Where are you from?
From USA.
USA?
Yeah.
Very good.
I am trying to make my own iPhone.
Very good.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I was in a dimly lit barbecue joint here in China.
I was with people like me, geeks who
are fascinated by the electronics manufacturing
scene.
And someone said, you know, see all these cell
phone parts in the markets.
I wonder if you could build your own phone.
I kept coming and going from China over the past nine
months, and I couldn't get rid of this burning question.
Could I make my own cell phone?
Would people even cell parts to a Western guy like me
who hardly speaks any Chinese?
[SPEAKING CHINESE]
iPhone 6s.
6s.
So I did what any geek would do and I dove in with both feet.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Coming to Shenzhen is like visiting the future,
but it's this crazy dystopian Blade Runner esque future.
So to make a phone, I think I need four pieces.
I need the metal back, the shell the phone sits in,
I need a screen, I need a battery,
and then I need the logic board, which
is the circuit board that has the processor and the memory
and things like that on it.
So we're in a back alley behind the [INAUDIBLE] markets.
I'm going to take a look at what's available here.
Sometimes there are phone backs that are available for sale.
So that was interesting.
I just went back to one in the booths
and tried to buy one of the recycled backs,
and I was successful, but it's pretty dinged up.
Now let's head inside the main markets
and see if I can get a back that looks new.
I'm not going to be able to film with the big camera inside,
but I'll be able to use my iPhone.
Oh, those are nice.
This iPhone 7 [INAUDIBLE].
Yeah.
Those are nice.
They don't have a logo.
You can maybe get it for tomorrow.
OK, cool.
[SPEAKING CHINESE]
So that was a big success.
Pretty quickly, I was able to find a back that looks
pretty new and pristine to me.
It doesn't have any of the laser markings inside it
like the used one does, and I need
those for aligning some cables, and there's
a patch where the antenna sticks.
But I think that might be a place that has a laser that
can add those for me.
So I'm going to go see if I can find that.
I also found a bunch of really cool designs
and different colors that don't look like anything Apple makes.
I looked around for a bit and I finally
found this laser engraving booth tucked in a little cubby hole
underneath the stairs.
The same original, like whatever they normally do.
So Apple, the standard thing for USA.
USA markings here.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I'm outside McDonald's and I'm waiting for Frank.
So Frank's a buyer, buys a bunch of different Apple parts
in the markets.
He's going to help me buy the parts to build a screen.
So what I want to build, I'm building an iPhone 6s.
And I want to make the screen as much from scratch as we can,
as much from parts.
So if we put together a screen, what pieces do we need?
We need the glass.
Digitizer and the LCD, the back.
Backlight?
Background?
Yeah, backlight.
Yeah, uh huh.
OCA.
Yeah, that's the optically clear adhesive.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, OK.
Isn't there a touch sensor for the force touch?
[INAUDIBLE] LCD.
[INAUDIBLE]
It's part of the LCD.
This process needs to be made without dusty?
Without dust.
Yeah, yeah, so it has to be very clean.
But they can do this here in the markets, right?
There are people who can do this?
We can go to the repair shop [INAUDIBLE]..
So should we buy the parts ourselves first and bring it
to the repair shop or should we have
the repair shop provide it?
[INAUDIBLE]
Sounds good.
[SPEAKING CHINESE]
Yeah.
Can we buy all of the parts?
So we buy phone glass, we buy the digitizer, we buy the LCD,
we buy the backlight.
I know that what I want to do is weird.
OK.
Yeah?
OK, cool.
Good.
And I can film?
[SPEAKING CHINESE]
We don't need [INAUDIBLE].
OK?
It's OK to show their face?
Yeah.
Yeah, OK.
So Frank, they're heating it up now.
Is that right?
Yeah.
And it sucks down, it holds it down, like suction?
That's fast.
This is the OCA.
Ah, they're taking off the OCA here.
And then that's the front of the digitizer, right?
Front of the screen.
And now what is he taking off?
The polarizer.
With a hot soldering iron slash razor blade.
That's pretty cool.
I've not seen that tool before.
And then another polarizer on top.
OCA.
[SPEAKING CHINESE]
He says 10?
You know [INAUDIBLE]?
I don't.
Yeah, what is this machine?
I don't know the name of it.
Press the LCD with the front glass.
Is there heat too?
Is it hot?
Yeah, it's hot.
It's a vacuum.
Nice.
[INAUDIBLE]
So now we're putting it--
Bubble.
Removing the bubbles.
Removing the bubble.
Bubble remover.
This is bubble remover.
OK.
So it'll take out all the air.
Remove the bubble from the OCA.
And is it heating as well?
Yeah.
Has heat.
Very cool.
Is it finished?
That looks nice.
See, no bubbles.
No bubbles.
We finished the front.
OK.
