 Micro HDMI may very well be the worst mainstream connector on the market. It's super compact while still carrying the same high quality video signals of its bigger more competent brother, but it is the very definition of an Achilles heel. This four dollar part, four dollars turned a $3,000 camera into a paperweight. And the cost to have it repaired by a Sony authorized service center? 500 freedom dollars. That is why today I will be taking matters into my own hands. That is why right to repair matters. And that is why I'm gonna tell you about our sponsor in case I screw up this camera and I have to buy a new one. Build Redux. Build Redux makes it easy to configure your new build with support guides to help along the way. They also offer competitive pricing as compared to building a PC yourself. Head to buildredux.com slash Linus and start your new build today. Let's begin with a bit more backstory. When I was shooting the sponsored ultimate streaming setup video for Elgato a little while ago, I was struck by how much more comfortable that setup was to use compared to my one at home. And the reason for that is that at home I have to crank my key lights up so bright that they're uncomfortable to look at in order to get a clean image out of my cheap Canon camera. Which got me thinking I'm not about to downgrade to a webcam, but if I want a DSLR or a mirrorless that has outstanding low light performance so I can turn those lights down, what are my options? Here's one. How about the a7S II that we already own here at the studio, but we haven't been using because it's broken. I mean, it's not completely broken. I can turn it on and wait, were we expecting that to happen? Did it magically start working? This is inconvenient, but also I'm happy. Okay, this is one of those situations where it's working enough that it knows it's supposed to be working. Now just to demonstrate that it's not the cable. What is this? S5? Oh, yep. There we go. Confirmed. TV works. Cable works. Actually, this is a really important thing to bring up. You guys might wonder why exactly the fact that the micro HDMI port on this camera not working is even a problem for us here in the studio. And the answer is that while the camera does have a built-in display, usually in a production environment, you'd need a much larger one in order to make sure that you're maintaining focus. So we'd hook up something like this external monitor from small HD. That means that every hour this camera is in operation, it's got something plugged into its micro HDMI port, which eventually, and we're talking in a matter of tens of hours or hundreds of hours, not thousands of hours, it is going to break. 50 bucks gets you high quality solder flux and wick with the necessary applicators. You'll spend anywhere from 25 to $100, depending on how baller you want to go for some kind of precision screwdriver set. You'll need another $100 in change for a soldering iron and a hot air station, and 20 bucks for a mystery 21 ounce water bottle from lttstore.com. And even after buying all of that stuff, you are still going to be out ahead of what you would have spent on someone else doing it for you. And now you own all these tools, which is pretty cool. Honestly, the biggest factor for me though was that I have nothing to lose. If I break it, so what? I was already going to have to replace it anyway, and the only thing I really had to buy was $20 worth of micro HDMI ports. So since this operation can clearly be done, we actually found a guide on how to do it online, though it omits the actual soldering because that's a service this person offers and his name isn't Lewis Rossman. I think we can put together the missing pieces here. So this is where the scripted portion of this video ends, and I start disassembling this camera, which we like everybody. Got an exploded view of the camera right here, and I talked to Kalanand who actually used to do a fair bit of this work at his old job, and he says we are going to go in from the bottom and the back. So that is where we'll start. Yeah, this should be fine. Let's just see if it's loosened at all. Whoa, hi. Yep. Look at that. Yep, plate came right off. Wait. And wait. Whoa. Whoa. This is an exciting moment. Seems to be hampering me a little bit here. I think I have to actually take the screen off and disconnect the ribbon on this side. Hold on. I got this, though. I got this. I'll get this all labeled in a sec. Famous last words. Yep. There we go. Look at that. Is that a vapor chamber or is that just a copper spreader? Oh, wow. That's interesting. Look, they're carrying heat way up here. Man, I'm stressed. I get really warm when I work on stuff like this. Like, I don't want to break it. And I also don't want to not get content out of it. And I feel like if I break it, it's not really a video. I can't