[Off-topic] atmu5fear:
Hey all! So as a bit of a computer/tablet/phone geek and and a bit of an RC Hobbyist, Ive decided to take on a little personal project to combine the two. At least a little bit to start. In the world of RC quadcopters (aka drones) the big thing that everyone is into is buying these expensive 1080P/4k go pros and other gimbal devices to record video. But not only do we want to record, we want to be able to view a live stream of what the drone sees. You can buy these FPV Cameras on the higher end for $500+.

When I bought ny first drone a fair sized flyer at nearly 2ft diameter, my first flight I decided to strap my old Galaxy S3 to the bottom and catch some cool video. Everything went well, and the video was high def and crystal clear. While there are FPV apps such as AirBoss available, unfortunately its a bit glitchy and crashes often so i didnt bother with FPV, just hit record and flew. After this I decided to start looking into purchasing a gimbal and maybe a gopro hero 3. Seems a bit silly buying a $400 camera to carry on a $100 drone, but I considered it and started browsing.

Before buying anything, I had a buddy want to see the drone fly, so on a semi full charge, I took it up, no phone attached, and after about a minute of flight, the battery went low, lost contact with the controller and helplessly watched it drift into the woods, still haven't found it.

So now instead of looking for an expensive camera, im looking to strip down my old s3 and use it as a camera, but also as a GPS locator, which will have data/gsm/gprs connections. The idea being, that not only a does screen less, make shift house, remotely controlled android device act as a camera, but it can be called from another phone (making it easy to track via sound) or worst case scenario be pin pointed on Google maps, in the event of another downed drone.

I have all the apps installed to make this work exactly how I need it to and want it to. In fact I already have the motherboard stripped out of the housing, and am able to do exactly what I want, except one thing.

The only way the phone will turn on, is with the main components from the screen housing plugged in. Its one ribbon, but its the ribbon the feeds the Screen, the digitizer the home, back and menu buttons and the micro phone and the vibrator pod. All of the components on the back side of the board, the front and rear facing cameras, the sim/tf card readers, the loud speaker, led, volume rocker etc can be disconected, as long as the main ribbon for the screen is attached, the motherboard will boot. After booting I can unplug the ribbon, and the phone will remain on, with everything working that I need to work, including remote access.

I guess the main question here is, how can I trick the phone into thinking the main ribbon is attached? Once I can get it to boot up without it being attached to that ribbon I can begin building a lightweight housing for the board and camer and a smaller battery. I thought about cutting the ribbon and just leaving it attached to the board, my only problem with that is IF it wont boot after doing that, I cant just repair the ribbon and I dont have a spare s3 for parts, which would pretty much leave me with nothing but a dead s3 in pieces lol.

I know most of what xda deals with is software development, but im hoping someone has tinkered with hard ware before. Sorry for the novel, just wanted to cover the details and eliminate getting asked why I want to do this. And for the record I want the s3 screen and housing gone for the simple fact that I can cut the weight from abouy 150 grams to less than 30 grams, which is a huge factor when flying quad copters