My old broken FP2 case cover ... hopeless waste ? (no)

[anon9505190]

Just to be clear : I already received an new FP2 case cover by warranty a month ago from FP. After seemless delivery within very short time I put it in my home cabinet drawer and used my old cover with only tiny crack. Now you will see the end state of the old case. But not because of 2 additional bigger cracks. You may find another topic of mine in category hardware about the other big crack “far” away from the first crack. No, it was the end of the baggy ribbon that made using the FP2 impossible with it. Kind of poor-quality material race into the abyss of end of cover case lifetime of FP2. I hope you may learn from it e.g. by the way how to better open the FP2 cover.

Age of life time : 7 months .Please nobody try to tell me about a “monday case cover” in a reflex, see below why

Why ? Of course I opened it many many times . Too many ? No. What else ? I opened it wrong way ! How ? I used the thumb on the left side where the volume button is located. Is this the end of the story : NO. Could I repair it “Yes, I could”. Is there a better way opening your FP2 . Yes, of course.

Please excuse the next unsharp image of the bumper case from shapeways.com . I couldn’t help with my other mobile phone camera. Even though it has macro settings there was too much sun light outsight for a sharp display.
So, I add this here to have only a complete view to the structure of the FP2 bumper case from shapeways.com

[Friek]

Hi,
is the bumper any good (taugt des was)?

[anon9505190]

For sure. It doesnot only look like a skeleton. It is one. Many people think rubber is best for bumper. I don’t think so. When tumbling down the vectors of physikal forces are absorbed better by a second surrounding case. I try to explain this in detail because I don’t see any use in testing it.

[knobhead]

Hi @anon9505190,

I can confirm that my cover (black-translucent) als broke down in a similar way and within a similar timespan as you described. I also ordered a replacement cover early enough within the warranty. Now I’m trying to open it even less, although some irregular system freezes require hard power-offs by taking out the battery.

The skeleton does look interesting, but for me the phone is big enough as it is already…

Oh, any hints on how to recycle the broken cover, anybody?

Cheers

[TobiasF]

Oh, any hints on how to recycle the broken cover […]?

Re-use it for another purpose. (Well, I did not found that another purpose yet.)

[anon9505190]

Oh, any hints on how to recycle the broken cover, anybody?

Because the rubber fixture will not survive a year I guess that more and more customer will expect baggy ribbons rather than broken cases. An expert for material junctions would (must ?) have told FP before about limitations of this design.

If you don’t want to wait and collect or store it at home you can’t help taking it to a recycling depot .

If you want to store it for longer time hoping for new solutions you may have to look for other ribbon replacements not produces by FP and not for FP2. However ribbon fixtures already exist from third party producers mobile accessories especially for fixtures . Having a tough look on resilient smart mobiles is not so untrendy as you might think. It maybe even pulled over the baggy original ribbon. Investigation for replacing the original fixture to the case of FP2 is really missing and needed due to expected short lifetime of it. Because the ribbon for 5 inch smartphones is easier to be replaced than the whole case itself it makes sense to keep the old case.

I don’t want to enhance FP bashing once again. However if longvity was meant seriously and includes the whole FP2 then FP should not wait until the end of the year to count all baggy ribbons. They sholdnot hesitate to present a creative replacement for the case of the FP2 . It will become an outstanding issue for FP. Therefor I recommend not to take it to the recycling depot.

[kofi]

Oh, but doesn´t it even say “designed to open”? Well, our cases just seem to open at the wrong places…

I´ve removed the back cover exactly twice during it´s life and no, I didn´t open it from the volume buttons onwards, but that´s where it started to rip off.

[anon9505190]

Yes, I agree that it happens even without stressing material e.g. by disassembly. My rubber band lost shape now all over the left side and detached from every fixture there. Observing thoughtfull it came to my mind that not first the fixture loosened. No, it maybe first the self-extension of the rubber that then tears down the fixture (!). So, you don’t need tension or stress on the rubber. It is the material by itself that changes just by time only. Maybe humidity, maybe just a cheap material not beeing qualified or proven to hold what it should promise.