yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] The Solutor:
3 the D4 has a bright but poor pentile LCD panel while Photon's one is a nice RGB one

4 D4 lacks the useful camera button, while Photon lacks the useful physical navbar
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] mrvek:
Google design specs and recommendations. Navigational hardware buttons are being abandoned.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] The Solutor:
Google is free to do whatever dumb move, as I'm free to dislike them.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] tobby88:
Can we get back to topic, please?
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] divie:
Not by Samsung.

Sent from my Photon Q with Tapatalk 4
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] adamantem:
Hi, CornholioGSM, I wanna buy a logicBoard with the sim mod, can you send it to Mexico?

Enviado desde mi XT897 mediante Tapatalk
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] b_force:
Well, that sounds like a very good idea! :D

Keep me (or maybe us) informed if you can :)

I'm seriously interested in it, almost seems to fit exactly my thoughts.

Otherwise I think I indeed will buy a sample or the real think and find a solution.

But still, if someone can give some measures, that would be great :)
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] The Solutor:
Here you are...

Keep in mind I'm not from Swiss :) , measures are taken carefully but some imprecisions may be still there
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] niko99:
[MENTION=243251]CornholioGSM[/MENTION]

please if you find a while look to your PM box :)
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] The Solutor:
Likely I have an answer to the puzzling SIM card error, reported by many users.

As I wrote in message #1001 I was unlucky with my photon, it had poor sensitivity, I checked and redone the mod many times, I checked everything else and I finally realized that my work had nothing to do with this. I got a faulty board, that's all.

BTW due to various personal issues (and a bit of laziness) I postponed the board replacement until few days ago.

Now I moved the mod to a new logic board and the missing signal bars are now back.

BUT

this time I have the infamous SIM error at least once a day, sometimes twice a day.

Hardly the culprit is the SIM slot, as guessed by other users affected by the problem.

Firstly because the SIM and the SIM slot are the same used on the old logic board. And in the old logic board I haven't seen the problem a single time in six months.

Secondly because, often, the problem appears overnight when the phone is sitting w/o any vibration that can affect a poor contact.

Given that I can exclude any temperature problem too.

So I asked myself why the original mod (done relatively poorly) was working perfectly, and the second one (done way more carefully) isn't working as expected. ?

Finally I realized a difference between the two: on the original mod I lost the resistor labeled 1712 in picture taken by Cornholio and I shorted it, while in the actual mod all the original components are in place.

Given the SIM contact where this resistor is connected is the I/O pin (read the main SIM pin) I'm almost sure that the lower resistance makes the difference, likely because the resistor is calculated by Motorola engineers taking in account a way shorter electrical path, and w/o the added contact resistance that is higher on a contact than a soldered pin, no matter how good is the SIM slot.

In the next days I'll short that resistor on the new mod too, and I'll post if my guess is correct.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] kabaldan:
Interesting, thanks. I'm looking forward what the outcome will be.

My status:

My 1st Photon Q modded by Cornholio a year ago worked without a single issue for several months while using T-Mobile SIM, until I changed my mobile operator and let my number to be transfered to Vodafone. Since I started to use Vodafone LTE SIM, the SIM started to fail, sometimes several times a day, sometimes once in several days.

At the time I made this SIM switch, I also ordered 2nd Photon Q (dedicated for CM development, so I could freely experiment while keeping one of the Qs always operational, as I'm using it as my daily driver).

Cornholio modded this 2nd Q for me using better card holder than in the first one and also offered to remake the 1st one as well. But I haven't found the time for the remake so far.

The Vodafone SIM in the Q with the 2nd revision of mod works more reliably than in the 1st one, but the card still occasionally fails.

As I've had also one older, mostly unused prepaid T-Mobile SIM, I've put it in the 1st Q. With this card, there are zero failures again.

So I'm pretty sure that the issue is electrical. Card holder can contribute to it, but the most important factor is the card type, its sensitivity / electrical characteristics.

The failures usually happen at places with poor signal coverage, where the phone often switches between several BTSs while all of them have poor signal. And it usually happens to me during a phone call made at such place. As soon as I go out from the basement to a place with better coverage, the SIM does not fail during calls. As long as I stay at that poor place, I can hardly finish any call, it's almost always sooner or later interrupted by SIM failure.

