Comment on what's stops one from scavenging the best parts of old phones and putting them into a new one?
hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 3 weeks ago
Essentially time and cost? Building such a Frankenstein-Phone would probably take you half a year to design the PCBs, get all the connections and power rails right, all the needed peripheral electronics. You'd need a lab and equipment do build it, and the mecanics and casing. And probably some takes and failed iterations. And software and drivers also have to be rewritten and patched.
FarFarAway@startrek.website 3 weeks ago
Well that seems like more effort than it’s worth… I figured the biggest issue would be fitting it into the phone, but that sounds like least of the worries.
hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 3 weeks ago
Right. I mean these things are really complex, usually not made to be repaired (i.e. modular) and lots of things are purpuse built to fit in that small form factor. Components are scattered around because there was some space left somewhere on a PCB and some components share a purpose, which makes it difficult to entangle the electronics...
And it's always difficult to compete with mass-manufactured products. I like to tinker with electronics or build things at home. I learn a lot of things while doing it. And I get things that are unique and built spefically for my purposes... But usually they're not cheap(er) than mass produced products, because I don't buy supplies in bulk and it takes me days to build one thing while a production line can pump ot thousands of devices in the same timespan.
And I ocassionally repair (household) devices or just take apart broken ones for shits and giggles... And some of them immediately look like they just aren't meant to be repaired or modified. Some components like a phone screen, camera or even the backlight or power supply of a broken flat screen TV can be messed with. But it usually ends with complicated PCBs. You can replace broken components (if you got the correct tools), but you can't really change much about them without going through an laborious process of reverse-engineering and maybe designing a whole new PCB (from scratch). Which makes sense for smaller projects, but it's just not feasible for complex devices like phones/laptops/TVs.