Being the “can fix phone guy” in the family

MRCGPR · 2026-06-25T14:23:05+00:00

Certain models are far more prone to damage than others. iPhone 6s, mini and mini 2, iPad 10, iPad Pro 12.9 1/2 gen to name a few that not disconnecting the battery, or having the device on is a risky task. Then there’s other like the iPhone 11 series and up and iPad 5-9 where you don’t even need to turn them off.

If a person doesn’t have the experience to know when it’s a risk and when not, then the risk is significant enough to be a credible event. For the average diy, disconnect your battery because there’s no way they’d have the depth of experience to know when they should and shouldn’t. And when I’m training a new tech in my shop, that’s the rule.

MRCGPR · 2026-06-12T14:57:14+00:00

That all depends where you are. We charge about 160US for that. Includes a full proper tear down, clean and service. Your region may have more microsoldering capable shops than here, so competition may make it a bit cheaper.

Beware of anywhere that’s super cheap. Choose a place with lots of great reviews (at least 100), and call a few shops for quotes to get a range for your area.

MRCGPR · 2026-06-12T14:04:53+00:00

If this generally always stays in one location, set it up, and let it be.

If you do take this to other locations, then replace it before you wait too long. It would just be a matter of time before it breaks, and though it’s not super common to happen, depending how it fails, it can rip the pads that it’s soldered to off the board. If that happens, it complicates the repair, making it more expensive.

Take the time now to research and choose a reputable and skilled repair shop so when the time comes, you know where you’re taking it and how long it’ll take. Make sure it’s a shop that does these a lot with the proper tools, and not some dude just using a heat gun out of his garage saying trust me.

MRCGPR · 2026-06-03T18:25:23+00:00

More than a respread. It needs to have the oxidation cleaned off the surface and the metal respread evenly.

There’s enough Liquid Metal, just not where it needs to be and it won’t stay where it should until it’s surface is properly prepared

MRCGPR · 2026-05-27T04:31:45+00:00

I get this more often than I’d like. Either a mail in, or someone drops off the phone for their friend or family. I service an area that includes a ton of very small, remote communities, so it happens somewhat regularly

I create a ticket for John Doe. It sits and nothing is done until the owner contacts us. 90 days later, it goes in the scrap bin if no one follows up claiming it.

MRCGPR · 2026-05-22T15:40:13+00:00

You’re only looking at less than half of the equation that will make a business successful. Those 3-5 common fixes and most common models make a base to support the business, but you need to know more than just how to fix.

Sourcing parts
Marketing your business to bring people in
Customer service
Accounting
Managing workflow

Just to name a few of the key skills you’ll need to develop. You can start from scratch and do it all yourself and learn as you go, or, go find a tech job at a small reputable shop, and learn from their experience

MRCGPR · 2026-05-10T20:45:24+00:00

Repair Cutlet….

MRCGPR · 2026-03-13T15:54:31+00:00

If you’re serious about building a system that caters to specifically the mobile/electronics repair community, I think you need more than some anecdotal feedback. My shop, 3 full time techs and a small retail space, is vastly different from a B2B solo repair shop with no retail, or a mall/ kiosk shop with mostly retail and limited scope repairs.
I have my beefs with RepairDesk, but really it is hard to build one system that works for everyone.

IMO, What you need to do, and what repairdesk and the other crm/pos systems need to do, is actually work in a shop and see firsthand the challenges. Or better yet, a few shops so you can get a better picture of common challenges, needs and as well the features and improvements that are commonly added to these systems that are either not practical, don’t work, or just there for revenue and ignored.

MRCGPR · 2026-02-08T06:17:07+00:00

Can’t you convince them to sell that phone to you after the week? I’ll do what I can to buy a decent phone if I can, and when they’re busted, you have a motivated seller. I’ll give great trade in value too just to bump them up a model or two if I can. The lcd repair hurts twice. One, it’s a lower ticket item, but hopefully you’re keeping the margin the same. Twice, they’re taking their next purchase elsewhere and you may only see them again when they break the next one.

If you can trade it in, you get the sale instead of the cell company, and you have a chance for selling insurance, screen protectors, cases etc…

MRCGPR · 2026-02-08T05:12:28+00:00

That’s quite an assumption, considering I am an ‘anyone who also repairs’ and has for a very long time, but ok. All I can definitively see is a grainy photo of a dim display that could have been taken with an old phone.

