Well quick update..
My Amazon order came today with the DMM!!
However I unboxed the package and put it straight back in the box, sealed it up and tomorrow its going back....
WHY?
Because the above statement is Literal, all that turned up was the meter! No bag, no, probes, absolutely nothing else in the box....
Dont worry it gets worse, I dont use Amazon much as I have a nephew who works in a fulfilment centre for Amazon, just on principle of how they treat staff I try NOT to use Amazon. The other reason is, I was unaware that when you send anything back you are given 2 choices..
1. wait 24-48hr AFTER they get the package back and have the money refunded to your AMAZON account (so you got to spend the money with them anyway or
2. Wait 10-14 days AFTER they get the package back and have it transferred back to your bank account! they blame the 'Banking system, funny how you can go into your banking app and pretty much instantaneously transfer money to anyone anywhere
.
So you might be wondering why such a sum is so important to me.
Well that part is my utter nightmare of a situation I found myself in last night, my phone has ALL my bank accounts on it and all credit cards (Both business and personal) which is a fair few accounts (I have separate accounts for most things, especially on the business banking side.
My charging port (USBc) was getting more and more difficult to get the charging cable in, so yesterday morning I thought rather than dig around inside the USB port and get all the fluff and crap out myself, I would be sensible and goto a local phone repair shop and pay them to do it in case I 'F'ed' it up, keep in mind that without access to that phone many of the accounts I am effectively locked out of with no one to really go to (Bank wise) to help me install the apps on another phone (hence the age of this old Galaxy A71).
The guy did a great job of removing the fluff etc and brought the phone out after 5 mins, and in front of me put a USB cable in (not connected to anything but the phone), sure enough the new cable they gave me fitted like a glove and the phone was working perfectly. So I happily paid the £35 to have it cleaned with free cable
.
Late last night my phone beeped as normal to tell me to charge it up, I plugged it in and........Nothing! When I took a really close look (as close as you can on them things anyway) I was horrified to discover that the copper contact traces inside the port were all ripped up from the pcb.
So I phoned the shop and they said nothing we can mate we cant get the USB board thing as they are no longer made for my phone!
SOOOO, my first electronics project isnt going to be 100 ways to flash a LED, instead I went back onto amazon
and have ended up having to buy a phone take apart kit thing (£35), a antistatic tray thing for repairing phones, something called a BGA rework station and soldering thing?? (~£235) A USB Microscope ~£170,(I watched a few you tube vids to see if anyone had taken one of these apart before) Lucky enough there was a half decent video.
However it was clear from the video that you cant even really see the screw heads they are so microscopic! and I have very old eyes. I forgot to buy solder and liquid resin/liquid flux?? and liquid solder, I didnt even look at the cost of those.
the battery is now dead so im effectively locked out of all my accounts as they are locked to that phone and all have biometric Access control on. main concern was the business accounts so I rang them, only to be told that because they are no passwords or pin codes to access the accounts and they dont have physical branches, there is zero they can do without me getting Biometric access to the apps.
All my worst nightmares come true, so my first electronics project is now going to be, Taking apart a phone almost completely, just so I can reach the usb Board, AND by some miracle desolder the the actual socket from the board and solder a new one on, just so I can get enough charge in the phone to gain access and switch the accounts to another phone!
Sleep well tonight, i'm 99.9999% sure I will be bombarding you all with questions on things I know zero about! I soldered a 5mm through hole LED the other day, which is about the third time in my life I have held a soldering iron!
Please dont tell me just how bad this is likely to go, I am very aware of how badly this is likely to end, but one positive thing is, I cant F it up anymore than it is already! and the shop isnt prepared to replace just the usb port, they would only consider doing replacing the entire USB board for the phone, which I cant get.
Electronics was meant to be a bit of a hobby so I could make an environmental controller for my mini eco system im making, I have wasted so much money buying crap like oscilloscopes that stopped working after 3 days etc etc, stuff I thought I would need but turns out I didnt.
So it has been a baptism of fire! IF I am remotely successful (yes like I said I know those odds!) well I figure if nothing else I am about to have a steep learning curve and a crash course in learning how to solder things I cant even see without a bloody microscope! and zero soldering experience as such. But I can read and watch vids, slowly i'm getting my head around datasheets, but if ANYONE has any advice or tips, I would truly be so very very grateful.
I would of paid one of you guys to have a go at it for me (like I said I got nothing to loose), but one account in particular I need access to by 5pm tomorrow at the latest, and yes Murphy, made sure that the one account I need quick access to, is the hardest one to just reinstall on another phone...
The meter looked ok but honestly I wasnt in the mood to bother with it seeing as in the UK they are a long way from $19 to buy, and I wasnt going to pay for new leads when I had already paid for THEM!
*****RANT OVER*****
I hope the rest of you are having a much better weekend
Kind Regards
Marty
(Officially now the biggest NOOB to join the forum)
Look you gotta take whatever win you can lol
PS, what hell exactly is a BGA rework station????