last year when i disassembled the new
iphone 13
one of my viewers had a crazy idea
what a ridiculous idea
what would be the point of doing
actually maybe there is some merit in
making a usbc iphone
if anything it'll be a fun challenge
so i set a goal of what i wanted to
achieve which was no loss of
functionality
cable reversibility
working fast charging
and data transfer
and to retain the phone's water
resistance
the lightning to usbc cable
i need to extract apple's c94 board and
wire it up inside the phone
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the board is still covered in the
lightning plug tip
but because it's held on with plastic i
should be able to heat it up with an
iron and slide it right off
leaving nothing but the board
covered in melted plastic
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so i've successfully taken the c94 board
from the cable now i need to remove the
charging port assembly from the phone
remove the lightning port
and join the two together with a ribbon
cable
this means more precise glue removal
and even though i was being extremely
careful
i discovered this
i had broke something
all right let's try again and this time
i'm not taking any chances
you guessed it
power tools
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by cutting through the pins and using
low melt solder on the mounting points i
can safely pull the port off without
damaging any components
now i can easily desolder the
decapitated pins
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the 8-pin connectors have a pitch of 0.6
millimeters but i could only find 0.5
millimeter flex cables
even from suppliers who offer custom
cables
but i should be able to make it work
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it's coming along nicely
now i need to find a usbc port
most ports on the market were either too
bulky or not waterproof
until one port caught my eye
a replacement port for the samsung a52
iphones already use samsung screens so
why not their ports too
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to mount this port i need to design a
small board that connects the five wires
of the lightning cable and houses two
5.1 kilo ohm resistors on the cc pins to
safely allow for fast charging this is
me pretending to create this board in
real time
now what should go here
ground yeah that'll work
now to get this board printed
this looks like a good place
10 pieces
0.8 mill
i enter the parameters i need upload the
gerber file and print
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a few days later and these little
darlings have arrived
i included holes in the board so as not
to obstruct the screen brackets
but the bottom pentalobe screws just
bump into the sides of the port
oh also i made a small mistake with my
board
mixing up the cc pins and the sbu pins
but as the sbu pins aren't used i can
just break them off and bridge the cc
pins to that pad
so
it's working
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time to modify the frame we need a bit
more room to fit the cord
then i'll use a cnc to precisely cut out
the larger holes
it's coming along nicely but i soon
realized that the newly sculpted hole
has too many different surfaces that
aren't going to look very neat
so i need to find a mouth for this usb-c
port
okay so i guess that's not a real thing
maybe i can take the usbc mouth from
another phone
if only there was a phone manufacturer
that was notorious for making flat edged
rectangles
oh thanks sony
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and we have our port mouth
now i just need to enlarge the hole to
fit the mouth
now if you're like me you may be
thinking it should be easy to fit this
tiny little wafer of a board somewhere
inside the phone
but we are idiots
it's almost as if the company that made
this phone knew how to utilize all the
internal space
i could fit the board below the battery
but this space is reserved for if and
when the battery expands
and also for the display ic chips
then i wondered if i could shave a bit
of plastic off the loudspeaker
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i found that i could squeeze it in here
i just need to modify the frame a little
and the edge of the screen supporting
bracket
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so
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all right let's assemble this thing
i used some custom standoffs to replace
the original standoff screws
the rubber grommet presses firmly up
against the mouth
and with those screws the port is secure
the bottom screws clear the port and
will slot into the screen brackets as
normal
i'll wire it up and route the cables
so
time to pass on the crown
clean up inside
make a slight modification to the new
screen adhesive
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thanks for watching
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playlist or subscribes so you don't miss
out on the next thing i do
which will be pretty cool too