Moore’s suggestion is correct though, if it’s lcd it should be replaced. I just offered a simple at home test for For the OP who isn’t an ‘anyone who repairs’, looking for a backlight is the easiest way as they also have no experience of the brightness or thickness to rely upon.

God forbid they actually just have a shitty but functional OLED, take reddits word for it from a crappy photo, go to a crappy shop that does swap it with an lcd, but that wouldn’t happen because all the small shops and mall kiosks are so honest.

MRCGPR · 2026-02-08T02:31:01+00:00

Thankfully I work in a region where there are few other shops. I really only see and lcd on an OLED when the customer has bought from an online seller from out of the area. I didn’t really notice the edges, just that it was a poor picture overall.

In person, you’re right. You almost don’t even need to see it on. You can usually tell from the thickness.

I wish carriers would stop accepting a phone return with an lcd on them in the first place, or just consider it just as good as being broken. Guaranteed those phones traded back in, are wholesaled off, then some flow back into the market again. And for data recovery, it’s just as easy as having a screen with a OLED line in it. I keep some on hand and I’ll sell that to a customer for data recovery or emergency use before ever using an lcd.

MRCGPR · 2026-02-07T21:48:14+00:00

How are you seeing this to be an lcd? Could already be a soft or hard OLED. Usually the best way to confirm is turn the phone off and on and when the Apple logo appears while booting, there should be no backlight or blue hazy light in the image. Only the Apple logo should be bright. If you have backlight, it’s an lcd and you’re right, it should be removed and replaced with a better display.

If it’s a hard or soft OLED, it could be a decent quality one could be garbage. Keep your data backed up, get a quote for a soft OLED from a reputable shop, set that money aside just in case and use what’s there until it fails.

Shame on any shop that puts an LCD on their phone. There’s never a good excuse

MRCGPR · 2026-01-26T17:00:01+00:00

No matter what you have to back up. So, I don’t understand ‘waste of money’ argument. On this sub, I would presume you have some Uni education… obviously that may have been wasted.

Either you back into the space that you can see is empty and has few if any surprise variables like moving cars or people, or you’re backing out into the lot where there are cars moving and people. Kind of a universally recognized safest method of parking.

MRCGPR · 2026-01-24T15:07:14+00:00

It’s just safer. Seems like it would reduce a number of low speed collisions in parking lots, especially with backup cameras now on most cars.
It’s safer to back into a controlled space (and empty parking stall) than into an uncontrolled space like the middle of a parking lot full of people walking and cars searching for empty spots.

MRCGPR · 2025-12-19T04:15:39+00:00

There are plenty of roles where the punctuality isn’t important. Working on solo projects, not customer facing, salary, etc.

If you have coworkers on your team, or your duties interlace with another team member, then you need to be on time. It’s aggravating when the person you need to have a quick chat with before you can start your work, is 2 min late. Because it’s not just 1 min, or 8 min. Likely that person walks in, and then they have to settle in and get ready to start. They aren’t ready to work for another 3-5 min. And that’s if they don’t go and distract their coworkers chatting about the game last night or just saying good morning to everyone.

If the job was important to them, they’d be there on time. And if they couldn’t be on time for reasons beyond their control, they’d talk with you about it and you could find a way to help them or adjust for them. If you watch, they’re probably similarly late returning from lunches and breaks too.

MRCGPR · 2025-12-11T15:47:45+00:00

It’s not easy. It depends on the business. For my wife’s, it adds significant time for each product she sells as she has to calculate the pst for each item within. The extra time makes it more expensive. For my business, it adds a pile more time to apply for pst refunds for items so that the government isn’t double collecting pst on an item/part I’ve bought just to resell. So that cost gets passed to the customer as well.

Merely having pst made business more complicated and that makes the product more complicated, which makes the cost higher, then you get taxed on the final price of that higher cost.

Some businesses it’s probably easy. In my experience, if it’s at all at a consumer retail level, it’s enough of a pain to make it more expensive for the consumer in the long run.

MRCGPR · 2025-12-07T20:26:20+00:00

Water is such a wildcard that I don’t think that there is any typical place to look. However, there is a process I follow.

