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Recently, I just bought a Nokia 6111 sliding phone for my mom. Although it only has around 20MB of space and no support for memory cards, it is basically what I think my mom would ever need. The small factor, decent camera quality and the style is pretty much designed for a lady user. It is a second hand phone (since I cannot afford to buy a new one), therefore the cosmetic appearance of the phone is pretty washed out.

The circled areas in the pictures above areas which have nasty scratches on them. The paint is pretty much done below the keypad area and the back cover. I wouldn’t want to break a phone without knowing how to properly disassemble it, so I googled around to see some guides on taking apart the phone, to make sure I am able to replace it myself before ordering a full replacement housing for it.

First step is to unscrew the two screws just behind the phone sliding cover, and take the front cover off. These screws (as well as other parts of the phone) needs star shaped kind of screwdrivers, but I manage to get them all off easily with a flat head screwdriver. Lucky for me, I didn’t damage the screws, or else it would be impossible to open it once the screw heads are flat-out. Then, followed by removing the LCD screen and its cable connector. Keypads, keypad frame and the back cover are then removed as well, since they can come off pretty easily.

The tough part comes in while trying to remove the main circuit board, since there is a ribbon cable (for the LCD previously) running through the sliding mechanism. I need to take care not to loose any tiny parts, especially the microphone.

Next would be trying to fit the new housing in. I must admit the housing I bought was a AP housing, therefore the quality is just so-so. I even break the plastic parts where the sliding mechanism is while trying to install, which resulting me having to use back the old one. But, I am more than happy enough to use back the original part of the sliding mechanism, since they are in flat black colors with unnoticeable minor scrathes, than using a bad quality one that would eventually break after a few slides.

Not to mention that the upper keypad of the AP housing is totally unusable (for crying out loud, it is so hard to press), but lucky that I can use back the original one that didn’t have significant scratches it. If the lower keypad (where the dial numbers are) is in the same condition as the upper keypad, I would have get mad, since the original lower keypad have severe damage which need urgent replacement. Thank god the AP housing lower keypads didn’t fail. You might want to ask, “why don’t you just get an original casing to save the poor fitting and quality problem?”. Well, I would love to use them but they are way too expensive!

Well, here is how it turns out now. I even spray painted the screws of the back cover, to cover all the rust. Now, it looks just like a new Nokia 6111.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 23rd, 2007 at 10:13 am and is filed under Projects. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.