[INFO] How to replace the flip.

[littleblue]

Just wondering if anyone has replaced their flip and if it is hard to do w/ those little speaker wires.

Mine has just some micro scratches and I want to replace it eventually.

[Alpha43]

i also want to replace it eventually.. But it isnt hard because when you order the part it comes with the wires already built in. So its nothing thats hard to do. Hopefully someone posts a how to take apart the phone. If not i will do it once i have ordered parts.
~Alpha~

[bdATubc]

I took it to a local shop and he was able to do mine for me. I think it involves some soldering. I paid 25 bucks so I'd rather just take it in.

[samkatta]

May be the ear piece wires are soldered to the board.

[linelock]

I got my replacement flip in today and changed it when I got home from work. It was very easy I disassembled my whole phone but this isn't necessary. Here is the easy method.

1. Unscrew the 2 phillips head screws on the back of the flip.

2. Now you should be able to remove the outer part of the silver hinge. You may have to close the flip for this. Be carefull because there is a small cylindrical magnet between the inner and outer hinge covers that may fall out.

3. I just cut the 2 wires from my old flip as close as I could to the solder locations I've highlighted in the attached pic. I guess you could desolder them if you wanted to.

4. I then put the new flip in place of the old. Leaving the wires long I held them over thier respective solder locations with a small flathead screwdriver while I heated the existing solder with my fine tip 14w soldering iron. The solder melted very fast and the wire sunk into it. I continued to hold the wire down untill the solder hardened again.

5. Trim off the excess length of the wires as close as you can to the solder location.

6. Replace the outer hinge cover and rescrew the screws. Make sure the small magnet is still there.

7. Have a beer and admire your shiny new flip

I had also ordered a new spring/hinge assembly from cnn.cn because my flip had some side to side play when the flip was closed but didnt need to install it. While I had the phone all apart I discovered that the spring assembly fit loosely in the lower hinge cover so I just wraped some paper around the spring assembly as a shim when I put it back in and now it is much better.

[samkatta]

Some people have the guts, you are one of them and I'm not.
Congratulations on your new flip.

[linelock]

Heh, its probably more curiosity then guts. Ever since I was a kid I've been taking stuff apart to see how it works. It doesnt always work out but I always learn something

On that note I think I can see now why magnetic cases dont work to well with the a1200. It uses the small magnet in the hinge assembly to sense when the flip is opened or closed. So when it passes the magnets in a magnetic case the phone thinks the flip is opened and closed so it disconnects the call.

[kruejl]

linelock, where did you put the paper to sturdy up the flip? Can you show it in your photo?

[Alpha43]

good work linelock! Question do you think if you remove that black plastic between the hinge that it will stop the chrome hinge from getting scratched? that used to happen with my v620, and v635.. So what i did was just remove that black plastic and it would never make a mark again... What do you think?
~Alpha~

[torkuhl]

and now the question :: is it not possible to do a little hardware hack on the hinge?
i think it should be a one-handed mechanism like the PBL flip, that would be great!