"Replacing a battery is dangerous. So we'll make it even more dangerous" - Apple

Yes, unfortunately the BMS will have been blown - usually happens when a battery is completely dead (like cut or too badly expanded) great job though - would’ve worked perfectly on a still working but poor battery health phone! Still a ridiculous process for what should be a simple battery replacement

The chip might be volatile storage so it got wiped when you disconnected it from the old battery. LTT did a video a while ago regarding these dirty techniques to prevent battery cell repairs.

Apple's "self repair" is a hilarious joke meant simply to appear like they give a damn about Right to Repair. Even as a certified Apple tech with WISE certification and seven years in the biz, I was still shocked at just how ridiculous the process was to simply replace a battery as an authorized third-party repair center. Just doing the required process for paperwork took 8x-10x what the actual repair took. It's maddening that people still buy these devices.

Another quality video by Hugh Jeffrey’s. A man who actually cares about devices.

Governments need to make it illegal to make it this difficult to replace a battery. The United States government especially does nothing in this regard at least EU pretends to care occasionally

This should be criminal! There’s no reason to make replacing a battery this hard

Having successfully restored battery health on a few iPhone 11 devices here are a few tips -Whereas with the iPhone Xs and Xr you can simply delete the charge cycles after welding the BMS board on the new battery, on the iPhone 11 you need to use a tag on flex cable between the battery and motherboard (Qianli battery tag-on) , otherwise the phone will still read the previous battery health. This tag on flex needs to be used for the reprogramming but also must stay on the battery after it has been installed. -Also, whenever you change the BMS board to a new battery, you first have to insert a battery from a different phone, this will make the battery warning message appear. Then you can put your new battery and the phone will then recalculate the battery health to the one you reprogrammed. Quite a complicated process simply to regain battery health, but it can be done.

"You will own nothing (not even the right to repair your *own* phone) and will be happy," love, Klaus and Tim.

This young man never ceases to amaze me!

Been doing this since I am a reseller and it’s not good to have unoriginal message when reselling. There are a few things you did wrong. 1. For iPhone 11 and up you need tag on flex to read the data with the programmer as they’re encrypted. 2. Every BMS board is paired with one device so connecting it to another phone will still show unoriginal message. 3 You firstly need to connect unoriginal battery/some power source to boot the phone so it shows unoriginal message, then you need to shut it off and connect the battery with the original BMS. One of these things could be causing a problem.

Hi Hugh, try not dismantling the BMS before attaching the new battery. Some battery BMS looses it's identification as soon as the power goes out. It might be crucial to keep it powered during the transplant...

I would like to see you attempt this again but with a battery that is just worn out. At least it would prove that the technique works and that volatile memory isn’t the problem. But to be honest I’m amazed at the tools that are available now! Excellent work

As a former Apple iPhone user, and person who fixes his own things, I am so disgusted that Apple has chosen to go this route. The reason I now have the Samsung Galaxy is because Apple went this route to make things extremely difficult for do it yourself repair. Recently I had to change the screen on my son's Galaxy a13 5G. Not including having to heat the phone to release the adhesive on the battery, it cost me $35 and took me a half hour. I was amazed at how easy it is to do compared to some of the things that I've had to go through to fix my older iPhones. As a firm believer in my right to repair my own products that I own, I refuse to do business with companies that will lock me out not because it's too difficult for me to perform the repair but because even though I'm capable of carrying the repair out they hide functionality behind a special product key or encryption that prevents me from repairing the product that I own.

We do these cell swaps at work in a large volume, the method you performed is for older models(Xs, Xr, SE2020, etc). On 11 and up you need a tag on cable in line in addition to the original BMS to fool it.

Compare this to what used to be around 7 second repair, its insane. I understand why they might have used some more adhesive, but this- do i need to go further, you already know

You need an adapter called battery flex cable, it’s adapter so the programer can program and read the battery and it will stay on the battery after you connect it to your phone.

Great effort Hugh! I am constantly frustrated with how difficult manufacturers make it to repair things - and that's just on day to day basic appliances, not complicated tech stuff like this!! 😲

I love how people still buy from a company who is doing everything in their power to be anti consumer... Exceptional content, keep it up!

I really appreciate your efforts in favor of right to repair! Thank you!