Hence I guess that the failure usually happens while the phone is switched to max TX power and is actively transmitting.

So my hypothesis is that it's the interference from antenna what's disturbing the communication line to SIM. (The main antenna is located at the bottom edge of phone, exactly where we put the SIM holder.)

The removal of that resistor could increase the signal to noise ratio on that line, so it indeed could be a viable solution.

I've also considered another way how the card could be brought to failure. The reset pin has to be held up. When the voltage on reset line goes below a threshold for about 100ms, SIM reset is triggered. Such reset would cause the card to send Answer_To_Reset to modem, which would be regarded as SIM failure by the modem if it wasn't the modem firmware who actively issued the reset to the SIM. If what happens on Reset line would be the cause of SIM failures, we could try to use lower resistance of the Reset pull-up resistor. But this is just pure speculation.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] MontyMontie:
I still have my photon q buts the screen is cracked...battery ribbon broke and sim solder was a failure..lolol... wouldn't mind bringing it back to life but the cost...
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] CornholioGSM:
...i must say that i use approx 7 months better thicker wires (0,3mm) and alps slots and all modded photons from this time works without problems.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] The Solutor:
Maybe is to soon to speak but I shorted the resistor and looks like the problem is gone.

[MENTION=243251]CornholioGSM[/MENTION]

I wrote you a PM about a different matter, did you read it ?
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] kabaldan:
As I've said, the 2nd Q modded by you at the beginning of September is much, much better than the 1st one in regard to SIM stability, yet I'm still getting occasional SIM failures when using the LTE uSIM by Vodafone CZ.

I suppose you've already used ALPS slot and thicker wires on it. Can the difference between wires be easily seen? I'll open it and check it.

Thanks!

Looking at the circuit again, the left 1712 resistor seems to be a pull up resistor for the I/O line.
[MENTION=1914190]ftaka[/MENTION] reported that the SIM worked for him even when this pull up remained unconnected.

Though [MENTION=463134]gehstock[/MENTION] reported that without it, his SD card had issues.

See here and the few following posts: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=35138573

Replacing the pull up resistor with near zero resistance short cut doesn't seem entirely right to me. The current will go high while the I/O line will be at level 'low'.

In the mean time I've tried to convince Vodafone CZ to provide me with their older non-LTE SIM card, which they offered before their switch to new uSIM cards during the last August. But so far it looks like they prefer to lose a customer than to issue the older card.

I'll definitely have to do something, so I guess I'll first try to reduce the pull up resistance.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] The Solutor:
I haven't had any time to check what the resistor actually does, the pull up function looks more than a reasonable guess to me.

BTW we are talking about a real world circuit rather than the perfect theoretical one, and as we know, often the real world is way different than the theory that describes it.

Likely my tin bridge is a way different than a perfect short circuit, the copper lane too, it has it's own resistance and so on, likely the behavior will change because the sim tolerances/different make/different generation.

So I'm still trying to understand what's going on, I believe the value of the resistor is an important variable, maybe an higher value is better for the SIM X, and a lower value is better for the SIM Y.

Too bad the resistor is so tiny and can't be replaced easily w/o risking to destroy something

I have the "BIS service", here in italy. They are two "twin" SIM with different ICCIDs but with the same phone number, one of the two can be used as master and the second one as slave, with further configurations possible.

Very handy to use the second sim on a different phone/on a gsm car stereo, on a tablet and so on, using the same traffic bundle.

That said while I have replaced the main sim (called SIM ONE) with an LTE + NFC model, the secondary one (called SIM BIS) is available only as good old 128K sim without any LTE support.

Both the sim are working fine on my photon Q, while the older one has the STK that doesn't work on the original Photon 4G.

It's the triumph of the imprecise science, the newest one works fine on an older phone, while the older type has some glitches.

So I perfectly understand your frustration.

