How do they do it ?

[Arfa Daily]

My son-in-law turned up yesterday looking very glum. His little 2 year-old
had kindly tried to recharge his iPhone for him - with the wrong type of
connector ... The pins in the charge dock connector were badly mangled. He
spent some time with my headband magnifier and a scalpel tip trying to
recover it. I eventually pried it gently from his hands, and told him it was
a lost cause, but that I would look into finding a YouTube vid to see if it
was easily replaceable. Turns out that the job is all screws - none of that
malarky with hot air guns and the like to get inside via screen removal. The
connector is mounted on a small PCB, along with the mic and some other bits
and bobs, There is a long flexiprint, and one of those 'click' connectors
that always feel like you are trying to force them on wrong ...

So, I went looking on Fleabay to see if this board was available, and at
what cost. There are scores of people offering them in fact, and how much ?
On average, 3 UKP- that's about $4.50. And that includes free first class
post with Royal Mail. At that price, it's hard to see how anyone in the
chain makes any money. Considering the cost of an iPhone, I would have
thought that anyone would have been willing to pay at least a tenner for
such a part ??

Arfa

 

[John Robertson]

On 01/11/2015 6:58 PM, Arfa Daily wrote:

My son-in-law turned up yesterday looking very glum. His little 2
year-old had kindly tried to recharge his iPhone for him - with the
wrong type of connector ... The pins in the charge dock connector were
badly mangled. He spent some time with my headband magnifier and a
scalpel tip trying to recover it. I eventually pried it gently from his
hands, and told him it was a lost cause, but that I would look into
finding a YouTube vid to see if it was easily replaceable. Turns out
that the job is all screws - none of that malarky with hot air guns and
the like to get inside via screen removal. The connector is mounted on a
small PCB, along with the mic and some other bits and bobs, There is a
long flexiprint, and one of those 'click' connectors that always feel
like you are trying to force them on wrong ...

So, I went looking on Fleabay to see if this board was available, and at
what cost. There are scores of people offering them in fact, and how
much ? On average, 3 UKP- that's about $4.50. And that includes free
first class post with Royal Mail. At that price, it's hard to see how
anyone in the chain makes any money. Considering the cost of an iPhone,
I would have thought that anyone would have been willing to pay at least
a tenner for such a part ??

Arfa

I suspect the Chinese must be subsidizing the postage of orders like
this - the ones I get have tracking numbers, and Canada Post charges
around $20 minimum for a tracked international package.

If this is the case then international action may be needed to bring
China into line on this. Interestingly China has agreed to drop the
embargo on exporting Rare Earths - of course they may have been worried
about loosing the somewhat exclusive market they had (China has 20% of
world reserves, but 90% of the sales) as I suspect the other countries
that had rare earths were busy getting all sorts of offers from mining
companies and refiners to fill the gap!

John :-#(#

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