So now we're going to do the back.
Replace this one.
OK.
The backlight.
This one is the backlight.
And so now we're going to put backlight back
onto the back of the LCD and digitizer.
We need to match this precisely.
That's a very cool testing phone.
Oh, look at that.
Good.
This one is original.
Looks good.
Good?
Test yourself.
I think it's good.
Yeah.
Looks good to me.
OK.
Finished?
Yeah.
Yeah?
Finished screen.
Good.
Do they want money?
Can I pay them on [INAUDIBLE]?
Pay on [INAUDIBLE].
It used to be that you bought everything in the markets
with cash.
But more and more, it's been moving
towards WeChat, which is this messaging app crossed
with Facebook and Twitter and PayPal.
It makes it really easy to send money to someone
just by scanning a QR code.
How much do I owe them total?
[SPEAKING CHINESE]
480.
Yeah.
OK.
[SPEAKING CHINESE]
OK, bye bye.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I have the exterior of the phone.
Now I need the guts.
The most complex part is the logic board.
It's really the brains of the phone,
but it's also the part that intimidates me the most.
I just picked up this used, broken logic board
in the markets for a few dollars.
It's got the processor right here,
and the flash memory chip's right there.
But it's also got a ton of other chips
all over it that are super tiny.
My understanding is that this is a panel of four logic boards
that don't have any components on them.
This panel would be fed into the factory line that
does the chip placement.
I originally thought I could solder on all the chips myself.
That turned out to be a huge rabbit hole.
I spent weeks going to the market buying tools.
Trying to learn to solder.
Squeegee on some of this paste.
Trying to buy individual chips.
So this is six.
I was way over my head.
So I went up to this cell phone repair school up
in [INAUDIBLE] called [INAUDIBLE]
and I met with the head teacher named [INAUDIBLE]..
As I told you earlier, my project
is to try and build my own iPhone from parts
that I am buying in the market.
Do you think that is possible?
This one?
Yep.
Yeah.
I have a board like this.
Oh, OK.
[SPEAKING CHINESE]
This board, [INAUDIBLE] just two is good.
And if you take your time to [INAUDIBLE] on this board,
you maybe work on one [INAUDIBLE]..
It's not impossible.
It's possible, but it's very difficult.
If I buy a logic board from the markets,
do you think it's possible for me
to build my own phone that works?
For sure.
If you buy a board that is OK board and you
can buy some screen or battery and you can be a new phone.
It's OK.
It's for sure.
It's like just a new computer.
Make a memory, make a [INAUDIBLE],,
make a battery, and a screen [INAUDIBLE]..
Put them all together and I'll have a working phone.
OK.
So I gave up for now.
But I'm going to head of the markets with my friend Helen,
and she's going to try to help me find a working logic
board, and probably one that came out
of a used phone that's maybe been repaired or refurbished.
It seems to be very, I don't know, active.
It's very active.
For all the slow down of the other markets,
this is not feeling it at all.
This market's super chaotic.
There's people pushing and shoving everywhere.
There's stacks of phones everywhere you look.
And by the counters, there's these giant safes
to store them.
I feel a little bit uncomfortable here,
mostly just because I stick out, but also because I don't really
know what I'm doing yet.
I want to buy a 6s 16 gig.
He says it's just short of supply
right now and probably after spring festival.
And they suggest us go one floor up.
Here's success.
Yeah.
How many pieces?
Just one.
Oh, nice.
She said it's guaranteed.
It's guaranteed.
The quality is guaranteed.
Yeah, OK.
Has this [INAUDIBLE] been repaired as well?
A little repair.
I tell you what.
Why don't we look around some more
and just see what our other options are and we'll
come back.
That went Well
Yeah, I think so.
Yeah.
I think that gives me more confidence
that this is going to work.
Let's go that way and get out of the main crowd right here.
She doesn't have a phone that we can
put this in to test with, with a display and battery?
[SPEAKING CHINESE]
Yeah, she doesn't have the time to do the testing for us.
Well, can we do that testing with her phone?
Yeah, she said no.
No, I get it.
I'm not going to buy it without testing it.
It's enough money that I'd rather get one that works.
All right, I think we should go upstairs and talk to that lady
and get her to help us test.
Oh, she might not roll with us now.
She's doing a big deal.
Wow, she's handling a lot of cash.
How much do you estimate that was?
I don't know, like, at least 10,000.
I mean, more than that.
Probably 50,000.
[SPEAKING CHINESE]
So she cannot do the testing.
She said it's tested guaranteed.
And I can bring it back if it doesn't work?
Yeah.
[SPEAKING CHINESE]
Within three days you get the warranty.
All right.
Puts a timeline on this.
She will put a sticker.
Oh, her sticker on it.
OK, bye bye.
All right.
So this is the logic board that Helen and I
bought in the market.
