At some point last year, my FP4 suddendly stopped charging. Only if you inserted the charging cable in weird angles would it work. The USB port had a small kink in its ribbon cable, so I bought a replacement port, which did fix the issue.
Now I’m having the same issue again, the ribbon cable also has a small kink on its left side. I think this is because the whole port is not secured correctly anymore. Normally 1 screw on the right and 2 plastic “flaps” hold it in place. The “flaps” probably protect the ribbon cable from a pushing force from below, like when you insert a charging cable.
My left “flap” apparently lost to wear and tear and the right one looks a little bent. Sadly, it looks like the “flaps” are part of the whole chasis, so there is no way to replace them without replacing the whole phone.
Has anyone had similar issues? Am I missing something or is there realy no way to repair this?
Sorry, no repair solution.
But you might possibly consider to use a magnetic USB cable in the future. This might reduce some stress on the module (and the internal connections/cables)?
Is the leads to the port in good shape? If you’re good with a soldering iron. You could run a small trace wire from the damaged spot to another in that broken trace. I saw a few YouTube videos of how people fixed broken tech like video game systems and video games cartridges with this method. That might just solve you’re cable problem. I recommend watching a few before doing it on your own.
If you have room I would just hot glue where the tab is missing on the chassis after replacing the port again.
Edit: Your talking about the two plastic tabs left and right of the ribbon cable that hold the port from being pushed toward the ribbon connector? Hot glue should work pretty well in place. Just put a small amount along the top of the port on either side of the ribbon. It’s used often for added mechanical strength. It’s also easier to remove and shouldn’t be hot enough to hurt anything.
The other possibility is to put some double-sided adhesive above and below the port so it gets sandwiched in there when the board above is screwed down.
You could also rebuild the tabs very carefully using super glue and some plastic cut out of something else.