Hello,
I did my first non replaceable cell phone battery replacement. It was a success. I learned a lot from this 3 hour endeavor and thought i would share this experience with members here.
The first thing i learned was DONT replace your own battery. This might sound strange since i just did just that, but believe me if i knew it was going to be that difficult i would have never ordered a replacement battery. Since i did order, it was full on.
First, normally you have to heat the phone around the edges to loosen up the glue, but the internal battery already did that for me. It swelled to about two times it's normal thickness and pushed the back up near one corner. Seeing how the glue held it in place and that it was easy to grip after that, i managed to slowly pull the back away from the body of the phone. The glue does let go, but slowly. So if you lift one corner and hold it with a little force eventually the glue lets go and you can then lift it up a little more, and repeating that it comes off, without heating the edges of the phone. How you would do this if the battery did not swell im not sure, maybe start one corner with a heat gun and go from there. I didnt like having to heat my phone so i was kind of lucky the battery swelled up.
Ok so the back off, i can easily see the battery and how it comes out, or so i thought. The problem is, there is glue holding the battery to the case plastic. There are some tiny tiny tiny screws too but the screwdriver came with the battery. The screws came out easily so it seemed like it was going smooth, but then i had to get the battery out. Since it was glued in with some kind of glue that is stronger than anything i've seen so far, it was very hard to even lift one corner of the battery up. You are supposed to either heat it or use isopropel alchohol. I didnt want to do that either. So finally getting one end of the battery up about 1/16 of an inch, working around the edge i could get to, i was able to get that edge up, then eventually some hours later the battery let loose and it came away from the plastic.
Next came the connector. The tiny tiny tiny two prong connector. The whole thing is about 1/8 of an inch wide. It would not come out even with force that was a little more than reasonable. I looked at the connector on the new battery and noticed that it had two little nibs sticking out on each side. It was then clear that the sides of the connector had to be spread a little to get the connector loose. The problem is it is so tiny it is very hard to spread without wrecking the motherboard mating connector. Somehow i got it loose though. Now with the old battery out, the new battery goes in nicely with no problem, except that connector. It had to be plugged into the motherboard of course. That was a bit of a task too because of the size. It was very hard to line up correctly with the mating connector. Finally, it went in. Flipped the phone over and turned it on but it would not turn on. The connector wasnt quite in all the way. Pushing on it a little it made contact. Now turning on the phone and it started right up as usual. A little bit of relief when i saw the startup screen light up.
So that's the way that went, but along the way i saw that there are many ways this could have gone wrong. When removing the battery and the connector if you hit something on the motherboard you could kill the phone. Really you are supposed to remove the motherboard too but there are a plethora of connectors that you have to deal with and i didnt want to have to do that either. So when prying up the old battery you have to be very careful what you are prying against and there are very few places where you can stick the plastic pry tool. Oh and the pry tool got damaged because it was just thin plastic at the end. I think a wedge type tool would be better like the part of a clothespin where you squeeze it. Oh and there is a little bit of glue on the plastic that holds the battery in somewhat too, some other type of glue i think.
There is one big huge benefit from doing this though, and that is that once you replace the battery you dont really have to glue it back in like they do at the manufacturing plant. You can just tape it to hold it and once the back is on it cant move anyway. This allows you to be able to change the battery again in the future with almost no effort except for that tiny connector. That said, you might be able to ask the place where you get yours replaced if they would kindly NOT glue the battery back in just tape it, and dont glue the back on either. You can tape the edges. If they do that you can replace the battery next time yourself as long as you can deal with that tiny tiny connector. As far as waterproofing, the glue did not look uniformly applied enough to do that anyway. You may be able to waterproof it yourself though with some thought and a little silicone sealant.
So that's the story and after that i can only recommend that you take your phone to a repair shop if you need to change the battery. That extra $20 is worth it.
I did my first non replaceable cell phone battery replacement. It was a success. I learned a lot from this 3 hour endeavor and thought i would share this experience with members here.
The first thing i learned was DONT replace your own battery. This might sound strange since i just did just that, but believe me if i knew it was going to be that difficult i would have never ordered a replacement battery. Since i did order, it was full on.
First, normally you have to heat the phone around the edges to loosen up the glue, but the internal battery already did that for me. It swelled to about two times it's normal thickness and pushed the back up near one corner. Seeing how the glue held it in place and that it was easy to grip after that, i managed to slowly pull the back away from the body of the phone. The glue does let go, but slowly. So if you lift one corner and hold it with a little force eventually the glue lets go and you can then lift it up a little more, and repeating that it comes off, without heating the edges of the phone. How you would do this if the battery did not swell im not sure, maybe start one corner with a heat gun and go from there. I didnt like having to heat my phone so i was kind of lucky the battery swelled up.
Ok so the back off, i can easily see the battery and how it comes out, or so i thought. The problem is, there is glue holding the battery to the case plastic. There are some tiny tiny tiny screws too but the screwdriver came with the battery. The screws came out easily so it seemed like it was going smooth, but then i had to get the battery out. Since it was glued in with some kind of glue that is stronger than anything i've seen so far, it was very hard to even lift one corner of the battery up. You are supposed to either heat it or use isopropel alchohol. I didnt want to do that either. So finally getting one end of the battery up about 1/16 of an inch, working around the edge i could get to, i was able to get that edge up, then eventually some hours later the battery let loose and it came away from the plastic.
Next came the connector. The tiny tiny tiny two prong connector. The whole thing is about 1/8 of an inch wide. It would not come out even with force that was a little more than reasonable. I looked at the connector on the new battery and noticed that it had two little nibs sticking out on each side. It was then clear that the sides of the connector had to be spread a little to get the connector loose. The problem is it is so tiny it is very hard to spread without wrecking the motherboard mating connector. Somehow i got it loose though. Now with the old battery out, the new battery goes in nicely with no problem, except that connector. It had to be plugged into the motherboard of course. That was a bit of a task too because of the size. It was very hard to line up correctly with the mating connector. Finally, it went in. Flipped the phone over and turned it on but it would not turn on. The connector wasnt quite in all the way. Pushing on it a little it made contact. Now turning on the phone and it started right up as usual. A little bit of relief when i saw the startup screen light up.
So that's the way that went, but along the way i saw that there are many ways this could have gone wrong. When removing the battery and the connector if you hit something on the motherboard you could kill the phone. Really you are supposed to remove the motherboard too but there are a plethora of connectors that you have to deal with and i didnt want to have to do that either. So when prying up the old battery you have to be very careful what you are prying against and there are very few places where you can stick the plastic pry tool. Oh and the pry tool got damaged because it was just thin plastic at the end. I think a wedge type tool would be better like the part of a clothespin where you squeeze it. Oh and there is a little bit of glue on the plastic that holds the battery in somewhat too, some other type of glue i think.
There is one big huge benefit from doing this though, and that is that once you replace the battery you dont really have to glue it back in like they do at the manufacturing plant. You can just tape it to hold it and once the back is on it cant move anyway. This allows you to be able to change the battery again in the future with almost no effort except for that tiny connector. That said, you might be able to ask the place where you get yours replaced if they would kindly NOT glue the battery back in just tape it, and dont glue the back on either. You can tape the edges. If they do that you can replace the battery next time yourself as long as you can deal with that tiny tiny connector. As far as waterproofing, the glue did not look uniformly applied enough to do that anyway. You may be able to waterproof it yourself though with some thought and a little silicone sealant.
So that's the story and after that i can only recommend that you take your phone to a repair shop if you need to change the battery. That extra $20 is worth it.