open to water infiltration, while being sealed itself well enough to prevent further infiltration into the case.   I soaked a bit of paper in isopropyl and ran it between the button and the contacts (as best I could tell from the view I had without gutting the iPhone *completely*, so I'm suspecting that alone would have resolved my problem... the rest of the disassembly and swabbing with alcohol was probably a total red herring and/or good drill and/or a big risk of insulting some other part of the phone with my clumsiness.

The "good deed punished" part comes from having a neighbor stop in whilst I was sweating into the pile of parts and then (after it was working) ask... "do you think you could help me replace my broken screen on my iPhone?" to which I boldly answered (in the euphoria of my phone being back in order) "of course!" without first checking the intricacy.  I had done 3 other iPhone screens in the past (two 2s and a 3s) which were almost trivial compared to what I find the 4 is.   And also no way to replace just the glass... so $125 in screen and a plan to completely disassemble (kind of like eye surgery but having to go in through the back of the head to do it!) is on the table.

It is all part of the pay-it-forward Karma I suppose.

- Steve


============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org