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This is a follow up question from my previous question about a water damaged phone. You can find that by searching in my questions. To summarize, the iPhone I’m trying to repair would shut off or wouldn’t turn on unless the home button/touch ID was disconnected. I thought it was the phone until I swapped the LCD and everything works. Mind you, it was under water but with the LCD swap, everything works. This sparked my curiosity but also, I want to try and salvage the touch ID. What could be the reason? Can I just swap the flex cable? Testing will proceed, I just want to see if anyone had any experience with this. Please help! Thanks!
It certainly sounds like the button is shorted. You could try cleaning the “fingers” on the end of the cable. But my guess is that the water got in between the button and the ring. Not good and probably fatal. The button assembly can only be replaced by Apple. They have a magical process that “marries” the button to the motherboard. It’s a security thing. Best of luck.
Not so unusual..anything in which you have a flow of electricity can get shorted and liquids are the best to do the job. If you have a microscope and enough patience you’ll be able to see that, probably in some connector pins of the board or of the touch id button. Flex can’t be swapped. I’ve seen someone on youtube surgically precise with a soldering iron to cut off and resolder the damaged part through joining two flex cables together..depends on your level of skill :)
You can substitute the home button (on the short flex) with an after market one (they are very cheap about 5$) but this will not revive your Touch ID facility as you will know the originals are manufactured to uniquely pair with each motherboard. Everything else should work on the new button.
