EEVblog #1370 - Kindle Paperwhite REPAIR

Dave repairs his pesky Kindle Paperwhite with touch screen and charging issues.

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#Repair #Kindle

[rickeymh]

As a former Lab126 Engineer (albeit 8 years ago), I worked (as the Test Engineer and TPM) on several of the kindles. The I2C on the battery pack is called the battery gas gauge. The gas gauge constantly monitors the battery voltage current and temperature and by using a complex algorithm it predicts the battery life. I did not recognize the other chip, but I suspect that they might have integrated the battery charger from the PMIC. The metal lined plastic enclosure helps in mitigating the swelling of the LiPo battery when they fails (it produces hydrogen gas). The RF ID is synced to the Software S/N of the device. This is useful in the factory as well as for reverse logistics, especially for field returns where the S/N cannot be retrieved because the device is dead.

[nickfolino]

I've "fixed" many Kindles that were given to me as dead and all they really needed was a good long charge. When the batteries get too low they typically need to charge a good 12 hours to become responsive.

[gruttapi]

I must admit that the dubbed part was as good as any other video you have ever published. Best regards!

[firesoul]

Thank you for being part of the repair community.

[bityard]

"Chasing a red herring down a rabbit hole"
Australian wildlife must be even weirder than I have thus far been informed

[frollard]

rfid - remotely confident it's primarily for the 'assign this device to my account' button when you buy the thing - they can grab a random one off the shelf, (with a robot), put it down the line and scan to associate it with the specific order without opening the packaging.

[SkyOctopus]

You need a big clive explosion containment pie dish.

[balajinarasimhan]

Hearing Dave everytime, helps me overcome the anxiety of having high pitched voice. voice isnt a barrier.

[DPortain]

Dave: "There's probably something wrong with the charger"
Also Dave: "...and then I left it charging unattended at 460mA for quite a while..."

[RobsFixitShop]

As someone from Minnesota USA (and who just worked on a kindle) I was glad to see you reading about Minnesota frontier times and the lamps they used.

[jameswong]

12:00 The protection board locked up after you removed the dead battery. It activated the low voltage protection. To unlock it, just give it a charge. May be your multimeter just gave it a voltage to do the unlock.

[Anachronos]

Hi Dave. The "problem" with the battery is known from 20 years. Same problem was in old GSM phones. When you try to replace the internal element battery not give power anymore. Usually if you keep under power the circuit board and replace the element in "hot" condition everything will be ok and Kindle will not "understand" that you change the element.

[methusalah]

Great video and demonstration of dissecting a multi-symptom problem and tackling it system-by-system!

[nodirbekchoriev]

when your kindle dies charge it overnight. That's the golden rule

[hermannschaefer]

Before using such a force to get a battery unglued, try some isopropanol (let it suck for some minutes) to etch or dissolve the glue. Often works like a charm, never tried with a kindle though.

[MrCarGuy]

Was looking to get a new e-reader soon. Too bad Amazon basically has a monopoly on them. Would pay more for a better engineered Japanese product for sure.
Edit: Kobo is alright, I suppose

[markpenn]

Great fix mate ! Persevered with it, anyone else would throw it in the skip !! Well done !!

[swagonman]

About 4yrs ago, I worked at a large IC manufacturer that provided the custom PMIC for many of the Kindles. I was the expert Product Definer / Apps support for two custom 255-pin PMICs for the Kindles. The two chips were optimized for two generations of the SOC. The engineers at Amazon knew me pretty well. I'm not sure if your Kindle model has the chip I worked on or uses a competitor's solution. But it looks very much like one of the models that utilized one of these two chips. Anyway, regardless of the supply of the fuel gauge, the algorithm is complex and utilizes the history of battery state, voltage, current, temperature, etc. So, it takes the fuel gauge some time to recover if a new battery is attached. I think that is why the screen indicated a depleated battery while it was accepting charge and while it was actually closer to 50% capacity. Anyway, you got it to recover, so that's good. Also, if the new battery is far less capacity, it will likely tell you that the battery needs to be replaced due to having lost much of its capacity. The fuel gauge can detect battery aging. How Amazon uses that, I'm not sure.

[Blitterbug]

Nice fix, Dave. Still using my Paperwhite after 7 years, same model as yours - good to know the battery is 'repairable' in case it goes up the swannee.

[deanb]

Remember when you did an attempted power line hack using an oscope and a semi decent safe lock? Man I loved that video. I must’ve watched it 10 times and I’ve learned so much from that video.
Plz consider breaking out the oscope again. Nothing better than seeing a pro use one in not-a-tutorial-but-is setting.