get it out past the sticker. I might just have to force it a little. There we go. Would you look at that? Would you just look at that? Wow. It's actually really easy to change out the card slot. This is as far in as you have to go, and they've got it on its own daughter board. So, boom, new SD card slot. Just like that. Because that's something I could see failing a lot, too. Everything's under control. Also, this copper shield is off now. More cooling. We've got made by Micron. Presumably, this is DRAM. We've got Sony's image processor. Wow, this folded cable here looks pretty challenging. No, no, that's fine. That's fine. It's fine. It's just a sticker. Calm down, Brandon. Calm down. You're stressing everybody out. Chill. Time to start popping out the dozen or so ribbon cables all around this main board. The good news is that the cable memory should pretty much tell us where they all go back in. Look at that. Huh. Easy peasy. Easy. More cooling. More thermal pads. Oh, wow. So I misidentified this. I think that I had said this looked like the main processor, but I actually doubt that now. And I had also said that maybe this was DRAM, but I doubt that now, too, because this pin pattern looks like DRAM. And it sits right under what looks like it might be some kind of integrated package. I don't know much about the architecture of a camera. This is all just kind of me making things up as I go. So take it for what it is. And that's it. That's the culprit right there. Oh, wow. It's mangled. No wonder it's broken. The thing is, it's not just like the resiliency of the pins inside. You got to understand there's a lot of strain on it from the weight of the cable. There's just no real getting around that. Okay. Getting real now. Oh, God. I did not label a thing. I'm going to write PCB? I'm pretty sure it is sanity check. Let's make sure we're removing the right thing here. We want this guy. Cool. Right. This feels like a lot of heat to be putting on this. We're having trouble getting it off. We can try adding a little bit of flux. Not too much. Not that it'll harm anything, but come on, baby. One moment, please. I'm starting to feel like this might have been a mistake. Go. Actually, I think it's loosening. I think I got it loose on the one side. Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on. Hey, there we go. Oh, my God. Now we need our soldering iron and our wick. I named him John. So we're just going to pick up all of our extra solder with this bad boy. I've got most of the through holes cleared now. I think it's clean. Here's the backside. Looks pretty good. We've got five tries at this. I have five micro HDMI connectors. Here's the plan. I'm going to take this guy. I'm going to put it right there. And all of those need to go exactly on all of those pads. So we take this and we put some of the solder kind of over these contact points here. And we're going to put it right around a little bit. That is not good. Let's just get rid of this again. You can see there's a giant ball of solder across two pins in a couple of places here. So I did put a little bit too much. To grab the extra solder, we're just going to take our tip, which is clean, and we're just going to throw some flux on there and we're going to try and kind of loosen that up and grab it. So now basically what? We flow it and go for it. Okay, let's flux it up, baby. Here we go. Shine for me, baby. This little light of mine. I'm going to let it shine. Once it's all silvery, we just go for it. Oh, God, I blew it away. Oh, boy. Okay, so we have a slight problem. When I put the heat on the micro HDMI, it melts the plastic. So basically, I need to heat it up and then instantly, absolutely nail the placement of this thing. Oh, my God, go on there. Hold still. Oh, we were close that time. It's not that it's off. It's that the plastic melted and it looks like the back pins were on still, but it's hard to tell. Okay. All right. I give up for today. Oh, that is a shame. We're back, ladies and gentlemen, and we got solutions. Kyle from engineering said, Hey, guys, you need a hot plate. Well, we don't have a hot plate and we don't have time to wait around for one. So we've got a hot brick. Hundred and forty five degrees Celsius. Ladies and gentlemen, we baked that brick like the bosses we are. Now it's time to take another run at this without this giant ground plane here sucking up all the heat that we're trying to use to de-solder our shiz. So we'll get our let's get our hot air station. We're going to try and pull this micro HDMI that we did manage to put on last time, but didn't connect fully. We're getting up near 100. A hundo. Here we go. Oh, that's a hot brick. Yep. There we go. And did it do? Okay. It's off again. Oh, is it mangled? You know what? I think this might have actually survived. Andy. I think we can take