For the record Vodafone Italy too doesn't allow the sim downgrade too, if you have a 4G sim you have to stick with it.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] Morecrabs:
Ive modded two of these myself only issue ive incountered on either Q is the handshaking issue IN cm10.2.1 between H+ and 3g (loosing data completely in 3g) otherwise they work perfectly and one of them suffered a fatal dropping accident and replacement digitizer and its still kicking, no sim card errors, perhaps its the wire used in the mod, i used rubber coated in each modd to prevent grounding found that the coated solid wire was too hard to tin and too difficult to prevent from grounding issues inside the phone
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] szegi2:
Hi,

I did the sim mod and its working well. But the white keyboard foil is damaged. All the keys are working, but the backlight is terrible. If someone has a broken mainboard I gladly buy the foil. I'm living in Hungary. szegi2 at yahoo dot com

Currently I'm working on the removable battery mod for photon q ;)

Droid bionic battery (HW4X/TW4X) works with photon q without any problem.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] koldor:
And finally, after trip to Prague, my mobile moded by corholio arrived.. perfect work and working ok... even after the mess i made to ttrying to do it myself... absolutely recomended no anyone...

One thing i'm experiencing, is that battery doesn't last as much as mi old xperia S... it hardly finish the day with very low use.. is it normal? maybe a time for replacing the batt with a new one?
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] divie:
I think you should replace it. My battery lasts about 1.5 day with moderate/heavy use (5-6 hour screen time)

Sent from my Photon Q with Tapatalk 4
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] arrrghhh:
Check your wakelocks before replacing the battery. Make sure there isn't something sucking the battery life.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] szegi2:
Wireless charging mod

Working wireless charging mod for Photon Q:

plus.google.com/photos/112436477546567025338/albums/5995901285467901953

A resistor is needed between rx and tx on the usb line, otherwise the phone will not sense charging. I used 68kohm, because this way usb data connection will work too.

Nfc still works. No wires between the mainboard and the housing, this way i can disassemble the phone without needing a soldering iron.

I bought this phone as not working. The battery cable was broken.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] CornholioGSM:
...good work :)

I have tested induction charging too...but induction woltage was not too strong for good charging - photon shows charging, but dont charge battery and when was battery discharged induction dont start charging.

i have tested it with palm treo induction charger.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] Loader009:
Just a thought (from an amateur).

Why don't use a capacitor with 5 volt?

That could stabilize the voltage and maybe it will charge...

Or maybe I just don't know enough to understand that kind of things >.>
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] szegi2:
I'm using a Qi compatible wireless charging pad and a galaxy s3 wireless receiver. Both came from china (ebay). I took apart and cutted the receiver pcb to make it smaller. The charging is working well, it took 2-3 hours to charge from 0% to 100%.

If anyone want to do the same, do not buy the cheapest charging pads with one led, they are crap. The good one has 2 leds, and Qi compatible writing on the top.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] nosajnosbig:
Hi Cornholio, i would like to try your MOD, i left you a PM
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] CornholioGSM:
have tested this charger

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2009/06/touchstone_rev.jpg

goood info...thx :)
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] niko99:
[MENTION=243251]CornholioGSM[/MENTION]

Hi, probably you miss my PM, can you check and advice, i will be grateful
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] kabaldan:
[MENTION=380055]The Solutor[/MENTION]:

I've managed to convince someone at Vodafone CZ to find and send me an older non-LTE SIM card in the end.

To my disappointment, it behaved much worse than the LTE card I had before - this newly received card usually failed in matter of minutes.

I've decided to take an easily reversible way to test the reduction of the pull-up resistor value.

I've used conductive paint on the resistor to short it.

To revert it, the paint can be removed by e.g. nail varnish remover.

Btw., in my case the measured resistance seems to be around 5.5k, not 1714 measured by [MENTION=243251]CornholioGSM[/MENTION] .

When the pull-up resistance has been reduced to around 1k (by graphite based paint), it seemed to help the SIM a bit, but it kept failing anyway, just not so easily - it certainly took longer time till the failure happened.

When reduced to single ohms or tens of ohms (by silver based paint), the SIM card was not detected at all.

(Not surprisingly - such low pull-up resistance probably caused the I/O line to be perceived as in logical 'high' all the time.)

So I wouldn't recommend the removal of that resistor and its replacement by short cut to other users.

