Renewing your Iphone home button

My trusty Iphone had been around with me for around 2 years now. It is something that I carry with me so often that it has come to a point where it feels as though something is missing if I do not have it with me in my pocket.

As you would imagine, an iphone of a 2 year vintage is one that is not in the best of shape. No longer are electronics made to last many years and expected to continue working after a simple repair from your neighbourhood electronics repair shop. This isn't the 1990s.

It seemed inevitable that my iphone's home button became so unresponsive that I have to squeeze the hell out of it just to get it to register a click. It truly annoyed me that Apple had decided to make the button so susceptible to this problem. The simplest solution to this problem, would be to toss my phone and get a new one by renewing another 2-year contract with my telco.

I like my phone and I do not wish to change it yet. So, I consulted google on the possible solutions to repair the home button. There were many ways, some as bazaar as twisting the phone clockwise while pressing hard on the home button. Despite my penchant for logical methods, I tried most of those suggestions anyway. I was desperate.

After some searching, I cam across a suggestion involving pouring rubbing alcohol on the home button and repeatedly pressing it in hope that doing so will dislodge the gunk stuck inside and get dissolved in the solution and slowly drain out of the seams of the circle button.

Honestly, that sounded like a sure way to fuck up delicate piece of technology. Since when did liquids and tech mixed well together? Nevertheless, I read on and amazingly, there were several comments about how well it worked. It sounded like I've finally stumbled upon a miracle cure for my dying iphone. Like the legendary Eu Yan Sang 1000year old ginseng that is rumored to be able to prolong a dying man's life.

I spotted a bottle of rubbing alcohol at Watsons and decided to give it a try anyway. I switched off my iphone for the extra touch precaution to minimize the risk of shorting and poured a few drops of the miracle solution onto my button, let it soak for a few seconds and repeated pressed the button until all the liquid had oozed out. Then, I wiped it a little more for good measure and turned the sucker back on.

Lo and behold, it actually works! Now it takes only a light click to activate a button. It was as good as new again! I told my family about this and it turns out that they too had been suffering from the pain of a bad home button and eagerly hope that I can repeat the same success I had with my phone. And it did! all their home buttons now works well again!

If you have given up hope on your iphone and don't mind spoiling it in the process, this is one method you really should try.

Fixing your unresponsive buttons (on a Philips cordless phone CD240 Duo)

Hi everyone! It's been a while since I last wrote something. Been very drowning with work and didn't have the time to write more stuff.

Ok. I have been living with an old cordless phone works completely fine except for button number 9, which one of the most used number because most mobile numbers in Singapore starts with 9. That button, after suffering so many presses, now needs an extraordinary amount of strength to activate it. This is a slippery slope because pressing it too hard may damage the circuit board under it.

I've watched several youtube videos and found that typically, buttons work the same way. So, no problem there since the method to repair them should be rather standard. The challenge comes in opening the device as they might be made in a way that opening it means destroying it.

Fortunately, my cordless phone is rather old and I really hope that design philosophy hasn't changed yet.

The bare minimum you need to begin:
1) Some small screws
2) Tissue paper
3) Water or cleaning alcohol
4) A week's worth of uncut fingernails (to help pry out the latches)

I won't be explaining the process of cleaning it since there are so many instructions available online. What I'll do is to describe how to open the Philips Cordless CD240 Duo phone.

Step 1: Remove the 2 main screws inside the battery compartment. (Of course, remove the batteries first)

Step 2: Pry open the top cover in that sequence. The latches are indicated by the red ovals. Do it gently and open each set of latches one at a time.

Step 3: Unscrew the 4 perimeter screws securing the circuit board. Be careful not the break any of the wires attached to different parts of the cover.

From here on, you'll be able to access the buttons and do your stuff! Happy cleaning!