If you visit cities in China that are heavily invested in the electronics industry you could buy a cheaper iPhone 16 pro with 128GB and upgrade it to 1TB.
But if you do that regularly, you probably have the money to buy the 1TB version outright.
I was also blown away at CNC grinding step. Perhaps he did it because heat gun would have impacted other parts of the PCB. With grinding the impact was limited to Nand chip only. He eventually had to use heat to cleanup the residue.
Fwiw, you can get a desktop CNC for a few hundred dollars (I mean they're very similar to 3d printers in design). You can get pretty good ones for under $5k.
But yeah, getting that chip off with just heat looks pretty hard without affecting anything else. I'd still want a heat sink to pull away heat from other parts but I'm not at this skill level and overly cautious. But this does look doable.
And since it's HN, I do encourage everyone to give more repair a go. Things like micro soldering are easier than you think. And remember than your phones can be turned into servers (raspberry pi? How about my old nexus?). Though I'd love to hear if people know how to do this stuff on iPhones because I plan on switching over. I guess no more bash scripting for automatic backup of all my photos and stuff to my server :'( someone please tell me there's a way )':
Some of us do do this stuff with iPhones, and it’s do-able, sort of - TrollStore (available up to iOS 17.0 currently) + NewTerm/bootstrap gives you a native CLI, add Filza in there and you can do almost whatever you need (with some manual work). I must admit, it’s much easier/potentially more functional on iOS 16 and earlier, but what can you do…
> Though I'd love to hear if people know how to do this stuff on iPhones
Very little in the realm of "server" or "raspberry pi alternative" could be done with modern iPhones despite even a 2-year old iphone being OP in terms of hardware for most home server tasks. They really work hard to prevent any use besides what's officially blessed by Tim Apple himself. Whether that's "for your own good" or not is a matter of opinion, I happen to think it's lame but don't want to debate it.
I wouldn't have thought to do it, but after seeing it, i think I could do this on a Bridgeport. I'm only so-so at machining, but I can make a Bridgeport grind with great precision in a rectangle!
I was actually thinking the same thing; a maintained milling machine can easily grind at those tolerances. Get your Z level be the most important so you don't cut too deep into the solder pads.
The being said, I'm wondering if he used something like a cheap SainSmart CNC... sounded like a dentist drill
I started watching this and as someone else commented, yeah, things looked doable at the start and then got progressively more impressive and insane. It's clear they know what they're doing. From the extremely intricate tools for each and every specific step, to the screwdriver that tightens only the exact amount when putting things back together, to - what! - CNC milling off an entire component?! I was so impressed. Surely their day job must be in some way related to assembling this phone?
- working on cars (the torque "wrench" click is such a cue)
- dissembling electronics
- watching folks work on... mechanical watches
- unnecessary / creative uses for a CNC
all firing. I feel pandered to directly... and consider its a mostly silent video of someone replacing a nand chip, I'm not how to feel about that.
On a more constructive topic: Can the performance/endurance characteristics be modified by using better nand chips(a la ram)? Or does it have to an Apple blessed part?
I'm astonished that it works! To my understanding, the 128GB has specifications for how to "talk" to it on its datasheet and same with the 1TB. Do they have the same manufacturer for them to have the same pinout?
And, how come they're the same size lol. Intuitively, I'd expect the 1TB to be way bigger.
Is there a hardware restraint for why he chose just 1TB?
I'm seeing 2TB/4TB/8TB Nand Flash being sold online (the latter for a hefty ~$650). Is there anything stopping me from paying a professional like this to install an 8TB unit?
edit: I see those NAND flash models are supported by Macbooks. Perhaps I am mistaken in thinking an iPhone could support it.
Putting aside all the business model stuff, man, Apple makes some seriously pretty hardware. The packing, the cables and connectors, the wrapped motherboard - the whole thing is gorgeous.
Seriously, made me think he was on beta-blockers or something to be so smooth. (insinuating PEDs were used for iPhone modding- we're through the looking glass here people. :P)
I wonder what happens if you increase the storage beyond what is offered by Apple in one of the models. Will it just work as normal with 2TB/4TB/8TB? Or will the OS realize that something funky is going on and try to restrict it?
Storage controller for the NAND is on the SoC so it only works for specific configurations of NAND. Assuming it followed the pattern of the M series Mac’s.