It is definitely ridiculous having to go through all of this just to be able to replace your phone's battery by yourself! However, it's good to know this solution exists, and it makes up for a great video 👍 For obvious reasons, the ability to fix-up the stuff you own either by yourself or by any qualified person definitely shouldn't be left to the manufacturer's discretion. Apple isn't the source of the problem but rather keeps taking advantage of a huge legislation gap. This is why we desperately need new laws to be passed in order to ensure the Right to repair remains one of consumers' essential rights. So thanks a lot for what you do Hugh! 👏

BMSes from some companies may have software in internal bms ram memory. If you disconnect battery from bms, ram memory automatically wipes. You need to supply bms with the voltage on battery side while changing the battery

Another master piece, thanks hughie, i already miss your videos

To prevent people from changing battery BMS boards in the future, they might store the encrypted key in a RAM chip so if you remove the cell, they key is gone forever. Would sound like something Apple could do.

Hi Hugh, I've tried repairing a couple of phones (screens/battery) feeling empowered by your channel. I'd love to see you try this again with a different BMS. It's a shame it's become this difficult; but when there's a will there is a way!

Awesome video as always! I'm pretty sure that the bms either stores the keys in volatile memory which gets wiped if the battery is completely empty or removed from the board, or it "sets a flag" which tells that the battery has emptied completely. At least many laptop battery packs needs to stay connected to power source while changing the battery cells... This is probably also how the companies switch the responsibility of battery safety, because deep discharging is not good for certain lithium chemistries. Still, there should be option to reset it. (probably also would be legal hassle, because the companies would not want to be responsible for any damages that might happen)

awsome vids jeff! keep up the good work 🙂

Hi Hugh, You need an intact battery to do this repair, “service” but has a working BMS and cell, you have to copy the data first ung J7000 then remove the BMS, then spot weld it to the new cell, then write the copied data to the new welded cell.

Granted, this replacement may not have gone correctly, but I've learned WHY it didn't work and I think that's a success. High quality content here :D

You might want to charge that battery to 3.8v before trying again. Most phones and phone/laptop BMS will determine 3.6v as dead. It's possible the BMS undervoltage was triggered at 3.55v

Love your vídeos Hugh

The thing is that you should not weld on a pre-calibrated BMS onto a battery anyways. It can lead to the battery getting overcharged or discharged to a point where it damages the battery, because not all batteries are 100% equal so the BMS has to be calibrated for the specific cell(s).

I had a phone repair shop from 2010 to 2016 and personally fixed over 16K devices. I saw this coming when Apple mated the fingerprint ID to their phones - I could replace the home button but the fingerprint ID lost its functionality. I knew it was just a matter of time before they made the iPhones non-repairable by 3rd party shops like mine. It was great while it lasted and I'm glad I no longer have to deal with Apple's under-handedness. (By the way, I must've had at least 30 batteries explode on me. I recommend wearing protective eyewear if you mess with phone batteries.)

Whenever a company complains that repair could cause safety hazards, they should just look at what they’ve created.

As an employee of Best Buy Geek Squad and an "Apple certified technician" (lol) here in the states, I can say that even 7:30 is not a viable option for restoring the battery functionality. Apple's repairs operate on a hierarchy, and Apple will only fix a single fault with the device. If you have any other problem (say, a bad battery and a cracked screen), Apple will classify that as a "Multiple part failure" device and opt for a full phone replacement. Same goes if other faults are found, even if the customer does not want those repaired (IE cracked rear glass on an iPhone 11 and older). Apple will not let you just get one issue fixed. They must fix everything, which means that unless you JUST have a cracked screen or JUST a bad battery, you're going to be looking at a full phone replacement every single time. Additionally, any tampering with the phone (at least if Apple can tell during their repair or if you disclose that information to them) will immediately result in a requote for a full phone replacement, as well as a nullifying of Applecare coverage, meaning they will charge you the FULL PRICE of the device in question, regardless of your condition. For this particular phone, since it's been repaired by someone that isn't Apple or one of its "certified repair centers" (IE places like Geek Squad here in the US), and is displaying warning messages, Apple's diagnostics will immediately kick it to a full phone replacement due to multiple failures, and if 3rd party repairs are discovered, at full price instead of the $99 they charge if you have Applecare+. That's the world we live in now

Replaced a battery on my Poco f1. Apart from dropping and misplacing screws it was a straightforward process. I'm definitely for companies making this process easier.

