Trying to FIX: Joblot of Faulty Repair Shop Nintendo Switches

[@Tronicsfix]

Great video Vince! I've been wanting to do something like this for a long time so I'm glad you did it!

[@Mymatevince]

Thanks Steve, I was surprised to see the cause of some of those shorts. BTW congrats on joining KZbin full time :-)

[@kaiweg]

Hey Vince, next time inject around 1 volt to a shorted line and see what gets hot (you can use IPA or fingertips). It's giving me real trouble seeing you removing all the ICs instead of measuring voltages and resistances. Please try to measure resistance and voltages on a working Switch and try to compare instead of just searching for shorts and removing everything. Anyway, I enjoy most of your videos and thanks for being so brave and courageous, TRYING to fix stuff while becoming better and better in that. 👍🏼🔬

[@ZaPpaul]

I agree but hes self taught (almost) and he does a good job, so baby steps :) I expect him to be fault finding in diode mode soon. It's an interesting journey watching Vince work and he has a good logical mind that is suited to fault finding. It wasn't too long ago he was making a pigs ear of simple soldering and nowadays he doing smaller BGA packages.

[@cspark80]

I have a question! How should the input voltage be determined? If I don't know, can I enter about 1v? Is there any way to compare it with a normal board? If I don't know, can I inject about 1v?

[@Operational117]

Repair Challenge Usually, you can determine the voltage of a power rail by comparing it to the ground state. Ground is universally considered the 0 volt rail. But when there’s a short (especially if it’s linked to many places), putting a suitable voltage on a specific rail can cause damage, as the other rails that ALSO short can be mid-linked, meaning the short of one rail goes through another rail before reaching ground. And if that other rail requires a lower voltage than the first one, you could end up burning chips/capacitors that would otherwise be working. One volt is very low, and while it’s definitely safe for almost every power rail, I’m not sure how much current will be drawn, as it depends on the resistance of the shorted pathway. If it doesn’t generate a lot of current, it may not generate enough heat to evaporate IPA. Then again, not speaking from experience, but from logic and limited knowledge.

[@kaiweg]

@@Operational117 Good explained! Thank you. Usually a short to ground draws as much current as it can (limited by the internal resistance). By limiting the voltage (1v) the current is also limited based on the internal resistance. 1-2 Watts (1-2 amps at 1 volt) are enough to evaporate IPA at room temperature quicker than on most components (caps, resistors, MOSFETs) without heat.

[@ianallen2]

I hope you left him a negative feedback. He described them as 4 x full complete motherboards. Look down his feedback and see if he sells electrical items. Instead of him buying locker stuff, he may be a games console reparer and just wanting some funds back for some rubbish.

[@turokforever007]

@@nickweir5086 i looked at his feedback and he doesn't sell things from garages or any kind of storage units.

[@turokforever007]

@@nickweir5086 He could of but not now as he has messed around with them.

[@kriswillems5661]

They said they probably came from a repair shop. All respect, but Vince probably knows that buying old boards from a repair shop is a no go.

[@AnotherDud3]

@@kriswillems5661 He should have but still bought them, like us all I think Vince got caught up in just wanting them

[@josephomally4244]

@@nickweir5086 Ebay has a 100 percent customer satisfaction guarantee. You can return anything for any reason. It was setup to protect the consumer from sellers like this. If the seller tries to refuse the return Ebay will step in and do it for them. They will actually remove the money from the sellers paypal and give it back to you. The seller additionally has to pay for return shipping. Its always in your own best interest to do the buyer right! I don't think Vince is aware of that because he would have returned this order if he had a lick of sense.

[@skonkfactory]

That chip you have there is an eMMC- basically a microSD card in a BGA package. They actually only have a dozen or so signals on them. The really big problem with reworking them is that NAND flash memory tends to lose its contents when you heat it up. eMMCs have two power rails- they're called Vdd and Vddq. Usually the Vdd is around 3 volts and the Vddq is 1.2 to 1.8 volts. The capacitors you're looking at are probably on separate rails.

[@Fifury161]

I got caught out too with a joblot of faulty tablets. The description pointed out that they had cracked screens and didn't turn and where customer returns. When I got them every single board had been snapped in half and missing almost everything else inside (battery, speaker, mic, etc!). I learnt the hard/expensive way!

