cell phone repair = diy or no?
cell phone repair = diy or no?
anybody ever have any luck repairing their cell phone? my blackberry pearl 8100's keypad just stopped responding and the trackball won't click anymore. www.bbrepairshop.com has some of the most outrageous prices i've ever seen for such seemingly simple things but i wonder if i'm just missing something and it's a lot more complicated than it seems. anybody know of any good tutorials or walkthroughs, specifically for a bb pearl?
Steam / PSN / Twitter: aaronjohnmiller
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lordofduct
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It depends on what damage is causing these functions to not work.
A keypad is fairly simple. In a cellphone it's two plastic sheets. The top sheet has a current entering, and the bottom sheet has the path for the current to exit. When a button is pushed it presses the two sheets together completing the circuit, and depending on the path taken it knows which key was pushed. Just like a PC keyboard actually, the only difference is they are usually sealed in another layer of plastic to protect the keypad from the elements... where as a PC keyboard only sits on a desk and never has to deal with such abuse.
To replace this is fairly easy, you just need to locate the pad itself. And seeing as you have a blackberry, that won't be hard at all. Shit you could probably buy someones junk one for pennies on the dollar and take it from that saving you some money.
As for the track ball, that's a completely different issue. I don't know which style of the track ball your blackberry uses, but most of them function almost like an old school ball mouse. Replacing is probably on the more "annoying" side then difficult.
But that's all if it's in that. What if those parts are functional, but there is something electrical or logical that's causing them to not work. You would of done all that work for no reason at all!
Your best bet, take the case apart and:
A) make sure the thing doesn't daunt you at all... if it looks like something you are afraid you won't be able to put back together. Don't go any further from removing the shell and ask for professional help.
B) if it doesn't scare you, then continue on. Figure out how the mechanics of those devices work and test them out hunting for the faulty issue (filth or bad connection, some type of damage, what ever looks wrong)
C) if you can't get the thing to function by manually connecting circuits... get some one who knows what they're doing.
A keypad is fairly simple. In a cellphone it's two plastic sheets. The top sheet has a current entering, and the bottom sheet has the path for the current to exit. When a button is pushed it presses the two sheets together completing the circuit, and depending on the path taken it knows which key was pushed. Just like a PC keyboard actually, the only difference is they are usually sealed in another layer of plastic to protect the keypad from the elements... where as a PC keyboard only sits on a desk and never has to deal with such abuse.
To replace this is fairly easy, you just need to locate the pad itself. And seeing as you have a blackberry, that won't be hard at all. Shit you could probably buy someones junk one for pennies on the dollar and take it from that saving you some money.
As for the track ball, that's a completely different issue. I don't know which style of the track ball your blackberry uses, but most of them function almost like an old school ball mouse. Replacing is probably on the more "annoying" side then difficult.
But that's all if it's in that. What if those parts are functional, but there is something electrical or logical that's causing them to not work. You would of done all that work for no reason at all!
Your best bet, take the case apart and:
A) make sure the thing doesn't daunt you at all... if it looks like something you are afraid you won't be able to put back together. Don't go any further from removing the shell and ask for professional help.
B) if it doesn't scare you, then continue on. Figure out how the mechanics of those devices work and test them out hunting for the faulty issue (filth or bad connection, some type of damage, what ever looks wrong)
C) if you can't get the thing to function by manually connecting circuits... get some one who knows what they're doing.