This also points out Apple's dishonesty in a really nice way. They claim their battery anti-repair "features" are for safety, but they actually make replacing your battery more dangerous than before.

Hey, im sure the iPhone 11 batterys cannot be read else they could just reprogram the health to 100% and cycles to 0. This works on the iphone XS and XR. How ever if you buy a JC Battery Tag-On flex for the iPhone 11. You can activate it using the V1S and then set the Cycles to 0 and health to 100%. This tag on flex just pluggs into the original BMS Board and folds over to be able to hide besides the battery. This should work. Fingers crossed!

Nice video, Jeffrey. I am glad you found those methods to bypass Apple messages. I know that the first times are not easy and you are new to this, but I think you will eventually figure it out. There is a youtube channel called REWA Technology that explains how to do these things in detail. I was surprised that they are doing those videos for years and repair shops can't learn from them. Yes, it takes time to weld it and do these jobs, but everyone would pay the extra buck for these things and there would be fewer Apple messages or even non.

Be aware that iPhone 11 and up, the BMS data is encrypted, you can’t reset cycle counts. BMS will force decrease battery health. Typically 500 cycles decrease 5%, which means you cannot restore full capacity (if you replaced the cell with a small original one). This limit does affect hardware. However, if “Not genuine” message appears, you actually get full capacity. The phone won’t limit its charge to a certain amount. Usually this method is used with a bigger capacity cell than the original cell, in order to compensate that 500 5% limit. After replacing the cell, BMS still has old health percentage, but BMS will recalibrate itself eventually. Sadly, if you replace with the original capacity cell paired with a 80% health BMS, you only get 90% available for you to use.

Bummer that it didn't work but it was still interesting to see the procedure. Do you have plans to do a follow-up BMS swap attempt with another battery?

I Have Always Watched Your Videos & Has Made Me Do My Own Repairing…Now i Just Need To Learn Motherboard Repairing Thank You ♥️

Frustrating - but I'm sure you'll try this again Hugh, you're not one to give up a good challenge! Nice spot welder too. I had a similar experience recently. Canon's original EOS batteries are expensive, so I recently rebuilt my 2016 LP-E6 battery pack that was no longer holding a good charge, and I had to desolder the BMS board once I had taken the pack apart. Cost me a fraction of an original new Canon battery pack (just 2 x 18500 Lithium Batteries at $6 each), and unlike the cheap 3rd party clone packs that have no BMS or protection circuitry, I now have a 'fresh' original pack that charges in a Canon charger, and even reports full health in the camera - I guess removing the old cells somehow reset the health status on the BMS. My only caution about this is the risk of doing a bad job, and having the battery short and catch fire inside my R6, so very much a 'do at your own risk' repair.

There are special cables called BRC (battery repair cable). You use them in conjunction with the i2c programmer and then this will actually work. The BMS is encrypted, that's why you can't do anything. The cables are specific for each model and bypass the encryption. Also, you don't need a spot welder for this, just tin the pads of the bms and solder the terminals from above, it won't damage the battery.

At this point , i just wish the development on 'Graphene Solid-State' batteries can become available as soon as possible, that way, even if some of us mess up, it wont have the same destructive thermal runaway like 6:21 🤣 just saw ChargerLAB's video on the battery cell they got recently, its impressive, even when stabbed multiple times, there was no smoke..

Thanks for the video 🤙🏻

Great video Hugh. I've got the same spot welder, haven't used it yet. Shame you were set up from the beginning with a dud BMS board. Next time 👍

As much as I'm not surprised by this outcome or the need to do such a thing to try to trick this phone into working 100%, I find myself laughing a bit that a company made a tiny spot welding machine for such a repair. I've seen that QianLi logo before on many of the other diagnostic stuff at the shop and it's pretty decent, all things considered. Gotta love it when a company takes it upon themselves to try to solve Apple's problems.

No wonder apple spending on billion dollar(US) to stop 3rd party repair. 😅

Any chance the bms needs continuous current flowing to prevent locking up? Preventing exactly what you are trying to accomplish here? I'd like for you to try with a functioning battery beforehand if you are up for it.

Hey Hugh! Sony Xperia Pro 512 smartphone - have you had a chance to look at this one and what is your opinion as far as repairability goes for Sony's smartphones??? I own both Apple and Samsung currently and really don't like either, yet these are older devices easier to tinker with then what they are selling today. I would gladly get the Sony if they are better for long term ownership and don't become throwaways when the battery dies. Keep up the awesome job mate 👍👍

I think the new battery that you soldered to the old bms is faulty because a normal iPhone battery should be at least 3.7v, there's a special device called Sunshine SS-915 to charge and activate the battery instead of jumping it from another battery.