Today I've visited Vodafone office and asked for SIM replacement again. I've got their LTE Dual SIM (two identical SIM cards with the same serial number) to increase my chances that at least one of the cards will work fine, besides the fact that having two cards is handy for me anyway.

When activating the SIM toolkit banking on those new cards at my bank, the girls there informed me that since January, Vodafone is using new revision of cards and they can have issues when activating them. Nevertheless, the SIM toolkit activation went well.

So far I've made several calls at the sub-terrain place where almost all calls have been interrupted by SIM failure for me in the past and... voila! no failure so far. So it looks good for me, finally, although it's indeed too soon to judge.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] kabaldan:
To sum up my experience with occasional SIM card errors:

The third SIM card I've got from Vodafone CZ is finally working absolutely flawless in my Q.

So if you're experiencing SIM card errors, keep asking your operator for replacement cards, until you get the one that will work fine.

A support person from Vodafone CZ told me that in the case of her colleague, they had to exchange the SIM card 8 times till she got a perfectly working one for her device. A case of a completely different phone, no SIM mod involved...
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] cembry:
I have to say THANKS to Cornholio! He did amazing job on my Photon Q. I thought I could do the mod by myself but I reconsider it right after I opened the phone ;)

The phone is modded very nicely, it seems the holder is in the phone by factory default...

Thanks a lot!
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] voldemortkein:
How did you Edit NV on XT897?

How did you Edit NV on this phone?.

I several questions to do:

1) Is it necessary to edit NV to make this MOD work?, I wanna use it with Mexican GSM Carriers.

2) I have the same phone: Motorola Photon Q XT897 Sprint, but I've read another theads on this forum that xplain how to get the MSL code but I havent success; So, Is it necessary to have this MSL/SPC Code to make it work?.

3) If I only unsolder the SIM IC and its resepective metal shield and then solder my SIM card, Will It work?

Thanks

Regards from México
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] zzangu83:
1. Not necessary for outside of U.S. NV edit is needed only in U.S

3. It will work if you solder properly.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] CornholioGSM:
...exactly
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] voldemortkein:
Thanks

Thanks, I will post it when I finish the MOD.

One more question: How did you get info about SIM Card on the phone?, I mean like the screenshots posted in this thread.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] arrrghhh:
They used an app, probably this one.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gsmdev.simcard
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] szegi2:
Hi

I had sim card errors too. It always happened to me during calls. On standby and using data connection it was ok.

I replaced all the wires and resoldered everything. I shielded the sim holder bottom, and the wires with copper foil. I soldered the foil to ground at the ends. I lost my original sim shield plate, so i used whatever i found. 1 week passed without errors. I hope this solved my problem.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] voldemortkein:
SIM Modded

I have modded my Motorola Photon Q XT897 Sprint

I removed carefuly the SIM Shield with a jewerly screwdriver like a soup can.

Then I scratched the SIM IC, inorder to remove it. Finaly appears 4 pins up, and 4 pins down , in the middle a copper square with another little square.

So, I turned on my Phone and its OK, It's said "There's no SIM Card", I opened the SIM Card APP downloaded from Play Store, An it shows me the following:

INFO:

Phone number:

SIM State: ABSENT

SIM Serial number:

SIM country ISO: us

SIM operator name: Sprint

SIM IMSI:

VoiceMail Text ID: VoiceMail

Voice mail Number:

Device IMEI: xxxxxxxxxx ------there goes my IMEI number

Phone Type: GSM

Network Country ISO:

Network Operator Code:

Network Operator name:

Network Type: UNNKNOWN

Voice Roaming: off

Data Roaming: off

So the question is this, Is it normal to say Sprint and US despite i removed the SIM IC?.

-----------------------------------------------------

The another question is, I soldered according the photos uploaded here to mi SIM CARD.

I applied much solder to the SIM and it twisted below, and the SIM get curved.

Can this damage the SIM Card? I think yes, and cuz of this phone not will detect it, Is that true.

Thanks

Regards from Mexico CIty
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] zzangu83:
As far as i know, Photon Q can be activated in CDMA network without SIM card. However, You can not activate U.S LTE network without SIM card. A SIM card is needed for GSM/UMTS/LTE networks.

