Hemh, an opportunity for Louis to offer a service to us, for a fee? Most of anyone here probably could not afford to get all those equipment to fix our own system (I certainly couldn't, and the number of Mac's I played with cannot justify getting the equipment mentioned, plus my wife probably would not allow me to get more "stuff" in the house.
Quite the contrary. I didn't pop out of my mother with a Hakko FR-801 and a Crest CP500HT. I made due with what I could get my hands on, and I am suggesting people here do the same. I became friends with someone at a local jewelry pawn shop, and begged them to use their ultrasonic cleaner in exchange for whatever I had at the time. A few bucks, beers. Just the gesture of offering something is more than enough if you are on good terms with someone.
Look at the WLED driver - on 13.3" Unibodies, it is at the top of the board. They say the board should be fully immersed to avoid damage, but the reality is you can get away with it being partially soaked and it will do just fine. While jewelry cleaners are not as sophisticated or purpose built for the task as a CP500HT, I will tell you they get under QFN better than a toothbrush, and if you know someone with one who will let you use it for free, you saved yourself the cost of buying a toothbrush!
If you REALLY want something done and do not have the MEANS to do it, you have to get CREATIVE! I want to encourage creative thinking. Yeah, more business would be lovely - but there are enough laptops flowing in everyday to beg for work on a public forum. The money made from doing actual work would make hundreds of dollars, vs. the 1-2 hours I spend giving free diagnosis & advice here making $0. It isn't about the money. This is more about giving back, to me, than anything else - and inspiring creative thinking in people who are where I was five years ago. I wish more people had done for me when I was a beginner, because the most expensive way to learn is to learn by yourself. I'm telling you what the problem often is, why it occurs, and how some people fix it. Run with that and figure out how to get it down your own way.
If you don't have the money or the ability to justify a new tool, you just have to get creative. I recall a string of bad business in December 09, back long before I had any sort of established reputation outside a little word of mouth. I received a call from a customer about a liquid damaged laptop. I'm down to my last $6 or so, and anxious to get something to help me not starve through the holiday season. I jump a turnstyle on the MTA subway to travel to them to collect the laptop, and jump a turnstyle on the MTA train back. I get back home, and notice a screw is obviously ruined and rusted. It won't come out. How do I remove the board to put it in the ultrasonic(that I had spent my "life savings" on at the time), and so I can replace components on the underside that are going to be rusted to hell? It's Christmas Eve at this point, hell if any hardware stores are open. I called over 48 of them. I finally find a place carrying Xcelite 175M, a beautiful tool for those who cannot afford a dremel because it is PERFECT at getting under rust ridden screws and removing them, even if they are very tiny. It gets the screw out. Alas, at this point, I am so low on cash I cannot even afford the distilled water to fill the cleaner, or the bus ride to the store to get some. I walk 4 miles to Duane Reade picking up dimes, nickels, pennies, and quarters on the sidewalk so I can pay the $1.99 tax for a gallon of distilled water at the pharmacy in the lovely NYC winter cold. I finally get there, buy the water, walk four miles back, and get home to my ******** apartment at the time, that doubled as a workshop. The rust is removed, and to my luck, only one stupid MOSFET on the back is actually rusted enough that it doesn't work. I swap it with a beautiful one off a board with a dead CPU, GPU, and RAMSLOT that had perfect power circuitry, using a Hakko 851 that I got off eBay as part of a business closeout sale for $35, and I run the board back. I collect my measly earnings and don't wind up losing 16 lbs over the Christmas holiday. December 25th-27th is a slow if not dead season for the independent technician. This is how I ate on Christmas of 2009!
A toothbrush cannot get under a QFN package. On newer boards, the LED driver is a BGA package, even more difficult to properly clean with a toothbrush. If you know the principle behind what you need to do, it makes it that much easier to macguyver your own solution, which is what I am trying to inspire here.
Rant over. Hopefully this inspires someone to revive their dead macbook without buying an ultrasonic cleaner!
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Oh, and is there maybe someone who has a schematic of the A1278 unibody? (I found one of the PRO-version, but not the unibody...)
PM me your email address.
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plus my wife probably would not allow me to get more "stuff" in the house.
Quite the contrary, owning a device that has the ability to service jewelry will make you the most popular member of a female-run run household.
