So my new I-9 CECT phone sucks. I have battery and charger issues, the screen has died twice and I’ve had to fix it. Be assured I voided the warranty for the good of the cause. Once it was working again it cooked a battery, then due to no fault of the new battery, but fault of the phone, the charger works poor, and the battery discharges fast. I only have charge for about 6 hours and if you let the phone die, it takes two days on the charger before it will even turn back on. Junk. Our cell phone plan renews in about two months and we get free phones then, so I need a back up phone. Rather than keeping a normal phone I decided to rig my own together. It was at this point at a flea market I found a nes controller. Boom nes controller = phone. I’ve seen images of one online, and didn’t figure it could be that hard. I had to find a donor phone. We had an old China Junk Fashion phone, just about the right size to use. The phone had a weak battery, horrible signal, and no one liked it. The tf slot was broke as well. So I took the controller apart, and the phone. I gutted the controller with a dremel tool. Next I had to tear apart the phone. I cut the phone up and trimmed the circuit board and moved some components around. The vibe module didn’t survive. I removed the camera to make the phone fit the case. I had to fine tune trimming out the controller, and it was hit and miss fitting the phone. I removed the screen from the phone and moved it up a bit. I marked out the screen, and marked out the keypad. I cut the phone to fit the keys and screen. I also cut a USB spot in the bottom so the phone can be charged by usb cord or power cord. Once everything fit together and I made a battery holder for the phone I tested it. No signal . . . I forgot the antenna was crap. I used the Tesla coil theory in a sense to boost the antenna, by making a copper coil and attaching to both antenna leads. After that the touch screen failed to work, so I had to micro solider two leads back together. I then pieced the whole together, and it works, not the best reception, but the phone works, charges, and is pretty neat. The TF slot still doesn’t work, but after I made a new mount the battery is working wonderfully. But here is my new back up phone.


And on youtube: