New Phone
Early Monday morning, I attempted to fully disassemble my Droid 2 smart phone. The part that turns my finger taps and swipes into signals the phone can understand was busted. It would either jump around on its own volition - calling people, texting, etc - or it would just completely ignore me. I was hoping a good thorough tear down and clean out would get things going again. (Note: safe mode and factory reset changed nothing.)
I did not get very far.
My first instinct was that my inexperience with Torx-style screws made me incompetent. I must have not seated my driver properly or turned too hard. Something. So, I figured this job was done, no harm in grinding off a few more screw heads, and off I went.
There were 6 or 7 of these little screws for me to practice on. I wiggled different ways and applied pressure in different ways. In the end, I got one screw out and ruined all of the others. It was sad.
Funny story: I was just looking for an image to tell me how many screws there were so I wouldn't have to estimate "6 or 7" and I saw that I probably should have been using a T3 instead of a T4. That explains that.
Later that day, I ordered a new phone. And today, I re-joined the world.
For the better part of a week, I had gone phoneless. For most of that time, I thought it was great. I had all of the superior feelings, like I'd gone back to the Old Ways or something. Then, I was reminded why mobile telecommunications are awesome.
On Wednesday, the power went out at work. This was a little funny all by itself because everybody took off and the other senior developer and I settled in for some rare, deliciously uninterrupted reading/thinking/notepad time.
The down side of all that Me time was that the phone was also down. I had been thinking I should grab fun lunch on the way home, but with no way to coordinate with Julie, my fledgling plan was a non-starter. Then I remembered why I got the phone in the first place: I had to borrow a phone from another driver to call for help when I was stuck on the side of the road in the middle of the night.
So, phones are good I'm back online. All systems go.
The two sticks are called "spudgers". Spudgers. Seriously.
I had all of the tools that I needed - abundant spudgers, tiny precision Torx screwdrivers (T4, T5), 3 mm tape, and tape handling tweezers. I also had instructions for the entire tear down. Then, on my very first attempt to remove a screw, I rounded the shoulders off the screw. Game over.
I'll just leave this here:
The Torx design allows for a higher torque to be exerted than a similarly-sized conventional hex socket head without damaging the head and/or the tool. -- wikipedia:Torx
My first instinct was that my inexperience with Torx-style screws made me incompetent. I must have not seated my driver properly or turned too hard. Something. So, I figured this job was done, no harm in grinding off a few more screw heads, and off I went.
There were 6 or 7 of these little screws for me to practice on. I wiggled different ways and applied pressure in different ways. In the end, I got one screw out and ruined all of the others. It was sad.
Funny story: I was just looking for an image to tell me how many screws there were so I wouldn't have to estimate "6 or 7" and I saw that I probably should have been using a T3 instead of a T4. That explains that.
Later that day, I ordered a new phone. And today, I re-joined the world.
Left old, right new. I guess I wanted to show them side-by-side and also naked. This photo is weird.
For the better part of a week, I had gone phoneless. For most of that time, I thought it was great. I had all of the superior feelings, like I'd gone back to the Old Ways or something. Then, I was reminded why mobile telecommunications are awesome.
On Wednesday, the power went out at work. This was a little funny all by itself because everybody took off and the other senior developer and I settled in for some rare, deliciously uninterrupted reading/thinking/notepad time.
The down side of all that Me time was that the phone was also down. I had been thinking I should grab fun lunch on the way home, but with no way to coordinate with Julie, my fledgling plan was a non-starter. Then I remembered why I got the phone in the first place: I had to borrow a phone from another driver to call for help when I was stuck on the side of the road in the middle of the night.
So, phones are good I'm back online. All systems go.
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