Well i have found an offer with an operator which sells the Fairphone 6 with a very lower price, because i cannot afford to spend 600 euros again.
I will give a try.
But this would be the last one…
I really hope i can keep this phone at least for a decade.
I have returned to a hackerspace that has access to a Vapour Phase reflow oven, as a last try, I shoved the dead main board, without any of the shields on emmc, cpu and pmics and protective Kapton tape around other areas into the Galden reflow oven, at 227 degrees Celsius for 35 seconds at peak temperature and:
The phone lives yet again!!!
Long live the FP3(+)
nice to read that mimas! Congrats on this fix
that’s very interesting. What’s your read? Do you think the first solder didn’t hold, or that the issue was in another chip that needed to be reflowed?
The duration (35 seconds) really seems not a lot. Was that all the time it was in the oven?
Total oven time was about 15 Minutes. Vapor phase reflow ovens are impressively efficient by transferring heat to components from all sides, but so far they rely on PFAS.
I think my Fairphone 3 has become so old that it is hard to read the actual reason for the failure. However, I suspect the part with broken solder joints was indeed the eMMC flash chip, since I tried numerous times to reflow it with a hot air gun, but never succeeded in getting the solder to melt so the IC could be moved. I believe the vapour phase reflow cycle finally melted the balls under the flash chip.
I am not actually sure the eMMC was reballed in the repair shop, because it looked untouched and had flux residue from flux I applied in my earlier DIY attempts.
FWIW; my phone (FP3) had experienced sudden death overnight (annoyingly causing me to oversleep as the alarm didn’t go off). After reading this thread and watching the Youtube video @Paule posted above, I decided to try to reflow the chip.
I didn’t have a spare oven, but I have a heat gun and one of those laser thermometers. I slather the chip in soldering flux and then used the heatgun to heat it up, using the themometer to make sure it went over 200°C and the flux was boiling.
Reassembled and I felt a vibration when I plugged in the usb-c cable (hurrah!), but it died again about ten seconds into booting up. Tried reflowing again, but to no avail. Clearly the issue was indeed that chip as identified in the video, but I suspect I overheated it and damaged some other chips.
Shame, but glad I gave it a shot.
Please get in contact with support.
If you can by chat and say you don’t have a ticketnumber.
That was really really helpful. I just resurrected my FP3 from death using an oven and a potato (oh, and a cooking thermometer). Thank you so much for this detailed post!
hi all, this morning my Fp3+ - 5+yo - died suddenly. My goal of keeping it for >8years has been lost and I’m disappointed. But I accept 5 years as an above average lifetime of a mobile. After reading this posts I decided I’m not capable of repairing it, as I lack technical skills and necessary tools. So I decided to buy a new 5 or 6, supposing technology has improved on the new releases.
Hello, please contact the customer support, possibly prior to the purchase, as they might have some discounted offer for such cases.
Tagging @Fairphone_CM
Edited to say you may pass your dead FP3 to some angels as they might be able to re-vive it from ashes #oventechnique
brilliant idea but sorry, I missed this answer as I left for the shop. I bought the Fp6 at Coolblue Utrecht and left the broken Fp3+ there to be recycled. I can try to retrieve it but expect not much of it.
