UKC

Hi guys,

anyone know of the top of their head roughly what it would cost to have a USB socket replaced on a mobile Phone (Sony Ericsson Xperia Active). I know its that that's broken as I had to pull the chargin lead out of it with some force... as it was superglued in. (Don't ask, but yes, I was that dumb.) The part is all of £2.50, but I'm probably not skilled enough to do it myself.

Obviously the thing to do is go into a shop, but i'm desk bound until the shops are shut!

Cheers

djb

In reply to Dave B: Depends what the damage is. If you have only broken the component, then it might be a quick soldering job. If however, you have ripped the solder joints right off the board, then you are looking at new motherboards etc. You will only find out if you take it to a specialist.

In reply to Dave B:
Hi Dave, micro USB socket damage is common and usually caused by trying to put the charger in upside down. I've done a few but on tablets, not phones. <Blackberry playbook - common fault>
The trouble is that you have 4 location pins on the new socket and 5 contacts (live, neg, USB data +, USB data - and the identifing signal) thats 9 connections to do and you can't do them one at a time, they need to be done all together, not with a soldering iron but with a hot air rework station. With the hot air you can get all 9 points melting at the same time, lift old off and drop in the new one. The board needs to be well shielded with reflective tape and the heat has to be ramped up slowly. Phone boards are also very thin an wont take repeated heating so you got to get this right first time really. Its a tough job and I wouldn't be doing this for less than £40 or so. It seems steep however you have to build in the cost of replacing the customers phone is you knacker it, its not a job I'd want to do on an expensive phone.

£40 upwards then, look for a local phone repair specialist.

In reply to wilkie14c:

That sounds about what I was expecting, thanks. Just got to decide if its worth it on a 2 year old phone... that's stuck on Android 2.3, but that I REALLY like (size and shape...), but is really quite slow.

In reply to Dave B:

If the phone is 2 years old, and its going to cost at least £40 to replace the part, why not replace it? costs about £120 on fleabay if I've got the right phone

item number 281175726944

David

In reply to climber david:

That's the right phone, but it would still only be 40 ish to fix rather than 120 plus import duty to buy again .. I really like waterproof phones as I'm at the beach so much and outside a lot...

In reply to Dave B:

The major flaw with the Galaxy S-II seemed to be the fragility of the micro USB conenctor. The major advantage however was that it was on a separate PCB, so once you managed to find somewhere to obtain one, fixing it was a case of unscrewing the phone, unplugging the old PCB from the motherboard, plugging the new one in and screwing everything back together.

I'm not sure how common that sort of design is on other phones though.

In reply to tehmarks: that's pretty much the way with iPhones, the charging port costs about a tenner and its a case of unscrewing everything to replace it. As phones go, the iPhone 4/4s is cracking for the money, every part can be replaced cheaply

In reply to Dave B:


You could try a second-hand Motorola Defy+ (that's the MB526, not the MB525 Defy or the XT320 Defy Mini). There's an unlocked one on eBay just now at £80 buy-it-now (not mine, I hasten to add), or you can try sniping auctions. It's on Gingerbread same as your Xperia Active - although there is supposed to be an official Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade available for the Xperia Active: http://blogs.sonymobile.com/2012/08/21/new-ice-cream-sandwich-software-vers...

The Defy+ it has a better screen than the Xperia Active, same processor speed and a higher-capacity battery. And it's waterproof and dustproof, same as the Xperia.

In reply to Dave B: If you cant charge it and cant find a repair locally I'm happy for you to send it me for repair, I have the hot air machine required for the soldering and as said, have replaced micro USB sockets before.

In reply to wilkie14c:

Thanks for all your help/info. I finally wiggles the charging plug last night and its broken up the layer of superglue that was on one of the contacts. It now charges!

If it goes completely, i will contact you Wilkie

Many thanks

djb

In reply to Dave B: No prob, good luck!

In reply to Dave B:


Cost me for a similar phone about 45 pounds.


I have to ask. I do weird things when I try to fix things, but how could you do this?

In reply to MikeTS:

The plastic round the charging plug fell off, so I superglued it back on... Unfortunately the glue ran down the plug and it wasn't dry when I plugged it back in. I was trying to save the 2 minutes to find the other lead. Duh!