Now let's see.
We need a battery.
Battery in here somewhere.
All right.
I've got a battery.
It's branded Apple.
And I have my screen here.
Let's put them together and see if this puppy works.
Battery back on.
I hadn't actually bought an on button yet,
so I'm using the tweezers here to turn on the logic board.
Oh, I got it to work.
Check that out.
[LAUGHS]
All right.
See if it boots up.
Oh.
But I don't have a home button.
That's problematic.
It turns out this logic board isn't perfect.
Let me show you what I mean.
If I go over here to the Compass app and I turn it around,
nothing happens.
I'm going to try and take it back and see
if she will give me a new one.
That was pretty amazing.
I took the bad logic board back to the woman I bought it from,
showed her on my testing setup that the compass didn't work.
She said OK, come back at 5:00.
I asked her for a refund, and we chatted,
we paid me the money via her phone,
and then said still come back at 5:00
and I'll give you a new one.
So I'm pretty legit.
For no receipts, no contracts in a very gray area, people
are very honorable.
I went back at 5:00.
She had the logic board fully repaired, ready to go,
and I have three more days to bring it back
if I find any more problems.
It's very legit.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
After a bunch of days of shopping,
I finally have the major pieces.
The case, the logic board, and the screen.
But I still need a bunch of other parts
to make a working phone.
The battery was pretty easy.
There are a bunch of booths that sell those.
But I need a bunch of other smaller parts.
Brackets, screws, cables, speakers, et cetera.
And so I spent an entire morning making a big shopping
list of everything I needed.
But I was really dreading going and finding
each individual booth and trying to describe what I wanted.
I need this one and this one here too.
I need the top cable too.
I got super lucky.
Literally the first booth I went to.
Yeah.
I need everything for a phone.
So I have screen, battery, case, board, and I
need everything else.
So if you help me.
They totally hooked me up.
So this is the back camera.
This is the front camera.
This is the bottom cable assembly
that has the lightning doc and the headphone jack.
Whole bunch of brackets.
They even included a little tiny bag
of screws that includes all the screws
that I need to build one phone.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
So today's the day I've been waiting for for a long time.
Today is the day I get to try and put the other the phone.
I think I have everything I need.
I'm not sure.
So let's give it a shot.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
All right.
First set of screws.
I know how to do this.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
How does that work?
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Boy, those buttons look crappy.
Not clicky.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[GROANS]
I might have to go back to the markets
and put my mercy on one of the booth vendors
and see if they can show me what I'm missing.
I must be missing something obvious.
I bought the cable from you yesterday.
And if you feel, there's no--
does not feel right.
[SPEAKING CHINESE]
You need this.
Oh.
What is that?
What is this?
Where does that go?
There's a little insert right here.
Feel like little metal shims.
You can see now they audibly click.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Hey.
That is sweet.
That is my finished phone.
Pretty awesome.
Well, it's been a long time in the making.
I started this, gosh, I don't know, a couple months ago.
I've been in and out of China while I've been working on it.
I didn't know whether I'd be able to do this.
But I also learned a lot about how
the phone ecosystem, the phone repair and refurbishing
ecosystem works here in Shenzhen.
I never really thought much about
what happens when I get rid of a phone.
Recycle it or donate it.
I think a lot of them end up here.
Taken apart for parts or turned back into nice working phones.
I'm really impressed by Apple's engineering.
It's so easy to repair and recycle these phones.
I've got to think that Apple's really proud of the fact
that their phones don't really end up in landfills.
But there's also credit due to the many thousands of people
here that have figured out how to turn trash like this back
into beautiful working phones.
Before I started this, I wasn't much of a phone guy.
Sure, I'm a programmer, and I've dabbled in electronics
most of my life, but I really didn't know much about phones.
And it turns out even a newbie like me can figure out
how to put together a phone.
It's totally doable if you have access
to parts, some basic tools, and some good advice
or instructions on how to do it.
In fact, I think anybody watching
this with enough patience could do it as well.
This stuff totally isn't rocket science.
It's not a lot different than putting together
your own desktop computer.
It's just a little bit smaller.
But wait, there's one more thing.
I got a box to put it in.
I went to the markets yesterday and I picked up
the box with all the bits.
Manual, headphones, charger, charging cable.
So just like that.
Like that.
Just like a new phone.
There it is in the box.
Done.
I owe a huge thanks to everybody that's
helped me on this project, Frank and Helen and all
of my other friends in China, and the market sellers.
There's a complete list in the description.
I learned a bunch of other cool stuff
that didn't make it into this video,
and I have a bunch of other stories I'd like to tell.
If you want to see more cool phone stuff from China
or you want to join me on other interesting technology
adventures all over the world, you
can subscribe to my YouTube channel,
or you can follow me on Facebook or Twitter.
Links are in the video description.