Anyone doing JTAG repair?

[LifelineIT]

Already doing some mobile and non-pc repair work, looking to expand into JTAG repairs as a way to stay busy and keep the cash flowing.

Kind of at a loss of where to start looking at devices, so far the Z3X's are looking good but I'm not sure exactly what I'm looking at.

If anyone would be willing to even point me in a direction get me solidly started, please do!

 

[phaZed]

Don't want to rain on the parade, but do you have a market for JTAGing devices? Do you plan on doing phones, XBOX 360 or Bitmining devices? There is usually an alternative to JTAG in order to unlock or repair depending on what you plan to do.

I would never use it in my market and as phones go, I have never had the need to JTAG any of them.

 

[LifelineIT]

I wouldn't ask if I didn't have a market, man.

I've got gobs of access to hard bricked/damaged phones/consoles/routers, so theoretically I'd like to do all of it, although I'm not finding a device to do both and I really, really, really don't feel like scripting my profiles by hand if I build a device. I can always build new dongles though, that's easy-peasy.

Are you just replacing boards instead of j-tagging?

 

[phaZed]

I wouldn't ask if I didn't have a market, man.

Lol, well good on you then

'Round here I mostly deal with people calling to fix their stuff and it is extremely rare that I would have needed to JTAG something... I don't have access to a bunch of broken lots, so to say, in which need reconfiguring.

Are you just replacing boards instead of j-tagging?

For cell phones I don't even compete in that arena only because there are literally 5-10 or more brick-and-mortar cell phone fix-it shops within a 10 mile radius doing these type of repairs for $30-$50, screen replacements for $70-$80 including parts. The Apple store is downtown. It's really not worth my time and the local market is only surviving on volume. That being said, I can't recall ever having to JTAG something as a work request.

Personally, I wouldn't invest too much time and money into JTAG for the XBOX 360 only because the new consoles are coming out.. so who knows what/when will be needed to complete mods for that. Again, I don't get many requests for this type of work (Maybe because I don't advertise for it, eh?).

I find that on the hard-bricked Android devices I have worked on, they were recoverable without a JTAG device.

 

[LifelineIT]

Hah, awesome. The only local competition I have in this area are a few cowboys doing screen repairs.

The closest Apple Genius Bar is like 120 miles away...although I don't touch Apple anything unless it's a screen swap, and honestly the places locally charge $75-$100 for that service, which blows my mind as it takes about 15 minutes and costs about $17, but I guess ya gotta charge what the market will bear.

What have you done to fix hard bricks besides jtagging? If Odin/etc will see it, it's not a hard brick...

 

[MikeLierman]

I send JTAG repairs and broken micro USB ports to Mobile Tech Videos. It's cheap enough that I can charge a little bit of markup. However, most people, when they say their phone/tablet is bricked, the only brick is their head.

 

[phaZed]

What have you done to fix hard bricks besides jtagging? If Odin/etc will see it, it's not a hard brick...

You are correct, not a true hard brick, ODIN and HTC's tool was able to fix it up in all of my cases.

 

[LifelineIT]

Cool. Thanks to both of you.