Repair Cafe Volunteers practice their skills outside of the events! Here Keith shares a recent repair story when a family member brought their faulty smart phone to him.
In this case, a family member showed me their Huawei P10 phone, which had the screen popped out. The concern was that the battery may be faulty, having swollen and had forced the screen out of the case. I advised the family member to immediately stop using the phone and keep it away from anything that could cause a fire to spread in the event it does catch fire. A faulty phone can be very dangerous causing fires. See, What to do with a swollen battery.
The first step was to make sure it was backed up. Out in the garden with the phone in a metal biscuit tin, I turned it on and ensured key data was backed up to the cloud. Ideally, your phone should always be backed up to make sure that losing a phone does not leave you without critical data or cherished photos.
Dismantling phones can be quite tricky, in the case of modern phones, fortunately, the Huawei P10 does not have a glued in screen and it can be opened with two screws. All be it quite unusual screws but fortunately a tool I had access to. It is important to study the process of dismantling a phone in advance as there can be delicate cables or components which are easily damaged. I used the following guides:
I purchased a replacement battery for the phone, it is important to be careful about fake components or low-grade batteries that may be built to sub-standard quality. I was able to buy a genuine battery from a reputable seller which cost £9.99.
Phone repairs need a clean well-lit environment, so I opted to do it inside with a plan for what to do if the phone started to get hot or emit smoke. As I dismantle the phone the original concern was quickly confirmed, the battery has swallowed to nearly double its original thickness.
The replacement went without any problems and the phone worked afterwards.
Fortunately, I had the specialist tools needed for this repair, Repair Cafe Gosport has the tools and coming to a Repair Cafe session would provide you with the opportunity to work through a similar repair with one of our volunteers so you don’t need to buy any tools. You would just need to buy the battery.
This whole job took me 1 hour including the time to research the repair and find the battery. If you have not done a similar repair before it may take a bit longer.
Finally it is important to dispose of the old battery properly, DO NOT put it you normal rubbish bin, see Gosport House Hold Waste Recycling Centre.
Repair Cafe Gosport is the Second Saturday of the month (except August), between 10:30am and 1pm at the community maker space.
Residents of Gosport bring their broken items to fix them on the spot with the help of voluntary repairers.