That was on the iPhone 7. Its internals really look like the decision to omit the headphone jack was made pretty late in the development cycle, so they replaced it with a useless piece of plastic.
I never understood why this was always seen as such a constraint. It’s three (or four) pins! It doesn’t even have to have the “hole” form factor. You could have them all in a straight line and then place a headphone jack AGAINST them. I always thought a magnetic TRRS set of pins along the side of a phone could work. Add a sleeve to the connector’s side too. Heck you could standardize a flattened TRRS or whatever that would still slip readily into a typical jack.
They're using a torque screwdriver, which ensures tightening to a specified torque to prevent excessive tightening. The "clicking" is made by the clutch that disengages once the preset torque has been reached.
Terabyte nvmes selling for 60-80 dollars these days, and thats much higher than the prices last year. You’d be best off getting the top stuff though, I doubt Apple is using Chinese QLC, or bottom binned TLC.
I suppose 2230 NVMe drives are probably the best proxy because those use a single very dense NAND chip similar to the one in the iPhone. Those are around $100 for 1TB TLC, but that includes the NVMe controller and retail markup.
It's hard to see but the original NAND is epoxied to the motherboard, which wouldn't come away easily with heat. I'm not sure what the purpose of the epoxy is but he goes to the trouble of replacing the epoxy later in the video so there must be a good reason for it.
I’ve seen some fascinating slo mo videos of devices bouncing from a decent fall in an X-ray machine. The battery in particular squishes way more than you think should be possible or right. Epoxy makes a ton of sense when you consider the shock that it takes.
The chip has an epoxy underfill. It softens slightly in the heat and desoldering is probably possible, but the amount of force required means you're likely to damage something in the process.
"CNC is the safest and most efficient way. Using a hot air gun to remove it normally will cause irreversible damage to other components on the motherboard."
Empty spaces are resonant spaces, and this can be heard when the phone's speaker(s) are playing sounds and/or the microphones are microphoning. Mechanically damping resonances is always superior to handling them with DSP -- a DSP doesn't need to account for resonances that simply aren't problematic to begin with, freeing it for other duties.
Such resonances can also be heard when handling the phone -- even when it is off. Tapping on the phone and hearing/feeling a dull, well-damped thud inspires more of a perception of solidity than a lingering resonance does, even though such foam itself contributes nothing to to the structure of the device at all.
Even back in the iPod days, one of the stated goals of the designers at Apple was to make their handhelds feel like a singular piece, like something that naturally grows that way (think fruits, crystals, etc) instead of disparate pieces tenuously held together. An impression of solidity falls in line with that idea.
phone storage hasn't mattered to me in years, what do you guys need the huge storage these days? the bulk of my data in the past was photos and videos, but now those are uploaded to the cloud and i instantly delete from my local phone.
If you have the know how and the discipline to maintain proper backup strategy, then local storage(@ home) always wins over cloud in terms of pricing, flexibility or freedom.
What about for a whole family of iPhone users? I've got the 2TB cloud plan which my elderly parents are on, my kids are on and me and my wife are on which is letting us get away with the smallest class of storage for each device we have.
I like having things stored locally. I'm not always in a spot with great reception, so waiting for a video to load from google photos or whatever isn't an option.
i use android and google photos because it's really cool to auto match faces of my friends and family.
but think about it, how crazy that someone can steal your phone and you would be totally fucked, priceless memories lost forever. now with cloud that's a non-issue no?
It doesn't have to be one or the other. Apple/Google can permanently lock you out of your iCloud account at any instant. You can only be sure of access to your data if it is physically on you.
And if you encounter pickpockets or get mugged, you won't have access to that data either. And don't forget to worry about natural disasters taking out your home.
Impressive work on undoing the Apple engineering and unnecessarily soldered component. The CNC grinding guarantees this is out of reach for many people.
The blatant greedy decisions Apple makes is what has turned me away from their devices in general. Been winding down my usage for a few years now and aging out my current devices.
Live reactions watching this video:
Remove two screws from the bottom of the phone – easy, I can totally do this!
Soften the glue and pull out the back – hmm, I guess it's doable if I can find replacement glue.
Disconnect dozens of cables and parts – wow, it's going to be hard to remember how everything goes back together.
Peel off protective foam from motherboard – is it even possible to replace this stuff?
CNC grind the existing 128GB NAND to dust – I should probably stop watching now...
