Chosen Solution
Was thrilled to get a brand new Flip 3 for Christmas, but as of yesterday it stopped charging. Took the charging cable out, and out fell a bent micro-USB pin – seems like the cable itself somehow jammed it backwards and broke it off, meaning the speaker works fine, but won’t charge at all. Any idea of how to feasibly get inside the speaker to be able to remove and replace the micro-USB?
I have the same problem too. The way to open it is to take off the face mesh by using a flat tool to slowly pop off the edges. Inside this mesh there is some double sided type strip running the length of the mesh, Possible to keep it sealed, other than that there are no wires or anything attached to the face mesh. Once you get the mesh off it actually really simple. There are a multitude of screws but that shouldn’t be to hard to keep in order once taken off. A “#1” sized precision screwdriver worked really well with my disassembly, and I believe all the screws that need to be taken off are compatible with that size as well. You’ll notice that once you proceed to remove the first set of 10 screws (6 in the middle and 2 on the ends near the speakers) it removes the exterior shell of the speaker. After that you’ll realize that a set of 6 screws (paired up right next to the 6 out of 10 screws you took off the middle to remove the shell) holds the cover to the component we wish to fix. You can remove that, but be careful there is a ribbon cable attached. From here its pretty straight forward, once removing those plates you disassemble the subwoofer on the side of the charging circuit. This exposes the internal circuitry of the speaker. You will notice a lot of that black rubber near the wires you need to disconnect. Keep in mind the circuit we want to remove for repairs is NOT held down by screws or clips, just that black rubber caulking. So, start by clearing out a lot of that rubber, very carefully because the wires can be damaged if not careful. Once you remove the rubber to where you can move the wired around, disconnect the two wires from the internal board, gently pull the charge/aux circuit board away from the rubber caulk its attached with and pull the now disconnected and mostly rubber-free cables through and out. From here, feel free to put everything back together so you simply won’t lose any screws, or forget their locations. This is the process I used to separate the damaged circuit board to repair the micro usb port. Im still trying to find a good replacement for the microusb port, if you guys have any solutions to that specific problem haha please let me know. If you have any questions on anything I wrote here feel free to ask! I am in no way a licensed professional, so I will not be responsible for any damages you may cause to your device. This worked for me, I cannot guarantee the same for you. Best Wishes, Urban_Panda
I ordered the part that Joshrawks21 put a link to. It worked; it was not a perfect fit but I got it to work. For the record I’m an electronics tech with lots of soldering experience. I made the repairs without removing the small PC board on which the USB port is mounted. First I used a heat gun (adjutable heat) to remove the old USB port. The new port would not sit flush with the board. I had to remove two plastic nubs on the bottom to allow the port and pins to mate flush with the board. I also used a tiny amount of “chip quick” liquid solder on the pins. When they mated to the solder pads on the PC board I simply used my heat gun to melt and make the solder connection. There was no way I could have gotten the soldering iron in there unless I removed the small PC board. I was only able to do this because Ihave a heat gun. Also, once the USB port was in place, I had to cut/scrape the plastic enclosure to allow the USB port to stick out through the hole; it was now sucked down closer to the board because I had to remove those plastic nubs to have the pins make contact with the board. Update (11/23/2016) Here’s a picture of the USB ports old and new.
you have to pop the mesh cover off from the sides with a few flat head screwdrivers and it has clips around the edges.. careful of the area near the buttons.
I rigged mine with a charger just splice the wires
I saw all the advice online about DIY replacement of the USB port on my Flip 3. But first I contacted JBL and they were great. They emailed me a pre-paid return shipping label to return the defective speaker. Then they sent me a replacement speaker without waiting for the return item. The replacement speaker works great.
I called the 800 number give above and they were very helpful. They did ask a few questions as it depends what the damage is if they are able to replace your item or not.
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