[@cspark80]

I applaud your patience and hard work. Your skills are increasing

[@sparkles122]

“Job lots” on eBay usually means that experts have got what they want from them and are no longer repairable

[@MrFix-mt6my]

I recommend watching 'Electronics repair school' here on youtube, this guy is the expert in tracing shorts, great video though mate.

[@patetanserov]

Hey Vince, there is a way to identify a short circuited element much easier than you do. Give a point where there should not be a short circuit a voltage of about 1 Volt with a current limit of 0.3-1 Ampere and touch where it heats on the PCB with your finger. The heating element will be faulty. And there will be no need to desolder all the chips in a row.

[@solveit1304]

Hi Vince. As I was watching video I spotted, that on back side of backlight and battery connector is enought room to preheat back side of PCB from the bottom with Hot-Air. As i remeber, Tampatec used that technique to take off LED from faulty LCD backlight strip. Plastic doesn't melt at all.

[@potatotech7378]

I really want to make a Nintendo Switch Repair Guide. From what you said and found out in this video is super helpful. I want to combine everyone's findings in one thicc simple manual. A step by step guide in PDF format.

[@skonkfactory]

Have you ever considered localising the short by measuring the resistance? The further you are away from the shorting component, the higher the resistance will be.

[@DaMu24]

Vince spent this entire video chasing shorts. After all, they're comfortable and easy to wear.

[@SMAAAASHTV]

Is that a Pokémon reference?

[@kriswillems5661]

To find the source of a short you can insert a small voltage into the board (let's say 1V with a current limit of 2A) and use alcohol or a thermal camera to find the source. It would save you a lot of time and frustration.

[@AnotherDud3]

"Zactly" as described Vince :p , can't be naive when it comes to ebay listings, always assume the worst when buying parts or not working imo, also don't see why you would pay so much, even ebay uk listings often pop up for 50-70 for complete broken switches, took a big big gamble and didn't pay off unfortunately

[@AnotherDud3]

www.ebay.co.uk/sch/139971/i.html?_sop=2&_sadis=15&_dmd=1&LH_Complete=1&LH_Sold=1&_ipg=50&_stpos=&_from=R40&_nkw=switch+faulty&_blrs=recall_filtering&LH_BIN=1 www.ebay.co.uk/sch/139971/i.html?_sop=2&_sadis=15&_dmd=1&LH_Complete=1&LH_Sold=1&_ipg=50&_stpos=&_from=R40&_nkw=switch+faulty&_blrs=recall_filtering&rt=nc&LH_Auction=1

[@AnotherDud3]

@Mykel Hardin clearly they're not, why even bother commenting, you clearly dont look for them on ebay on a regular basis

[@AnotherDud3]

@Mykel Hardin sure they "were", the fact you can't tell if a listings cancelled or not just proves the awfulness of your trolling, but please continue with the meaninglessness of this.

[@welshtony1]

Although there wasn't a fix I weirdly enjoyed this video. Thanks Vince

[@thedutchretrogamer]

you win some you lose some mate but you didnt kill the boards and you have spare items for future repairs ty for the upload

[@thedutchretrogamer]

thank you

[@robertoneill1979]

I think we've all learned a lot here. Thanks a lot for sharing, Vince 🤩

[@goldenhereospawn749]

Stay healthy and safe, Vince!! It's crazy out there!!👍👍

[@geekjit215]

Hey Vince, you can find shorted components easily with a power supply. Supply very little voltage (say 1V or 2V at 1 or 2A) and check which component is heating up. You can check the heating component either with thr back of your hand or IPA. The IPA will evaporate quicker from the portion which is heated the most.

[@skonkfactory]

@33:22 I'm pretty sure that little chip surrounded by capacitors is the power management IC that generates various different power rails for the CPU. If that one's dead, then a lot of the rails will be shorted.

[@RichardHeadGaming]

You did find the common short on the common power rail shared with all those caps.........but always remember a cap shorting on a shared power rail can short all the other caps also and you should remove the caps before IC's BGA's and recheck for shorts.

[@robertvincent4418]

Hey VINCE love your video , You can identify the short by applying some voltage with a power supply (or a cellphone battery with the protection ciruit removed) the component causing the short will get very hot so you could identify it with touching or by applying IPA to the whole surface . take care

[@TheSlysterII]

Sorry to hear that this cost you so much, but if it saves us lot a bit of cash, then we salute you, thanks Vince.

[@andyrads1096]

Thanks for keeping us entertained. You and your family stay safe...