another crack with this boy. Do you believe? Yeah. So I guess that's a that's a pretty big shot to your credibility right there. The only reason that we're not putting flux on right now, by the way, is that there's already like an ocean of flux on this thing. Oh, I can't do this left handed. I just need to be able to study my hand. Stop. So sticky. So I have a slight problem. A couple of the pins have bridged solder on them. Yep. This one's a fail. Well, this is our last crack at it. Balls. Oh, God, I think this is it. I think this is the moment. I need the microscope to know if it's lined up. It ain't aligned. See, if the goal was to have it perfectly in between the pads, then hashtag nailed it. OK, I'm trying to pull this off as cleanly as I can here, because if I bend these pins, we're not going to be able to put it back on. I think I got it. Should I go for gold and try the last connector? Because I think part of the problem is that this one's got some gunk on it. It's making it hard to get it in place. It is lined up. I'm going to go check under the microscope. I got the sign off from Kyle. He says that it doesn't appear as though. What is going on here? How did this happen? One of these ribbons is busted. Shoot. That is not repairable, unfortunately. Now the question becomes, do I need that? Where does it go? I was hoping to put it together just a little to see if it fires back up and if we can test it before we completely close it up. I'm so upset right now. I actually cannot tell where this plugs into right now. Why don't we just leave it for the time being? Let's see what happens. Wow. This is an absolute nightmare to install. I don't know how they build these things at the factory. The issue is just that there's no way to get my fingers in there and apply any force to it whatsoever. I'm just relying on the stiffness of the ribbon to go to push it in, but it's not enough. Oh my God. Go. Get the in there. I don't understand this. God, my level of pissed off is so high right now. So if I'm lucky, the functions that are not connected will be ones that I don't need. I would have to get extremely lucky for that though. Like we're talking horseshoes up my ass lucky. I say if we get a signal from the HDMI port, we end the video there even though the camera itself is not fixed. Because that was the goal. Definitely makes me feel better about how much cameras cost. I did plug in what remains of the ribbons. So, ow, it's entirely possible that it is still plugged in. Okay, so no SD card reader, but everything else should fundamentally be connected. No life, no smoke, no sparks, but no life. So I need a new top housing among other things. Okay, well, we have to call it here for now. We'll have to resume once we get some replacement parts ordered. We're going to do this. I'm going to hate every moment. Yep. Oh, yeah. Oh. There we go. Will it work? Oh, yeah. Ta-da! So satisfied. Oh, thank God. Oh, I have to pull the whole thing out. Yeah, that's what I thought. Oh. Why do you need to pull that out though? Because it's connected to the main one. No. I have to take it apart even more. Yep. Hey, there we go. Okay, so I think if we stop at this point, like filming, I can figure out the soldering off camera. Because honestly, that's going to be long and boring. A few moments later. All right, time to put this back together. All right, before I fully close this out. Yep. They usually would get a... Oh, yeah, it works. Everything flickered, which is good. All right, let's see how it works. It is now some time later. And the saga is finally over. As it turns out, the original board, the one that I fixed, actually does work. It just powers off intermittently, which might be due to damage from the heat of the soldering iron. We learned a valuable lesson about preheating your entire board before going at it, which is great. But unfortunately, it did cost us a new board, which was just under 400 US dollars. That was installed, courtesy of this guy. Thanks. And we were getting this really weird, awful green output. So initially we thought, okay, maybe we screwed up a cable or something like that. But as it turns out, the potential need for Sony software or calibration was a very real need. So we ended up needing to send it to a Sony service center, pay about $200 to get our sensor calibrated for this particular board, or rather the board calibrated for this particular sensor. And now it works absolutely perfectly. In fact, you already saw me deploy it in the video where I showed off my new gaming setup. It's amazing. Best webcam like ever. And best segue to our sponsor. Squarespace. If you want to build a brand online, you need a website. But I just learned how to turn the little flashlight on on my phone. 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It was quite a bit more successful.