You might be solder SIM card directly. I think distortion due to heat or iron does not make SIM card failure. If you attach too much iron to your SIM card, iron would over to next section.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] szegi2:
Two weeks without sim error.

My vibrate motor just died, had to replace it. It wasnt hard, but i had to use 400celsius hot air. If someone want to do the same use capton tape and cover everything with it. Remove the keyboard foil. Pictures are here: https://plus.google.com/photos/112436477546567025338/albums/5995901285467901953
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] boostedcx:
Hello Cornholio,

I have contacted you via PM about having a mod performed. Can you please check your PM? If you have not received my message, can you please let me know so I can re-send?

Thank you
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] rasmusstol:
Hello all photon "lovers" i ordered a photon some weeks ago, and it finally arived!

so im going to do this mod today, but im woundering is this the "steps"

1: rip the phone apart

2: take off the cover of "cdma sim"

3: take off the "cdma sim"

4: solder cables onto "motherboard"

5: solder cables onto sim

6: asemble the phone
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] CornholioGSM:
replied yesterday :)
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] CornholioGSM:
Changing vibration motor and solder new is very simle....it can be done within one minute.

I use motors from nokia phones - are little longer but this is not problem :)

For desolder / solder motor is better hot it from another side of mainboard or use IR station.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] ---UFO---:
From which Nokia models do you take vibration motors?

Could you please post dimensions of Photon Q motor?

Thanks.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] CornholioGSM:
vibration motor is under battery cover - open it and you can measure.

i use motors from nokia because have similar rotating weight...only is little longer - +approx 1,5 - 2mm but this is not problem because you can little cut placstics with scalpel.

from nokia's like 6300,6303,n80,n95,n73,e65, etc etc....95% of color display nokia phones have same motor :)
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] scheich:
Thank you for modding my phone! :)
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] whateversclaver:
photon mod

your PM box is full!

I need a to msg you for a mod.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] CornholioGSM:
...now is free :)
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] whateversclaver:
Cool, I sent you an pm now :)
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] HariSeldonss:
CornholioGSM Pm sent =)
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] Fever905:
Was going to send in my Photon Q...

Hey guys..

I was going to send in my photon Q... then I found this:

Can't post link but google: BoxWave Samsung Galaxy S3 Keyboard Buddy Case - Backlit Edition - Protective Shell Case with Integrated Slide-Out Wireless Bluetooth QWERTY Keyboard and Backlit Keys

Never even knew this existed before!! Why bother modding a Photon Q when you can get a brand new Galaxy and attach a keyboard to it.

Thoughts anyone? Is the Photon Q upgradable to a newer version of Android?
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] arrrghhh:
Latest official (stock ROM from Moto) is 4.1.2.

Latest unofficial, IE Cyanogen is 4.4.2, and will probably continue to be supported for some time - msm8960 is a fairly standard SoC.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] CornholioGSM:
...i am now outside prague util monday or tuesday
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] AndyYan:
Bluetooth. Power consumption. I don't see S3 having much advantages over Photon Q aside from a much bigger screen (of course, that could be just what you want :p).

And aren't you satisfied with the fact that we are in official CM11 nightlies?

Sent from Google Nexus 4 @ CM11
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] kabaldan:
Just read the reviews at http://www.amazon.com/BoxWave-Samsu...iewpoints=1&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending

It sounds like very poor experience.
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] niko99:
about s3 keyboard +very thin
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] monek:
Cornholio, sent a pm last weekend. Ehen you're back home plz give me an answer so i can send my photon to you...
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] HariSeldonss:
Nice, answer back when you arrive please =)
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] Maxpowersxp:
Any with mod try the update yet? If so does data work? Cause I'm still not having luck with mine
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] CornholioGSM:
...you say no data after upgrade ????
[Motorola Photon Q 4G LTE] Maxpowersxp:
Yes, I set up the apn and the 3g arrows never show up. Tried different sim card with a different provider different apn and still the same issue. I fatory reset and still no go. I did manage to get cdma 3g somehow without a valid sprint account, that was with no sim inserted so it was cdma for sure.