since i've been on a device teardown kick recently (iphone 5s, macbook pro), i decided to continue the streak and open up my oneplus one android phone so i could replace the battery. i bought the phone 3-1/2 years ago (the first smart phone i bought after returning from china in 2014 and living with a ZTE smart phone there, fully realizing the OPO would not work on my verizon network), and while the battery still holds a charge, i've noticed i usually need to recharge it again in the evening otherwise it'll run out of power.

after reviewing some teardowns and watching a few videos, i went ahead and opened up the OPO. it's a lot easier to get into compared to apple products, which use proprietary screws and aren't designed to be easily opened. the back of the phone opens up after running a fingernail across half of the edge. the guts of the phone sits behind a cover that's held in place with 9 screws (3 of which are hidden behind rubber plugs, 1 behind a tamperproof sticker). once the cover was removed, i easily released the battery cable and then started removing the old battery. here's where it got a little tricky: the battery is held in place with an adhesive tape on one side. the tape is not as strong as the one found on the iphone, but it still took some work to release the battery. i used the large spatula that came with the iphone battery replacement kit. like the iphone, the OPO battery was also soft (like hard yet pliable clay), but i tried not to bend it too much, in case the new battery didn't work and i needed to go back to the old battery.

as for the new battery, there was a date on it that i assumed was the manufactured date. it said march 2015 even though i purchased it back in 2016 (the date on the old battery was november 2014, which meant it was manufactured shortly after i bought the phone in december 2014). regardless, this "new" battery had been sitting uncharged for several years, so i couldn't even be sure if it'd still work. i put it in the phone and put everything back together. when i started the phone, it gave me a low power warning in both chinese and english. afraid maybe the battery was dead, i went online looking for answers, but minutes later, the warning disappeared and the phone began showing number the charge status, starting at 0%.

i waited 2 hours before the phone finally finished charging, which is a good sign, means it's a robust battery (i would've been worried if it fully charged up in 30 minutes). i unplugged the phone to see how long it could hold a charge, and was mildly disappointed that the battery began to drain just as fast as before. but only time will tell if this new battery is okay.

my father showed up unannounced in the late morning with a bunch of radio equipment. he was swapping out the QYT radio with the higher power TYT TH-9800 radio with the 30A MFJ power supply. he also bought a bunch of antenna equipment, including a long bamboo pole and a dual band MFJ-1402B antenna. my mother called me, asking to speak with my father, who has a bad habit of leaving the ringer on his phone off so nobody can get ahold of him. she reminded him to get some supplies at market basket.

after he returned to the cafe, we tested the two radios. i was using the indoor DBJ-2 antenna. on 2m simplex i can receive him at 100% clarity since he has a better and higher antenna. however, when i transmit, he can only hear me at 40-50% clarity, regardless of power (so it seems fine to operate on low power). the SWR surprisingly was actually pretty terrible, averaging 3.5. on 70cm, i could still receive him but the clarity drops down to 40%; transmission-wise, he couldn't receive me at all regardless of power. even more of a surprise, the SWR on 70cm was actually better, averaging 1.5. switching to the MFJ antenna, at 2m i could receive 100% clarity, but my father only received my transmissions at 30% (with a likewise high SWR of around 3.0). 70cm, the SWR was 1.4, but we couldn't hear each other. afterwards i rearranged the feed cable and got the 2m SWR down to 1.12, on high power 43W he could receive me at 40-50%.

for lunch i reheated the last of my blue cheese burger patty from our 4th of july cookout nearly 2 weeks ago. it didn't smell bad, and i didn't have any negative reactions afterwards.

i checked the status of my UPS package, it arrived at the repair shop today at 2pm. all i can do now is wait. as much as i want them to repair the motherboard, i'd also like them to reattach the right speaker socket. i will be so happy if they can successfully do both. using my old 2006 core 2 duo macbook pro is okay, but the screen is dimmer, the machine is much slower, and the battery doesn't charge anymore, so if i bump into the charge port it will suddenly lose power. did i mention it also gets really hot? 140°F on the bottom. a new battery (these are externally attached, so easy to install) would just cost $20, but i'm worried about the heating issue. maybe i'll take it apart tomorrow and clean the fans.

in the afternoon it began to rain. it was a dramatic rain, where the sky darkened considerably as a warning as to what's to come. my iphone actually picked up a few emergency weather alerts, the possibility of flash floods and tornadoes elsewhere. i don't mind the rain so much but the rain drops beating on the metal shell of the window air conditioner was deafening.

in the early evening my father called me to test the radio again, this time from belmont. he was just using his baofeng but with the chimney antenna while i used the TYT and switched between the DBJ-2 and the MFJ antennas. it didn't matter, because we still couldn't hear each other. it may be weather-related as there were still storm clouds and thundering, we'll try again tomorow. he also wants me to mount a few antennas outside to test.

i did a load of laundry, washing the guest bedroom bedsheets in anticipation of my roommate's return on sunday. he said he might return earlier if there wasn't anything important left to do at amherst.

in the evening i had to plug in my OPO phone, so much for the new battery. but in it's defense, i was using the phone quite heavily, including watching a 40 minute long discussion of the merits of john carpenter's 1982 "the thing". i think if i were to use the phone as normal, it would last the whole day without needing to recharge.

for dinner i finished the leftover spaghetti from last week, cooking some new pasta noodles and tossing in ample amounts of parmesan cheese and arugula.

amazon prime day ends tonight. late last night i bought an asus RT-ACRH13 router. it typically sells for $70 but the prime day sale dropped it down to just $45. it can't use 3rd party firmware (like asuswrt-merlin) but it has tons of features, including VPN support and USB 3.0 server. i also got a tube of thermal paste (arctic MX-4 carbon paste $6.84), for when the logic board comes back (hopefully fixed) and i need to reattach the heatsink. tonight i ordered a few things unrelated to amazon prime: aqua seal washer ($10 for 10) and a 3-pak of compressed air ($7.62).