If you visit cities in China that are heavily invested in the electronics industry you could buy a cheaper iPhone 16 pro with 128GB and upgrade it to 1TB.
But if you do that regularly, you probably have the money to buy the 1TB version outright.
I was also blown away at CNC grinding step. Perhaps he did it because heat gun would have impacted other parts of the PCB. With grinding the impact was limited to Nand chip only. He eventually had to use heat to cleanup the residue.
It's more so the 128GB package is not worth that much, so it's easier to just delete it.
Fwiw, you can get a desktop CNC for a few hundred dollars (I mean they're very similar to 3d printers in design). You can get pretty good ones for under $5k.
But yeah, getting that chip off with just heat looks pretty hard without affecting anything else. I'd still want a heat sink to pull away heat from other parts but I'm not at this skill level and overly cautious. But this does look doable.
And since it's HN, I do encourage everyone to give more repair a go. Things like micro soldering are easier than you think. And remember than your phones can be turned into servers (raspberry pi? How about my old nexus?). Though I'd love to hear if people know how to do this stuff on iPhones because I plan on switching over. I guess no more bash scripting for automatic backup of all my photos and stuff to my server :'( someone please tell me there's a way )':
https://all3dp.com/1/best-cnc-router-desktop-cnc-machine/
Some of us do do this stuff with iPhones, and it’s do-able, sort of - TrollStore (available up to iOS 17.0 currently) + NewTerm/bootstrap gives you a native CLI, add Filza in there and you can do almost whatever you need (with some manual work). I must admit, it’s much easier/potentially more functional on iOS 16 and earlier, but what can you do…
Alternatively there is iSH or a-Shell.
> Though I'd love to hear if people know how to do this stuff on iPhones
Very little in the realm of "server" or "raspberry pi alternative" could be done with modern iPhones despite even a 2-year old iphone being OP in terms of hardware for most home server tasks. They really work hard to prevent any use besides what's officially blessed by Tim Apple himself. Whether that's "for your own good" or not is a matter of opinion, I happen to think it's lame but don't want to debate it.
I wouldn't have thought to do it, but after seeing it, i think I could do this on a Bridgeport. I'm only so-so at machining, but I can make a Bridgeport grind with great precision in a rectangle!
I was actually thinking the same thing; a maintained milling machine can easily grind at those tolerances. Get your Z level be the most important so you don't cut too deep into the solder pads.
The being said, I'm wondering if he used something like a cheap SainSmart CNC... sounded like a dentist drill
CNC grinding part is so wild, it took my several replay to understand what is that
I started watching this and as someone else commented, yeah, things looked doable at the start and then got progressively more impressive and insane. It's clear they know what they're doing. From the extremely intricate tools for each and every specific step, to the screwdriver that tightens only the exact amount when putting things back together, to - what! - CNC milling off an entire component?! I was so impressed. Surely their day job must be in some way related to assembling this phone?
This has the parts of my brain wired for:
all firing. I feel pandered to directly... and consider its a mostly silent video of someone replacing a nand chip, I'm not how to feel about that.On a more constructive topic: Can the performance/endurance characteristics be modified by using better nand chips(a la ram)? Or does it have to an Apple blessed part?
I'm astonished that it works! To my understanding, the 128GB has specifications for how to "talk" to it on its datasheet and same with the 1TB. Do they have the same manufacturer for them to have the same pinout?
And, how come they're the same size lol. Intuitively, I'd expect the 1TB to be way bigger.
Is there a hardware restraint for why he chose just 1TB?
I'm seeing 2TB/4TB/8TB Nand Flash being sold online (the latter for a hefty ~$650). Is there anything stopping me from paying a professional like this to install an 8TB unit?
edit: I see those NAND flash models are supported by Macbooks. Perhaps I am mistaken in thinking an iPhone could support it.
Wow it's almost like they should put an... sd card slot.
What a heretical idea. Surely all storage should be soldered down to the logic board, for security.
Putting aside all the business model stuff, man, Apple makes some seriously pretty hardware. The packing, the cables and connectors, the wrapped motherboard - the whole thing is gorgeous.
The design of the iPhone has always fascinated me. It's just so... clean.
Just watched this at 2x speed and the precision/stability of the hands is remarkable, especially when extracting the tiny foam gaskets.
