Question about cell phone repair in the US

[jimdagys]

I was very surprised that in China, street stall technicians can swap out the cpu in about 1 minute.
See screenshot (click on below link) for pictures of cell phone cpu's. The cpu typically is less than 1cm square and has about 300 contacts. Street tech uses a heat gun to heat up and loosen the original cpu and use a heat gun again to attach the new cpu. Typical price is about US$15 total to change the cpu.
Question #1: In the US, is this done? Or do they just throw out the phone?
Question #2: I don't understand how the new cpu can be aligned so that the contacts line up. There is no alignment device as with a computer cpu. Also, how can the tech be sure that all the contacts are soldered to the circuit board?

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[minidv2dvd]

a tech in the u.s. wouldn't even look at the phone for less than $50, if you can find one. it a disposable item here, with new phones going for anywhere from free to $100.

cpu death is not a common cause for cell phones to die anyway. much more likely for them to be immersed in water, i've never even heard of anyone in the u.s who ever had a phone cpu die.

[theewizard]

was that an LG or simialr phone, or was that a chineese phone

[INFRATOM]

Anything in US below $500 is disposable. No where in the world you can buy something and return it for any reason so if something works for the first month it will most likely work for its useful life not mentioning warranty. If after a year or so it goes bad labor plus parts would be 2/3 of the price of a new one some times much more. Try to repair a microwave oven and check brand new prices at best buys. In backward countries they even repair $5 items.

[edDV]

I can't imagine street kiosk resoldering a 300 pin CPU/FPU/ASIC. I'd like to see this.

I agree these don't fail but it would make a good magic show.

I suspect they are resetting firmware on the real unit in the back.

[edong]

In backward countries they even repair $5 items.

I'm not sure if a country whose people can repair, let alone manufacture cellphones, can be called backward . I consider them efficient.

[INFRATOM]

Maybe backward was not a good choice of word but most of those factories are foreign investments and they just work in manufacturing plants. youtube has some examples and they are working like sweat shops. There are rows and rows of people sitting painting dolls or soldering electronics etc

[JohnnyMalaria]

It's a scene from Bladerunner - the guy making perfect snake skin scales in LA.

I think it is terrible how many phones end up in the landfill. Many millions per year because people "must have" the latest and greatest pointless features. Only a fraction are recycled. Good for the guys in China if that's what happens. Heck, they're proud of their country's name being on the d**n things.

[cal_tony]

I had a Nokia cell phone fail during the warranty period. I was surprised when I brought it back to my cell phone provider and they indicated that they could not replace it. They would have to send it back to Nokia for repair. They provided me with a low cost rental phone and a month later my repaired phone was returned to the center. Well, the phone was new so I asked the manager about the whole process. The manager indicated that they get very few repaired phones back. Almost always they get new ones back.

So, this got me thinking about all this stuff going on in the govt. now about all the new spending for putting people to work by building parks, fixing bridges and roads. All this heavy back breaking stuff and I thought how about putting some people to work in a nice sit down environment just repairing stuff that we normally just throw away or send to 3rd world countries. My feeling is it would be a lot easier to teach someone to solder than it would be to drive a backhoe.

Tony

[turk690]

Question #2: I don't understand how the new cpu can be aligned so that the contacts line up. There is no alignment device as with a computer cpu. Also, how can the tech be sure that all the contacts are soldered to the circuit board?

Many VSL ICs are now ball grid array packaged. At least two good things come out of this: the entire IC area can be used for the vast pin count (as against only on edges as in PLCC and DIP), and there are no pins but contact points in an array preapplied with blobs of solder on each contact. The contacts on the PCB the IC is to be soldered on are also preapplied with solder, which are heated and they become liquid. When the IC is put on top, surface tension between any two liquid solder blobs are enough to nudge the IC in perfect alignment with the contacts and at the same time get soldered on the right spots perfectly.

[jimdagys]

Street techs repair any kind of phone. I believe all phones are Chinese made (Nokia, Anycall, Motorola, etc). I don't think China imports any consumer products. Even those brands of other countries, are all made in China. I have watched the street techs work, and they really can unsolder and solder any part in less than a minute, no matter how many contacts or complex the part is.
I recently got interested in cell phones because I was given one. There are no contracts to sign. You just buy the phone (starting at about $30 for a basic model) and then buy the phone number (sim card) and minutes. Minutes are usually about 1.5 cents for local calls and about 3 cents for long distance (or roaming) inside China. Short message is about 1 cent per message. Monthly maintenance fee is about $3. Advantage of short message is that if the phone is turned off, when turned back on, the short message will appear on the phone.

[MJA]

Maybe backward was not a good choice of word but most of those factories are foreign investments and they just work in manufacturing plants. youtube has some examples and they are working like sweat shops. There are rows and rows of people sitting painting dolls or soldering electronics etc

reminded me of the Apple/Foxconn story few years ago

http://www.macnn.com/articles/06/08/17/apple.finds.labor.abuses/

PIX

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/06/06/14/photos_inside_foxconns_ipod_city.html

[01whitecharlie01]

try this site.
http://wisconsinrepair.com/