[@DaveDoc1984]

Looks as though that repair shop MULLERED them Switches. It would be the same as me getting my hands on them and using hot air to do... well whatever with them? I would shy away from trying to fix something as small and delicate as those purely because I don't have the proper equipment or experience. I do however find it interesting to watch how you and Tronics Fix do these. I am always rooting for you guys :)

[@giorget]

Man I really don’t understand why you keeping removing chip without sense instead of injecting voltage to find the short .

[@markgb]

I think the person that told you to look at the listing was the seller :)

[@simontewkokyong9159]

You should use adjustable digital power supply with direct connect to power rails. Use DC 2V and hand to figure out which component generate more heat to find out short circuit.

[@macaquinho6391]

Thank you vince for keeping us entertainted while we have to stay home

[@aimefortunato3334]

Love your videos Man!!!!! Cant do anything else when got the notification

[@ZaPpaul]

The positives are that even in spare screens and batteries you could probably break even on the boards. Check those and if they are fine, Ebay them. I expect you could fix one of these from the parts there though, so dont give up. Oh and thanks for sharing, some people would rather hide this kind of purchase.

[@R-E-D-A-C-T-E-D.]

As soon as vince learns how to reball bga chips the one video I want him to make is a revisit to his old android phone that he couldn’t repair a while ago I hope vince sees this comment!

[@PghGameFix]

All good info. I'm doing repairs for a local game store, and I'm working on a lot of switches. With your info, I know weather I should continue on a project, or just call it quits since I don't do BGA stuff. Thanks

[@hinny2005]

Nice keep the vid coming, coronavirus lock down requires extra vince vids

[@KorAllRBare]

Vince.. When Re-Balling you need to set your heat station around 450 degrees with a very low if not extremely low air flow in order that the balls of solder are not distorted by the airflow, don't forget to first place some heat shielding or Tape over "On top of the BGA Chip" and around it, and under the board around where you need to preheat the BGA Chip you are about to Re-ball or reflow, Thankfully you now have those boards to practice your reflowing Err-"Re-Balling", be sure to first google KZbin "How to Re-Ball an APU" for some great tips

[@GadgetUK164]

I suspect he's sellling the junk he couldn't fix, rather than a garage job lot! Sorry this happen to you =( A great learning excersise though!! One of the reasons you get shorts all over the place like that is there will be a few power rails, eg. 3.3v and 1.8 / 1.2v etc. If a cap or IC connected to any of those rails shorts, any other chip powered by that rail will have a shorted rail too, and any caps on that rail will measure as a short.

[@goldenhereospawn749]

It takes a lot for Vince to decide to call a Switch part "junk"- -wait, he thinks he can work with it, after all!😅😅👍👍❤️❤️

[@reddoggod1969]

Nice use of Flight of the Valkyries

[@JohnRobinsonRC]

Love your videos mate. Truly. But any chance you can put a little tape over your volt meter to reduce the sound of the beep? Wife is moaning at me. 😂 😂

[@petermoore4056]

I'm not familiar with the switch, but are there no jumper pads between the various sections that you can desolder to isolate the problem area?

[@paullefur6213]

Vince where did you get your mini notebook from

[@scottsoutherland8097]

Hey bud even you break those clips for the wiring harness use hot glue to keep the connection, i work on allot of laptops and it works every time

[@piplup2009]

Are there any images that show what's wrong with the chips and the solutions to them?

[@silversubaru590]

Love these videos keeping me sane in these mental times

[@jddeluxe2242]

Love the classical music. Your like a mad scientist on a mission 😁

[@thetechoasis2179]

inject voltage to find the shorts, the chips/components will heat up and show you what is knackered. much easier than removing chips

[@miguelcanta2905]

There is very simple method to find out the short. Only inject a 1 volt in the line that is sorted with for example 500mah and the chip or the capacitor that is shorted is going to increase the temperature, is not increase the current a little bit and you are going to find it more faster 😉

[@Starcat128]

For fun put the APU and all the chips back on the different little chip It would be an interesting watch

[@splash5974]

Really sorry you got a bad deal like that...Thats alot of money upfront, to try and recuperate. Question for you... Any videos or websites where they have fixes for Wii U gamepads? I just replaced the LCD in my sons gamepad, but lost a clip for the backlight ribbon. I put the ribbon into place, cut a small piece of old credit card to apply pressure, and used 5 minute epoxy over the ribbon clip area. Put it all back together, but the screen is black. It wont display anything. Wondering what to attempt next... Thank you kindly

[@vejza1108]

That tiny chip you removed and all shorts were gone - that's a voltage regulator. Beware of one thing, if you're suspecting it's faulty because the capacitors around it are shorting - some are supposed to do so. Learned this the hard way, don't assume it's faulty because of that. In this case it was clearly faulty, but in some cases it's just fine.

