Here's how I made an iPhone entirely from replacement parts
Scotty from Strange Parts on youtube made a video named "How I Made My Own iPhone - in China" back in
april 2017. Being an electronic enthusiast myself I was quite hooked on his idea and enjoyed all the way through the 23 minute video.
Needless to say the whole project idea is technically stolen from a YouTube video as you can see.
Anyways I wanted to build a device of my own using only replacement parts from a parts store like Scotty used in his video , but China was and still is 3,914 km away from where I live. Luckily , online substitutes to the local chinese market is as common as replacement parts for apple devices !. So I headed over to AliExpress , home to thousands of independent sellers selling both quality and dodgy electronic parts, with the latter being a common sight. Starting things off I searched for various types of components , giving priority to device mainboards , mainly. The entire online store was filled with apple replacement parts , which is obviously a good business decision as there are a lot of devices with the same design when it comes to apple devices. Samsung galaxy motherboards and good rated AMOLED displays were hard to come by despite samsung leading the market for smartphones. The reason is samsung's product line being scattered all over the place , with many devices. It is not very cost effective for chinese resellers to offer motherboards that belong to the same device name but has like a dozen of different variants for different regions.
I started adding parts that make up a 6s to the shopping cart. iPhone 6s is almost 4 years old as of August 2019 but being that old of a phone, parts for it was very easy to come by. The parts took a span of 2 months to arrive to Sri Lanka, Ali Express standard shipping at it's best ! . Afterall, is it worth the money and hassle ? I'd say no because a good used one can be found from the local market for the same price. But for any tech head out there asking for a small challenge , this is quite the fun project. Wrong screw in the wrong hole? Well, you're done. Ali Express ships a defective part? Another month of waiting and the headache of asking for a refund ! But when everything works , it's fun of course :) This is the guide I used to refer in order to get all the screws and brackets right.
A time lapse of the assembly because why not ! The google sheet with all the item prices can be found here
Below are some photos of the project.
Needless to say the whole project idea is technically stolen from a YouTube video as you can see.
Anyways I wanted to build a device of my own using only replacement parts from a parts store like Scotty used in his video , but China was and still is 3,914 km away from where I live. Luckily , online substitutes to the local chinese market is as common as replacement parts for apple devices !. So I headed over to AliExpress , home to thousands of independent sellers selling both quality and dodgy electronic parts, with the latter being a common sight. Starting things off I searched for various types of components , giving priority to device mainboards , mainly. The entire online store was filled with apple replacement parts , which is obviously a good business decision as there are a lot of devices with the same design when it comes to apple devices. Samsung galaxy motherboards and good rated AMOLED displays were hard to come by despite samsung leading the market for smartphones. The reason is samsung's product line being scattered all over the place , with many devices. It is not very cost effective for chinese resellers to offer motherboards that belong to the same device name but has like a dozen of different variants for different regions.
I started adding parts that make up a 6s to the shopping cart. iPhone 6s is almost 4 years old as of August 2019 but being that old of a phone, parts for it was very easy to come by. The parts took a span of 2 months to arrive to Sri Lanka, Ali Express standard shipping at it's best ! . Afterall, is it worth the money and hassle ? I'd say no because a good used one can be found from the local market for the same price. But for any tech head out there asking for a small challenge , this is quite the fun project. Wrong screw in the wrong hole? Well, you're done. Ali Express ships a defective part? Another month of waiting and the headache of asking for a refund ! But when everything works , it's fun of course :) This is the guide I used to refer in order to get all the screws and brackets right.
A time lapse of the assembly because why not ! The google sheet with all the item prices can be found here
Below are some photos of the project.
The logicboard, The brain of it all
The stickers and markings show that this indeed is a used item. This specific one is an LL/A model which reveals it was most likely sold in the USA and then returned back to china ! iPhone Model Regions List
The housing with battery pull tabs
This must be an aftermarket housing as it looks brand new, but its surprisingly sturdy. Maybe they use the same 7000 grade aluminum which is used on the OEM one.
The screw bag that helped to keep things in place
Not marked at all ! A vernier caliper will most definitely come in handy for finding the lengths of these.
Battery which I sourced locally
Shipping costs a small fortune to ship lithium batteries. So I found one in a local shop. This is most likely an aftermarket replacement battery. But it shows up as an original in software. Maybe it's a cell replaced Apple battery ! Charge holds up for a singe light-use day, just like people stated in reviews back in 2015.
Front camera and flex
Looks like an original and functions like an original.
Wrote everything important on the lcd bracket :)
Phone functions without this but this adds to the structural rigidity , I guess.
Finished !
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