I hope that in the future, Apple could allow 3rd Party Repair. If THEY REALLY CARE about the environment, they should allow this!!!

usually BMS needs to have power while swamping cells. if power is gone, BMS controller will disable itself. This is same for notebook cell replacement, when you install new batteries, it gives same errors. But if you do so BMS can't detect battery is swapped ( like supplying 4.2 to correct location while changing, it will work as it should.

Love your work! Especially now, when hardware is becoming more and more capable, I am looking at my S23 Ultra (the 12GB RAM variant), and hoping that the battery will last as long as the phone is no longer viable to perform lag-free mundane tasks, which is the specific reason I bought it for. That will never happen, so I am sure I will either lose the IP rating, or I will need to stick to the degraded battery life...

That welder is pretty ehh. No warning time before welding? Just straight power pulse when you short the wires?

I had to do this with my 13 pro after Apple refused to service my phone due to the screen being non genuine on their side, even though it was pulled from a functioning device it’s really annoying that apple goes to this length when there moto is reusing as much as they can to help out the planet if they wanted to help out the planet the should make there phones user fixable instead of making people buy new phones great video Hugh

Fantastic job

Hey Hugh, Great videos! A nerd-friend has told me that these cheap capacitance welders use low-quality MOSFETS to lower the overall price. I was thinking at some point, you might do a video on how to replace them with higher-quality ones. He also said that inadvertant shorting of the electrodes would lead to premature failure... one reason that the pro models typically have the electrodes held in place at a fixed distance. Thanks again!

Good try mate!! I hope in the future you'll get another opportunity to try this out on a phone that doesn't have such a badly damaged original battery. This looks like an interesting technique to explore further.

That tends to happen with a small tear in the BMS. Like mentioned, could be blown but we've had more cases where BMS flex was torn or damaged and exposed the exact same problem. You have to be very careful or else you need to have Apple or an IRP shop fix it to get rid of the message

I’ve been doing this for a long time but only on customers who care. I explain the procedure and most people don’t care about the message. The fact that it’s becoming necessary is very annoying, however, soon there will be aftermarket batteries available either with an aftermarket battery board built in or on a tag on flex. As for screens you can purchase screens that you can transplant the old screens chip onto. So possible but not usually for the user.

cant wait for the next video where you attempt this repair

Before iPhone even existed, Sony was doing this with their camera and laptop batteries. Circa 2005, Texas Instrument begun marketing a BMS chip that allowed to market "Genuine" Sony batteries. When I tried the BMS swap at the time, I realised the BMS disabled itself as soon the input voltage (from the battery) drop to zero. I mean, the BMS has to be desoldered from the old battery while keeping some voltage applied. Could it be the case here? Best Regards, Anthony

How do Apple and other companies legally get away with this? Can you imagine if you bought a car and could only go to a dealership to change the battery with them as its paired to the car!

you can do this without a spot welder. just use some solder between the battery terminals and the contacts on the board. it takes a bit more time cause you have to heat up the solder enough to melt it, but it's still easy even if you only have a soldering iron.

thank for video👍👍

You’re a magician, Hugh! Edit: Apparently yesterday Elon Musk threatened the development and production of an ePHONE, if activists succeeded in persuading Apple and Google to keep Twitter out of their stores. I wish he would stick it to Apple in particular. The games those guys play to prevent the man-in-the-street from repairing his own phone is disheartening and dishonest.

Here is a scary scenario for the iPhone 15 that I have heard being discussed in certain dark places. It is proposed that once Apple moves to solid state buttons and a titanium case, they will then weld the whole thing shut so it cannot be opened and is a complete solid sealed unit by replacing the Penta lobe screws with welds. If you crack the glass or damage it, it will be a full phone replacement because you will no longer be able to get into the phone. They are also supposedly adding a tattle tale sensor / microswitch that activates and scrambles all the encryption keys as a failsafe if you do manage to get into the phone. Once that key is changed the phone is bricked. to power this they will have a capacitor to provide just enough power for the scrambler to activate and failsafe signal the encryption chips.