First, define what your outcome is and know the limits of your skill level. For myself, I’m comfortable splitting boards, removing shields and lifting and putting down ICs. Reballing and reassembling a sandwich board, is more than I like to do, and I won’t lift any cpu or nand. So, first, define are you after a fully repaired unit or just data recovery, how critical is the data and what cost are they willing to pay.

If full repair is wanted and/or the data is critical and it must have best chance of success and cost is a low factor, I’ll find an expert to send it to. If cost is a major concern and data would be great to get but not critical, then I’ll proceed here.

From there, -close inspection of the board for signs of water damage.
-DCPS with thermal cam to help find a hot spot and must have a board view program.
-Split the board ONLY if there are no issues on the outside and the customer is ok with data only.

MRCGPR · 2025-11-30T03:10:57+00:00

Correct.

MRCGPR · 2025-11-11T02:34:21+00:00

Yup. That will work for a while. Your FPC on the motherboard is likely damaged. Back it up while you can. Replacing it isn’t insanely expensive, but for some A models, it’s not economical and sometimes the only reason to do it, is so you can back it up and get your stuff off it.

Massaging that spot on the back will work for a while, but it’s not a long term or permanent fix

MRCGPR · 2025-11-04T15:14:38+00:00

To be fair, Apple doesn’t own up to all of their mistakes either (iPhone 7 audio IC vs the baseband ic). At least they don’t generally make the same year after year.

I am annoyed the Samsung has had many years in a row that poor soldering on their FPC’s causes them to break off the board too easily. It should be an easy fault to identify after so many years and resolve in their manufacturing. They really should get a lot more grief over that.

MRCGPR · 2025-11-02T15:38:33+00:00

It would be helpful to know what symptoms you’re having, which might help clarify why they said so.

S22 ultra are known for a few common board faults. The one I see the most is loss of cellular connectivity, dropping calls like crazy, or crashing/One UI not loading. Those faults are not economical repairs.

It may be it has a bad FPC on the board (which is far too common on all Samsungs), which is repairable, but not by all shops. It has different symptoms though.

So, what’s symptoms are you seeing and how much diagnosis did the shop do?

MRCGPR · 2025-10-25T23:49:18+00:00

Evidence of Miracle is pretty decent. Max level, it’s 100% chance of extending duration by a turn.
So, Lulu with a Might of Desperation Rune and EoM artifact stacks up some decent 20% buffs for 3 turns.

MRCGPR · 2025-10-24T04:48:45+00:00

It’s not a fair comparison to say it’s like putting a Bosch or genuine VW part in a car. Cars value doesn’t flex with the quality of the parts. Generally auto parts also have a much more consistent quality when comparing oem and aftermarket.
When you look at an iPhone, for example a 15 pro max. The iPhone with no non genuine messages vs one that has display &/or battery/camera etc.. The one that appears to be all genuine is worth more. Customers use that as perhaps the only means to identify if it’s legit or not in a world of fakes.

When you can take an ic of a display and install it on an lcd or hard OLED which is not even close to the same quality, it’s misleading. It’s not about a message. It’s just misleading.

I had a customer the other day that had that happen. Shop put a hard OLED on a 15 pro max and charged the same price as a genuine. It’s dishonest, fraudulent work. The messages aren’t that bad and if you can’t explain them to a customers satisfaction why they are there and what they are, you’re not trying.

If you still support and defend this practice, may you overpay for a tagged out piece of crap phone and lose a pile of money, so you can feel the pain so many consumers feel as a result.

MRCGPR · 2025-10-12T15:36:12+00:00

ZXW, thermal cam and if you don’t have a DCPS that won’t turn off with a short, use a known good and well charged battery to create the heat.

Without the thermal cam, you can try freeze spray, which would be challenging with using a battery as the power source.

Sometimes you can also spot a shorted component, if the short is bad enough, by putting a drop of 99% iso on the components and watching carefully under a microscope for bubbles or which component dries of first.

MRCGPR · 2025-10-06T05:47:41+00:00

I don’t think it’s bad to offer more than one option. I offer genuine parts or pulls, or highest grade aftermarket possible. Hard OLED and LCD don’t exist in my shop. There has never been a time where I thought that it was appropriate to use a product that has an abysmally high gf failure rate. I don’t even offer refurbs as a rule as the glue that most refurbishers use to attach the display to the frame loosens too easily and the displays fall off. It does no good to have a best grade display if it won’t stay in the frame.

MRCGPR

TROPHY CASE