Disassembling and Repairing Mobile Phones

A mobile phone is a very complex piece of equipment. However, like most modern electronic equipment cellular telephones are designed in a modular fashion so that they are easy to assemble and relatively easy to repair.

Given this, it's actually possible, with a few simple tools, to disassemble most mobile phones and to perform some simple repairs at home. With experience you can even buy a number of broken mobile phones from auction sites and swap to components in them to make a functioning telephone out of a number of broken ones.

It's actually surprising how simple this is. For most modern mobile telephones you will need a few items of equipment to be able to get inside them, but what you need is cheap and easily obtainable. These include: an anti-static writs strap, a pair of tweezers, a small flat-head screwdrivers, a small Phillips (cross-head) screwdriver, and a range of Torx (six-star) screwdrivers (usually T4, T5 and T6). In addition you may need a flat blade such as a craft knife (to prise away some glued components) and something for opening the case. You can use a purpose-designed plastic tool or even something like an old SIM card.

For most broken phones it's pretty obvious what's wrong with the telephone itself. Typically this includes cracked cases, broken keypads, damaged batteries and broken screens. All these items are easy to obtain for most phones and hey are also designed in a modular fashion so that they can be swapped in and out.

Of course, you will need some kind of guide as to how to disassemble your phone (it's easier to put the phone back if you have one as you can refer to a diagram for the re-assembly). Of course, if you don't have a disassembly guide and you do have a digital camera then you can use this to document the disassembly process and each component you remove from your phone and each wire you unclip. Also make certain you have a plan of the phone and place each component on this as you remove it. This way you will not confuse any screws or the order in which the components were removed (thus the order in which they should be placed back). Of course, if you do perform a dismantling of your mobile phone in this way then you can publish your process on the web.

Please note, that if you perform any kind of home dismantling on a mobile phone still under warranty you will almost certainly invalidate the warranty. Only attempt to dismantle a mobile phone if you know what you are doing, or are not afraid of running the risk of damaging the telephone. Of course, if you attempt this process on a broken telephone you will not damage it and you may well find out how to fix it and get it working again.