[@AcornElectron]

Keep up the good work fella! Bloody eBay sucks sometimes. At least you have spares? 😬

[@mrbrown4776]

Hello vice please what's the name and model of your little laptop I fancy it

[@Swanhub]

I appreciate your host of GPD systems, my win1 is a real pain in the ass to keep working

[@Jdbye]

Some people remove the copper tape over the SoC, claiming the thermal conductivity is better without it because they don't put thermal paste underneath. And they might be right. So that's not necessarily a problem.

[@stones8633]

If you are careful and do not clean the pads on the bga chips you can flow them back on with what you have with about an 80% success rate.

[@seanscaddan8608]

Hi Vince how much do you sell your Nintendo switch back case

[@Oelkorb]

If the boards would have been working putting them on paper on your rug/carpet would have caused problems. There is this thing called ESD

[@cyberdrak1]

Hi, i love watching your videos, ive got a bga workstation which i had for learning bga work, it needs a bottom heater which is £30 from ebay but you can have it for £100 and a promise of a video with it, ant

[@AnonymousRepair]

Very nice video , good troubleshooting video

[@Cronicbarbarian]

Hat off to you. I really enjoyed this video. You have a great deal of patience. I myself hate leaving a big question mark on any of my attempted repairs. Like you say it's about learning and applying that to future repairs. BGA is still something I haven't delved into. I can't count the amount of BLOD or No power boards I can't do nothing with on Ps4's. I remove the southbridge just to see if the shorts gone even though I can't put it back on and sure enough it does. Just wanted to say a big thankyou. I thoroughly enjoy your content. Stay safe

[@CooChewGames]

Just also want to add; am very impressed by your optimism and outlook. Is really helpful with working through stuff myself :-)

[@chef717717]

hi vince . after a favour . could you paste the link to rs components for xbox one anaolouge sticks please . cant find the right 1s with correct tolorences i need . many thanks

[@josephomally4244]

Ebay has the 100 percent buyer guarantee. You can always return anything you buy and get a refund for any reason. That no refunds disclosure sellers put doesn't mean anything. In this instance I would return that and get my money back. If you have any issues with the seller not wanting to take it back Ebay will step in and literally remove the money from their paypal account and give you the refund themselves. Ebay takes the side of the buyer 99 percent of the time.

[@phillipsomerset7967]

Hello Vince, I recently picked up a soldering kit from Ebay (Soldering iron + Heat blower) but when I warm it up for some reason the whole room starts smelling like burning plastic, its brand new. Is this normal?

[@DrinkHCl]

read the manual very carefully. some hot air stations are shipped with some air pump components clipped or screwed down to prevent damage to the pump in transit. the manual should have a warning somewhere about this if that's the case. a small amount of smoke on new soldering equipment though is normal and can be attributed to dust, fingerprints or whatnot burning away.

[@andymann1231]

Yes when faulty items are being sold from repair shops you should walk away Vince I don't sell parts items myself I would have just sent them back I understand that you earn your money and its up to you how you spend it but someone is having a right good laugh at your expense mate but that said we have all made mistakes in this business I once purchased a video recorder with parts missing lol

[@markvandesande8855]

Not so good when you buy a batch of old donar boards.😪 Only buy virgin broken boards. But theres alway a slim chance. Ask questions of the seller first like is there signs of burning all over the boards? 😪 Nice try Vince you have a good work ethic. 😁

[@Natei]

My rule of thumb, if somebody else took it apart, its done.

[@ZackMuffinMan]

I recently spent $300 on 6 faulty AGS 101's. All were said to be untested because they didn't have batteries. Seller appeared to never had sold any type of Nintendo item before. I get them, all are missing screws, and all 6 have broken screens and faulty boards. I did however, fix all of the boards except for one. The one I couldn't get working was an AGS 001 board paired to one of the broken AGS 101 screens. It had a wire on it that was connecting two components. I got scammed, but I did get 5 boards out of it. Now I just need screens, which are like $65 or more, (and housings, they are scratched so badly).

