remove shorting mobile phones

If your mobile phone is short, it can have various problems like it may not power on (dead), it may overheat (although it is normal in some models!), its battery may drain and discharge very fast, it may hang and freeze frequently, it may restart sometimes, etc. It is called short-circuit.

 

Before removing shorting you should know whether your handset’s circuit board is short or not. Learn how to check shorting in mobile phones.

 

Reasons for shorting in circuit boar of mobile phones:

  1. The most common reason is phone drenched or fallen in water.
  2. Handset overheating.
  3. Trying to use an incompatible or faulty charger for charging
  4. Sparks or smoke coming out of the handset due to any reason.

 

To repair a short cell phone, you will have to first remove its shorting to fix it. You have to follow the procedure to remove it especially in dead handsets.

 

Procedure To Remove Shorting In Mobile Phones:

 

1. Dismantle your phone and get out the printed circuit board (PCB). Be careful, so that you do not damage it! Now remove LCD, camera, etc because we just need the board.

2. Clean the entire PCB thoroughly with any circuit cleaner like spirit, alcohol, thinner, IPA, etc. Now dry it completely. After each step, you have to check if shorting is gone or not. If not, proceed to the next step.

3. Now try to deep clean the PCB. There is a liquid called Elma used by watch repair technicians in the eastern countries named Elma. If you do not have access to Elma solution, you can use a solution of any mild soap like Jif.

 

Elma procedure: Dip the PCB in Elma or a mild soap solution for 2 to 4 hours. Remove the PCB and clean it thoroughly with a brush. Dry the PCB completely so that not even a droplet of water or soap solution remains. For drying, you can use a hair dryer, over a flame or even direct sunlight although a hair dryer is a preferable option.

 

Precautions: Make sure you remove the LCD, camera, etc from the PCB before dipping the circuit in Elma. Also make sure, you have dried the PCB completely. It’s advisable to dry the PCB twice as water droplets remain below the chips on the motherboard.

 

Alternate method: You can also use an ultrasonic cleaner to do the above procedure. The advantage is that you do not have to wait for 2 to 4 hours. Instead you will finish the entire procedure in less than 15 minutes. Learn how to use ultrasonic cleaner machine in mobile phone repairs. Learn how to use ultrasonic cleaner machine in cell phone repairs.

 

If shorting goes, you may think there was some dust particle, which lead to shorting. Always consider dust to be one of the worst enemy for a smoothly working circuit board. The other enemy is moisture. If the motherboard is still short, luck is not on your side. You will have to follow advanced procedure. Follow the step below:

 

There are two things we should consider:

  1. A component or IC on the PCB is short and making the entire PCB short.
  2. The entire PCB is short

 

So, if the PCB is short, we cannot dig it out and fix it! We will consider that any of the component or IC is short.

 

Manually inspect if any component like resistor, capacitor, diode, etc is short. There are more chances of capacitors being short. They would look a little more dark or black in colour because of getting burnt. Remove it and then check shorting with a multimeter. If it is gone, you have to solder a same, working component in its place. If still the problem is not solved, proceed further.

 

Connect the PCB to its battery, press the power button and keep it in this position for 10-20 seconds. Remove the battery and immediately check if any component or IC is heating. The part which is heating is most likely short. Remove it and check again. If the problem goes, replace the heating component / IC.

 

If still there is problem then it is very difficult to repair. You will have to remove all the components one by one and check if shorting has gone or not. The part after removing which, the problem goes, is short. But this procedure is too lengthy as there are hundreds of such small components and may take days or weeks and so it is not feasible! This was only for enthusiasts or stubborn technicians who want results anyhow! So do not go for it. There comes a stage when the mother board is beyond repair i.e it cannot be repaired. If it is possible, you will have to simply replace it.

 

Note: The above procedure will be the same for all brands of cell phones and tablets including Samsung, iPhone, Nokia, Sony, HTC, LG, Motorola and Chinese handsets. It will be the same for all smartphones be it based on iOS, android or Windows OS.

 

Please let us know your opinions and results in the comments section below.