Seriously, made me think he was on beta-blockers or something to be so smooth. (insinuating PEDs were used for iPhone modding- we're through the looking glass here people. :P)
Nah. It makes total sense that he was on Phone Enhancing Drugs.
It’s still impressive at 1x.
I wonder what happens if you increase the storage beyond what is offered by Apple in one of the models. Will it just work as normal with 2TB/4TB/8TB? Or will the OS realize that something funky is going on and try to restrict it?
Storage controller for the NAND is on the SoC so it only works for specific configurations of NAND. Assuming it followed the pattern of the M series Mac’s.
Seen this before with other models. 1 TiB is a factory option, so it's not like the days when Asian market hacks gave 4x or 8x what was available.
There's also that video of a guy adding a headphone jack in a similar fashion. I was impressed that he found the internal room for it.
That was on the iPhone 7. Its internals really look like the decision to omit the headphone jack was made pretty late in the development cycle, so they replaced it with a useless piece of plastic.
I never understood why this was always seen as such a constraint. It’s three (or four) pins! It doesn’t even have to have the “hole” form factor. You could have them all in a straight line and then place a headphone jack AGAINST them. I always thought a magnetic TRRS set of pins along the side of a phone could work. Add a sleeve to the connector’s side too. Heck you could standardize a flattened TRRS or whatever that would still slip readily into a typical jack.
Possibly Strange Parts: https://www.strangeparts.com/bringing-back-the-iphone-headph...
The technical skill of the modder is unreal.
That said, imagine that is Israeli security service removing and replacing the nand storage.
EDIT TO ADD: Pointing out how a determined state-level attacker could pin-point a single individual.
Shame that the existing NAND has to be turned to dust. Gone are the days of upgradable hardware.
Probably a dumb question, but what are the 3 taps for after screwing each screw? I presume they are tapping the screwdriver itself?
They're using a torque screwdriver, which ensures tightening to a specified torque to prevent excessive tightening. The "clicking" is made by the clutch that disengages once the preset torque has been reached.
> Probably a dumb question, but what are the 3 taps for after screwing each screw? I presume they are tapping the screwdriver itself?
I think it’s a torque screwdriver.
It’s a torque screwdriver as others have said but to me it made the whole video into an asmr experience.
Any ideas how much that 1TB NAND chip costs? Significantly less than Apples $500 premium for the 1TB SKU I'm sure, but how much less exactly?
A single 8Tbit NAND is about $130 in single quantities.
Terabyte nvmes selling for 60-80 dollars these days, and thats much higher than the prices last year. You’d be best off getting the top stuff though, I doubt Apple is using Chinese QLC, or bottom binned TLC.
I suppose 2230 NVMe drives are probably the best proxy because those use a single very dense NAND chip similar to the one in the iPhone. Those are around $100 for 1TB TLC, but that includes the NVMe controller and retail markup.
They're also using bulk pricing for the IC though, single quantity from digikey is around $130
https://www.digikey.com/en/products/filter/memory/774?s=N4Ig...
I wonder what the reasoning is for grinding off the old chip instead of desoldering properly? Maybe the heat would damage something?
It's hard to see but the original NAND is epoxied to the motherboard, which wouldn't come away easily with heat. I'm not sure what the purpose of the epoxy is but he goes to the trouble of replacing the epoxy later in the video so there must be a good reason for it.
The epoxy protects from physical shocks and also helps manage the effects of thermal expansion, either of which could crack solder joints over time.
Ah, not taking any chances after bumpgate.
Apple has been epoxying BGAs at least as far back as the iPod nano 1st gen, released in 2005
It's called "underfill" and it's common for BGAs since the chip doesn't have the same thermal expansion as the PCB
I’ve seen some fascinating slo mo videos of devices bouncing from a decent fall in an X-ray machine. The battery in particular squishes way more than you think should be possible or right. Epoxy makes a ton of sense when you consider the shock that it takes.
The chip has an epoxy underfill. It softens slightly in the heat and desoldering is probably possible, but the amount of force required means you're likely to damage something in the process.
From the creator, in a reply:
"CNC is the safest and most efficient way. Using a hot air gun to remove it normally will cause irreversible damage to other components on the motherboard."
CNC drill removal is safe and can be done consistently by a machine with consistent predictable results.
I can't believe they had to grind the memory chip off. I would have expected reflow work or something. Incredible.
this makes me feel better about paying for a 512GB model.
