Cellphone Hacks

526 Articles

IPhone Brain Surgery

February 24, 2017 by 44 Comments

You think you’re good at soldering? Can you solder a CPU? A CPU inside an iPhone? A decapped CPU inside an iPhone? Can you solder inside a decapped CPU inside of an iPhone?

If you can’t, fear not – someone can, and we found him or her courtesy of a video that [Bunnie Huang] tweeted a while back. There’s not much information in the video, but from what we can gather it comes from an outfit called G-Lon Technology in Guang Zhou. Their Facebook page suggests that they teach cellphone repair, and if they take their repairs this far, we’d say the students are getting their tuition’s worth.

The reason for the repair is unclear, although the titles refer to a “CPU to U0301 AP31 AR31 broken repair,” which we take to refer to a boot error that can be repaired by exposing a couple of pads inside the CPU and wiring them to another chip. We’d love to hear comments from anyone familiar with the repair, but even in the absence of a clear reason for undertaking this, the video is pretty impressive. The epoxy cap of the CPU is painstakingly ground away under a microscope, then tiny tools are used to scrape down to the correct layers. Solder mask is applied, hair-thin wires are tacked to the pads, and a UV-curing resin is applied to fill the CPU’s new gaping hole and to stabilize the wires. It seems like a lot of work to save an iPhone, but it sure is entertaining to watch.

Can’t get enough of poking around the innards of chips? We’ve got decapping stories aplenty: one, two, and three that you might like. We’ve even covered at least one CPU internal repair before too.

Continue reading “IPhone Brain Surgery” →

Nexus 5X Phone Resurrected By The Oven

February 11, 2017 by 67 Comments

Warranty shmarranty — toss the phone in the oven! There’s apparently a problem with the assembly of the Nexus 5X smartphones, and it looks like it is due to faulty BGA chip soldering. LG USA has had enough problems with the phone that they may not even have enough parts or new units to fix it, so they’re offering a refund. But we all know how it is to get attached to a device, right?

So [Alex] disassembled his beloved phone, pulled out the board in question, and gave it the XBox Red Ring Of Death treatment. He placed the board on some insulating aluminum foil, and baked it for six and a half minutes. Season with lemon and pepper, and serve! We’re honestly surprised that sticking the affected board into the oven at 195° C / 390° F for a few minutes would work at all. Isn’t that a low temperature for soldering, especially with a lead-free mix? Could it have been a problem with humidity after all? Continue reading “Nexus 5X Phone Resurrected By The Oven” →

Live Counter Revives Old Nokia Phone’s Utility

February 4, 2017 by 7 Comments

Old hardware you may have on hand cannot only inspire projects in their own right, but can facilitate the realization of any ideas you have been planning. Using a Nokia N900, [MakerMan] concocted a light-up sign with a live subscriber and view count of his videos.

[MakerMan] milled out the logo used on the sign with his DIY CNC machine — built from rotary bearings and recycled stepper motors off industrial Xerox printers. The meticulous application of a jigsaw, rotary tool, and grinder resulted in a sturdy frame for the sign while a few strips of RGB LEDs imbue it with an inspiring glow. All that was left was to mount the phone in place and tape it for good measure.

Continue reading “Live Counter Revives Old Nokia Phone’s Utility” →

Camera Restricta Ensures Original Photography

January 28, 2017 by 42 Comments

Proper documentation is important, and when traveling it is commonly achieved via photography. Redundant documentation is often inefficient, and the Camera Restricta — in a commentary on the saturation of photographed landmarks and a recent debate on photographic censorship in the EU — aims to challenge the photographer into taking unique photographs.

Camera Restricta has a 3D-printed body, housing a smartphone for gps data, display and audio output, while an ATTiny85 serves to control the interdicting function of the camera. When the user sets up to take a picture using Camera Restricta, an app running on the phone queries a node.js server that trawls Flikr and Panoramio for geotagged photos of the local area. From that information, the camera outputs a clicking audio relative to the number of photos taken and — if there are over a certain number of pictures of the area — the screen trips a photocell connected to the ATTiny 85 board, retracting the shutter button and locking down the viewfinder until you find a more original subject to photograph.

Continue reading “Camera Restricta Ensures Original Photography” →

Stadium Sized Cellphone Light Show Is Controlled By Sound

January 27, 2017 by 35 Comments

18 months ago, [Jameson Rader] didn’t know how to code. He had an economics degree and worked for a minor league hockey team. He did have a dream, though. Broadcasting data through sound. When we say broadcast, we mean broadcast – as in one sender and thousands of receivers.

[Jameson] didn’t have the money to hire a team to build his application. So he did what any self-respecting hacker would do. He bought a few books and taught himself to code. We’re talking about a smartphone app here, so Java and Objective-C were necessary to cover Android and iOS devices. The result is XT Audio Beacons.

[Jameson] has created a light show for stadiums which requires no new hardware infrastructure. Ultrasonic cues are added to a pre-recorded soundtrack and played over the PA system. Fans attending the show simply run an app and hold up their smartphone. The app listens for the cues and turns on the camera flash. The result is a light show which can be synchronized to music, sound effects, or whatever the event calls for. Since the system relies on sound, the App only needs permissions to access the microphone. The system would still work even if the phones were in airplane mode.

Transmitting data to smartphones via ultrasonics isn’t exactly new. Amazon uses it in their Dash Buttons, and Google uses it in their OnHub. Using it as a broadcast medium in a stadium is a novel application, though. [Jameson] also has demos showing XT Audio Beacons being used for more mundane purposes – such as troubleshooting electronics, or even as an acoustic version of an iBeacon.

Most important here is that [Jameson] isn’t keeping all this new knowledge to himself. He’s published the source to his application on Github under the MIT license.

You can see the system in action – and even try it yourself, in the video after the break.

If you want to learn more about [Jameson] and his journey, definitely check out his AMA on Reddit.

Continue reading “Stadium Sized Cellphone Light Show Is Controlled By Sound” →

Building Beautiful Cell Phones Out Of FR4

November 28, 2016 by 37 Comments

Over on Hackaday.io, [bobricius] took this technology and designed something great. It’s a GSM cell phone with a case made out of FR4. It’s beautiful, and if you’re ever in need of a beautifully crafted burner phone, this is the one to build.

The components, libraries, and toolchains to build a cellphone from scratch have been around for a very long time. Several years ago, the MIT Media Lab prototyped a very simple cellphone on a single piece of FR4. It made calls, but not much else. It was ugly, but it worked. [Bobricius] took the idea and ran with it.

Continue reading “Building Beautiful Cell Phones Out Of FR4” →

Star Trek Phone Dock Might As Well Be From Picard’s Night Stand

November 16, 2016 by 12 Comments

Star Trek is often credited with helping spur the development of technologies we have today — the go-to example being cell phones. When a Star Trek April Fool’s product inspires a maker to build the real thing? Well, that seems par for the course. [MS3FGX] decided to make it so. The 3D printed Star Trek-themed phone dock acts as a Bluetooth speaker and white noise generator. The result is shown off in the video below and equals the special effects you expect to find on the silver screen.

Taking a few liberties from the product it’s based on — which was much larger and had embedded screens — makes [MS3FGX]’s version a little more practical. Two industrial toggle switches control a tech cube nightlight and the internal Bluetooth speaker. An NFC tag behind the phone dock launches the pre-installed LCARS UI app and turns on the phone’s Bluetooth. Despite being a challenge for [MS3FGX] to design, the end product seems to work exactly as intended.

Continue reading “Star Trek Phone Dock Might As Well Be From Picard’s Night Stand” →