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The earpiece of the V551 is reportedly flakey and tends to loose volume over time. Here is a cheap way to fix this issue if you are comfortable taking apart your phone.
**Please do _NOT_ do this Instructable if you are uncomfortable with small pieces, taking apart your expensive toys, or willfully voiding any warranty you might have still had. Make sure to fully read through the instructions first so you know what you're getting yourself into. I can, in no way, be held responsible for any loss or damages incurred by anyone attempting to follow these instructions.**
**Please do _NOT_ do this Instructable if you are uncomfortable with small pieces, taking apart your expensive toys, or willfully voiding any warranty you might have still had. Make sure to fully read through the instructions first so you know what you're getting yourself into. I can, in no way, be held responsible for any loss or damages incurred by anyone attempting to follow these instructions.**
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My V551 was loosing volume, but it did so very slowly. In fact, I only figured out something was going wrong when I realized I was holding the phone to my ear very tightly to hear anything. If you have trouble hearing conversations or end up with sore forearms from trying jamming the phone into your head so you can hear, this may be the fix you need.
Tools needed:
Assortment of jeweler's screwdrivers (Flat blade and maybe some very small torx)
Electrical tape
Rubbing alcohol (optional)
Q-Tip (optional)
Once again, just so we're clear:
**Please do _NOT_ do this Instructable if you are uncomfortable with small pieces, taking apart your expensive toys, or willfully voiding any warranty you might have still had. Make sure to fully read through the instructions first so you know what you're getting yourself into. I can, in no way, be held responsible for any loss or damages incurred by anyone attempting to follow these instructions.**
Tools needed:
Assortment of jeweler's screwdrivers (Flat blade and maybe some very small torx)
Electrical tape
Rubbing alcohol (optional)
Q-Tip (optional)
Once again, just so we're clear:
**Please do _NOT_ do this Instructable if you are uncomfortable with small pieces, taking apart your expensive toys, or willfully voiding any warranty you might have still had. Make sure to fully read through the instructions first so you know what you're getting yourself into. I can, in no way, be held responsible for any loss or damages incurred by anyone attempting to follow these instructions.**
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I used a wooden pointy toothpick to pop the rubbery plugs.
This way the plugs were not damaged.
Then I stuck the plugs onto a piece of tape to keep them from rolling away.
.
I used a T-6 torx bit. But I also found that a 1/16 inch wide flat blade screwdriver works fine.
I used a 1/8 wide flat blade screw driver to press in on the four plastic side clips and then pried gently.
For me, the metal backing popped right off on the two phones I fixed.
It also snapped back on with very little pressure.
The two gold pads lie on top of the rubbery gray and black zebra connector on the earpiece.
The one thing that makes sense is that I would have to squeeze the front and back of my phone's earpiece with my forefinger and thumb before each call so that I could hear *at all.* Now, I don't have to do anything and it works perfectly.
I had a set of small screwdrivers (flathead) that worked for this project, but *barely.* Fortunately, I didn't strip the torx screws (the top screws are smaller but have larger holes than the bottom ones), but my tiny flatheads got the job done. :)