I was sure this was going to be a dosdude1 video, he's upgraded the flash on a lot of things
https://youtube.com/@dosdude1
I've wondered for a while if the 'non user upgradable' Macs were actually upgradable with enough effort. Seems so!
Does anyone know what's the purpose of the foam that's being removed at 3:50? Is it for waterproofing?
My first thought is acoustics.
Empty spaces are resonant spaces, and this can be heard when the phone's speaker(s) are playing sounds and/or the microphones are microphoning. Mechanically damping resonances is always superior to handling them with DSP -- a DSP doesn't need to account for resonances that simply aren't problematic to begin with, freeing it for other duties.
Such resonances can also be heard when handling the phone -- even when it is off. Tapping on the phone and hearing/feeling a dull, well-damped thud inspires more of a perception of solidity than a lingering resonance does, even though such foam itself contributes nothing to to the structure of the device at all.
Even back in the iPod days, one of the stated goals of the designers at Apple was to make their handhelds feel like a singular piece, like something that naturally grows that way (think fruits, crystals, etc) instead of disparate pieces tenuously held together. An impression of solidity falls in line with that idea.
Fruits. Yet if you gently tap on a biological apple, a ripe one actually feels slightly hollow inside.
Multiple purposes I suspect: Reduce vibration, even out thermals, etc. If water has gotten to that foam, something has probably gone very wrong.
That is some craftsmanship!
can anyone explain why they have to grind off the old chip? (instead of unsolder it)
The old NAND chip is epoxied in (they reapply the epoxy on the new NAND chip too after installing later in the video).
More capacity and faster.
How much does it cost?
I’ll just spend more for the storage lol.
phone storage hasn't mattered to me in years, what do you guys need the huge storage these days? the bulk of my data in the past was photos and videos, but now those are uploaded to the cloud and i instantly delete from my local phone.
If you have the know how and the discipline to maintain proper backup strategy, then local storage(@ home) always wins over cloud in terms of pricing, flexibility or freedom.
Your media is more valuable when stored locally, because they can be retrieved easily without waiting for network conditions.
I’ve done the math on whether it’s cheaper to pay for 1tb of local storage or 1tb of cloud, and local wins.
What about for a whole family of iPhone users? I've got the 2TB cloud plan which my elderly parents are on, my kids are on and me and my wife are on which is letting us get away with the smallest class of storage for each device we have.
I like having things stored locally. I'm not always in a spot with great reception, so waiting for a video to load from google photos or whatever isn't an option.
Removable storage should come standard with any mobile device. It's ridiculous to have to do these kinds of methods to increase storage.
> Removable storage should come standard with any mobile device.
Removable storage should come standard with any device.
Sadly, Black and Decker no longer offers the Hammer + SD card combo deal.
Touché
Local LLM models can be many GBs each. One can have many of them.
Is that something you actually do with your phone?
Look at all the hype around AI assistants lately. Having those run locally is definitely much better from a privacy perspective.
Yes, and it's awesome.
I don’t want to hand over my pictures to a 3rd party.
Why not? The major player in this space (icloud) can do end to end encryption and it's easy to do local backups on your NAS
...as planned by apple
Can you do this without apple managing your data?
(it would be really nice to have a personal icloud replacement)
You can self host Immich for a photos replacement, including some of the neat machine learning tricks.
i use android and google photos because it's really cool to auto match faces of my friends and family.
but think about it, how crazy that someone can steal your phone and you would be totally fucked, priceless memories lost forever. now with cloud that's a non-issue no?
It doesn't have to be one or the other. Apple/Google can permanently lock you out of your iCloud account at any instant. You can only be sure of access to your data if it is physically on you.
And if you encounter pickpockets or get mugged, you won't have access to that data either. And don't forget to worry about natural disasters taking out your home.
Which is exactly why you should have a local copy and a cloud backup.
this consumes bandwidth, battery and cpu(?)
Now do the ram inside an M1+ SoC
[flagged]
Impressive work on undoing the Apple engineering and unnecessarily soldered component. The CNC grinding guarantees this is out of reach for many people.
The blatant greedy decisions Apple makes is what has turned me away from their devices in general. Been winding down my usage for a few years now and aging out my current devices.
> and unnecessarily soldered component
Seriously? Do you want a M.2 card slot in your phone?
(micro)SD/TF, many phones still have one.