4 T5 screws at the back, then use a pick to pry the shell off via the microSD slot.
[image|3241910]
remove green ph00 screws, leave yellow. remove shield.
[image|3241903]
Remove yellow ph00 screws, un-plug purple cables, lift black ribbon socket latches and carefully slide them out. I accidentally ripped my left joystick ribbon doing this, but thankfully you can replace them with Nintendo Switch joysticks. The rubber caps can be shoved through the Retroid frame with a tiny bit of dish soap as the cap is slightly larger than OEM.
[image|3241904]
Carefully pull up the battery. It is adhered directly to the kapton tape that is preotecting the large ribbon cables below it which is not repair friendly, but you can push down on the tape as you start to get the battery up so that the cables don't get damaged. The tiny blue and red cables for some sort of sensor attached to the back of the display are easy to pull off here, and they need to be de-soldered anyway to detach the motherboard from the front assembly.
[image|3241909]
[image|3241908]
I watched some videos on how to de-solder USB-C ports, and after trying it with my iron, I realized that you absolutely must use a hot air rework station to heat the whole assembly at once or else you won't be able to detach the port. You will need that tool and some good paste flux in a syringe for precise application.
[image|3241902]
I was SHOCKED at just how much heat it took to remove the old port, I think I had it up around 440c at low fan speed, and couldn't get it to liquefy until I absolutely blasted it right up close and it totally damaged the broken port. This did work though.
[image|3241901]
Then you need to use a solder sucker and some solder braid and paste flux to clear out the through holes in the PCB, and add some solder carefully to each of the 16 pin pads without bridging them. I was using a 2x donegan visor and it honestly wasn't enough. My phone's macro lens was able to capture the details more than I could see them.
[image|3241900]
-
Here's the new C port installed. I decided to carefully solder each pin to their pads with my iron, as the hot air station was scary in the way of how much heat it took to get the old one off. I think this was a mistake though, as even with my smallest tip I believe I didn't get them all 100% perfectly separated. I reassembled everything and plugged it in and it charges correctly, but I couldn't get it to mount as a drive on my computer like it used to. I'd call it a win though, since I can use the SD card to move data around, and it otherwise works as expected. I found this project to be very difficult, but I learned quite a lot. I'm baffled as to how some of those Youtube videos showing the C port coming off so easily with the hot air station though.
+
Here's the new C port installed. Please excuse the Q-Tip fiber mess. I decided to carefully solder each pin to their pads with my iron, as the hot air station was scary in the way of how much heat it took to get the old one off. I think this was a mistake though, as even with my smallest tip I believe I didn't get them all 100% perfectly separated. I reassembled everything and plugged it in and it charges correctly, but I couldn't get it to mount as a drive on my computer like it used to. I'd call it a win though, since I can use the SD card to move data around, and it otherwise works as expected. I found this project to be very difficult, but I learned quite a lot. I'm baffled as to how some of those Youtube videos showing the C port coming off so easily with the hot air station though.
I hope this helps someone, let me know if you have any questions.
[image|3241905]
4 T5 screws at the back, then use a pick to pry the shell off via the microSD slot.
[image|3241910]
remove green ph00 screws, leave yellow. remove shield.
[image|3241903]
Remove yellow ph00 screws, un-plug purple cables, lift black ribbon socket latches and carefully slide them out. I accidentally ripped my left joystick ribbon doing this, but thankfully you can replace them with Nintendo Switch joysticks. The rubber caps can be shoved through the Retroid frame with a tiny bit of dish soap as the cap is slightly larger than OEM.
[image|3241904]
Carefully pull up the battery. It is adhered directly to the kapton tape that is preotecting the large ribbon cables below it which is not repair friendly, but you can push down on the tape as you start to get the battery up so that the cables don't get damaged. The tiny blue and red cables for some sort of sensor attached to the back of the display are easy to pull off here, and they need to be de-soldered anyway to detach the motherboard from the front assembly.
[image|3241909]
[image|3241908]
I watched some videos on how to de-solder USB-C ports, and after trying it with my iron, I realized that you absolutely must use a hot air rework station to heat the whole assembly at once or else you won't be able to detach the port. You will need that tool and some good paste flux in a syringe for precise application.
[image|3241902]
I was SHOCKED at just how much heat it took to remove the old port, I think I had it up around 440c at low fan speed, and couldn't get it to liquefy until I absolutely blasted it right up close and it totally damaged the broken port. This did work though.
[image|3241901]
Then you need to use a solder sucker and some solder braid and paste flux to clear out the through holes in the PCB, and add some solder carefully to each of the 16 pin pads without bridging them. I was using a 2x donegan visor and it honestly wasn't enough. My phone's macro lens was able to capture the details more than I could see them.
[image|3241900]
Here's the new C port installed. I decided to carefully solder each pin to their pads with my iron, as the hot air station was scary in the way of how much heat it took to get the old one off. I think this was a mistake though, as even with my smallest tip I believe I didn't get them all 100% perfectly separated. I reassembled everything and plugged it in and it charges correctly, but I couldn't get it to mount as a drive on my computer like it used to. I'd call it a win though, since I can use the SD card to move data around, and it otherwise works as expected. I found this project to be very difficult, but I learned quite a lot. I'm baffled as to how some of those Youtube videos showing the C port coming off so easily with the hot air station though.
I hope this helps someone, let me know if you have any questions.