# Bionic(Cell phone) Hardware Question



## Cronos (Nov 4, 2011)

I tore down my Bionic last night to replace a cracked screen. Everything went great, the new screen is installed. Unfortunately I broke the ribbon for the phone ear piece during my repair. I can now only use my phone with headphones plugged in or on speaker mode.

I had gone to a jewler to have stripped screws removed from the back and went to show him that I replaced the screen successfully; when I told him about the ripped ribbon he offered to solder it back together for me. Is this something worth doing? Will it even fix the problem? I also still have the broken screen and was wondering if I could use a piece of the ribbon from there to patch the rip. I really don't know anything about how a signal is transferred through the ribbon and wanted to hear advice from someone more knowledgeable before I ask the jewler to do soldering near the phones motherboard.

Thanks in advance.


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## razz1 (Oct 11, 2011)

If it's done right then there shouldn't be a problem. A ribbon cable is usually made one of two ways. Either a group of small wires that are insulated, or a group of flexible traces insulated in a plastic. I'm guessing its the trace kind. It can be soldered by using a thin wire and then re-insulated. Hopefully he is not planning to tack solder the two pieces together unless he overlaps the two. There are many ways to do it as long as 1- remain flexible and 2- insulated.

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using RootzWiki


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## belatukadro (Oct 9, 2011)

I agree, its quite fixable. However in addition to Razz's comment, I'd add that whoever is fixing it needs to be careful regarding the space constrictions, which tend to be very tight. It might be best to see if there is a replacement speaker unit with a complete ribbon attached, which would then be soldered directly to the board, which is much easier than splicing the ribbon.


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## Cronos (Nov 4, 2011)

Thanks for the answers.

I tore apart an old Motorola Razor I have lying around and I might try using that speaker, or maybe I'll just see if Verizon will take it without looking under the battery cover.


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