[@rymal93]

Now we are in self isolation maybe soon lockdown! We will need more vince vids!!!

[@greamepenney5947]

Return of the switch killer.

[@bornontheusa408]

Hi My Mate Vince, i have a question for you, what liquid flux do you use ? it looks good, pls response, grettings

[@potatotech7378]

From looking at the tube it's in, looks like Amtech. They're based in USA so don't buy from Amazon or eBay/china.

[@AbdullaSulaimani]

nice little computer you got there!!

[@CTCTraining1]

With so many shorts to investigate perhaps you might invest in or borrow a thermal camera to go with your bench psu?

[@kruleworld]

putting those larger chips on would probably require a jig to ensure proper alignment

[@hendris7933]

I will give you trick how to tracking short circuit line, You can injecting some voltage to the short caps, example 1.8v 2.8v 3v , oh ya you must pouring ipa to all the board , then the short caps or ic's will get heat and smoking and just replace it

[@televisionandcheese]

I can't say why, but components very near to high density components like processors usually seem to be shorting as normal. My guess is it's something to do with how tiny the circuit and components are inside CPUs and such, so their resistance must be very very tiny, low enough for the multimeter to see it as a short. But that may be completely wrong, just a theory . But under a CPU/GPU etc, I wouldn't worry that things are shorting

[@Vermilicious]

I'd be careful buying stuff that has been tampered with already. The repairs might be dodgy, and you don't know what the original fault was and what has been done on it. I honestly don't understand how Vince thought this was worth it. He's now got a bin with parts that he has virtually no idea are good or bad. Plus, as he says, he hasn't got the equipment to work with some of them either.

[@slated4727]

In the future you know to ask for full pictures of every item, otherwise just don't trust them! That dude clearly knew what he was doing to sell it like that.

[@BennyAlex98]

Always open a dispute on ebay, most of the time you get some money back if the product is not described well. You can also open cases on PayPal. If only some small things aren't as describe I want some money back but in this case I would want to give it back and gain everything

[@CLC-1000]

Love your repair videos especially for the Switch. Hope you and your family stay safe Vince during these tough times.

[@kikihun9726]

You need to buy a heat camera. If you use it, you can see what component is getting hot after plugging in.

[@KayShwizzley]

what device are you using in the beginning to show us the ebay listing?? thank u love the video

[@randomcro24]

LOVE your videos brother love from Australia hope everything going ok in UK with everything going on in the world

[@speedwaynutt]

Seeing what you got the seller seems a bit suspect.

[@64KarmannGhia]

speedwaynutt agreed

[@longhornnetworklonghorns5396]

Can you make. A video for when the 2ds button and the Tucson does not work

[@martinauplish5320]

Feel bad for u... Think you were scammed... They new these boards were seriously bad.... Hope you manage to get one fixed...

[@pds8475]

The lesson is. If you don't know the cause of the fault always remove everything that you can, that way you know the part that need fault finding.

[@JuicyJakeRepairs]

this was such poor "rework" (people who owned these previously) ... bad luck on your purchase, those boards are pretty screwed.

[@rayproductionsbackupchanne3862]

17:00 unless its a hackable switch. you cannot use the switch anymore.. the data on there is married. the chip is not (people replaced their 32 nand to a 256 gb before)

[@waste-your-time4555]

Thank you!!!

[@fortheloveofgaming-ftlog2484]

Don't you hate it when you have a ball sticking out the side! 18:15

[@technixbul]

MM what ya cookin doc? Smells like cookies and potatos ... oh its just fryed processor :D ... Top temp on those big BGA chips is 225-230C for soldering and it is gone-sky now :D You can now try to do a video on restore/resolder all missing chips ... with so many boards if i had them i would try to swap parts untill i fix as many as i can ... but you need a rework station for big ones or you will kill them everytime!

[@justgodlike589]

Hey Vince i know its not in this video. But did u ever fixed the nondocking Switch? I now have exactly the same issue.

[@jochenwuerfel]

Oh what a bummer... even the Valkyries couldn't help 😥

[@Marinho965]

I feel so bad for you, the seller should've told you that the parts were not fixable, or that they were in that condition, it clearly wasn't worth the price.

[@Charlie_Crown]

That chip, built in obsolescence perhaps? 🤔

[@jaykoerner]

Proper term when dealing with arm chips is SOC not Apu

[@foxifun7038]

I like your videos

[@LetsPlayKeldeo]

love the video !