I was going through a similar process looking at replacing an iPhone 11 battery and looked into all these tools. All together to order and ship I was looking at $135, not including the replacement part. Apple still offers battery replacement for these and they are charging $69. So the silver lining is that going the official route is cheaper (unless you work in bulk) at least in the US while living a moderate distance from an Apple store. At the core though, it is really annoying to have to do this though. There is a compromise here will informing customers of how genuine parts are, but since they're a business that will never happen.

I de soulderd the battery terminals from the pcb and soulderd the new battery on the pcb. And it worked amazingly!

This is weird, but cool

Just keep in mind that the BMS may not work because you removed power completely or the previous battery was 100% dead and the voltage dropped to zero. The reason I am saying this is because it could be that some infromation on the battery is stored like RAM, as soon as you remove power, the information used by the iPhone to identify the battery as its own is lost.

again a beautiful product, totally surprising, that spot welder!

Worth a try

Well, you did successfully spot weld a defective part to a replacement battery and discover that it was in fact defective. There wasn't any other way to find out, so I don't see anything wrong with anything you did, and you still have the ability to fix who knows how many more that probably have good controllers. Sounds like a good start.

as if it couldn't get any harder.

that is a pretty ingenious idea. i would like to see a video where all the issues from swapping a logic board are fixed by also switching the controllers and chips responsible for software locks

Yay, new video!

time for a law requiring replacement batteries to be user installable...simply inexcuseable gibberish from Apple and Samsung and co.

I've given up on Samsung & Apple phones, my manufacture of choice now is Cubot. I've had their Quest rugged phone for number of years now, it's off to have a new charging port fitted in the next few days even though it's relatively easy to disassemble I'am terrible at soldering.

Hello @ Hugh Jeffery, can u recommend a store where I could get a replacement battery for a p30 pro? It seems to be unavailable on most stores I check

I have great success rate swapping the bms over to the new cell. Sometimes you need to jump the battery or charge it outside the phone with 5v. And try to reinstall the battery to the phone and test. If it still shows 0%. Unplug the battery connector and plug it back in and press on it firmly. Try to power on the phone with the connector being pressed and try to charge it or check the health

i agree, just replaced my XR's screen and battery yesterday and this process is so dumb.

Hey Hugh, where would you recommend getting cheap replacement batteries in Australia online?

You should look at REWA videos, they do a good job showing the iphone 12 screen replacement that removes those messages, and bms batteries transfer.

yay a new video

I found out the same thing on Siemens laptop battery, the bms is intentionally designed to go bad/wiped when you cut off the battery, Probably they have the firmware on a volatile ram so as soon you cut the power the firmware get lost and the bms microcontroller will have no firmware to work with. The suggested solution is to hook up a temporary voltage source to the bms while doing the transplant.

U can do all of this with a regular solder station. Ive done hundreds.

Well most like the chip was fried because of the Battery short it happens or the flex was damaged somehow previously... the same method can be used from XS and up for all iphone batteries.. and to get the correct Health % ( soo 100% and 0 cycles), for 11 and up you will need a special I2C flex that you can buy and reprogram it and for XS to XSMax just the flex change will help... In this case could still try flex change so to Transfer the OG chip onto a new flex

Have been looking for a cheap and easy to use spot welder. Where did you get it?

Huge you rock !!

Just out of curiosity, have you attempted to use REWA tools and techniques to restore battery or screen encryption ?

Before cutting the old battery from the charging, you need to have a constant 3.6v ish dc external power supply connected to the battery contacts on the board to "retain" health on the charge board.

I honestly don’t mind the error message for the battery.. only down side is reselling it is more difficult, and generic batteries are usually very bad with fake advertised copacity.

Whats about the iPhone SE 2020, does this one got the same Problem with a battery swap?

You need the battery flex adapter to go with the jcv1se programmer to make the aftermarket battery work.

Hi. I'm replacing batterys using spot wielder every day. It would've worked for you in it was ipxs/m-ipxr models, for ip11 and above you need additional false flex that you will programme and leave inside with battery.

Thank goodness I don't have a mobile phone. But I do still have my Palm 505 PDA from way back in 2001. I use it everyday. But I did once have to replace the battery. I had to take out 4 screws, and so it took almost a massive massive 4 minutes to replace the battery.

Thank you for all you do in educating us about these things. Hopefully it will help more people to catch on to the "Right to Repair" movement.