I picked up my phone to make a call and saw this:

Good morning again,

It’s happened to me again, after a long hot “sit” in my truck, I picked up my phone to make a call and saw this:

My phone wouldn’t do anything other than let me take this screenshot. So I turned my car on, got the A/C rocking and held it up to the vent. It took about 5 minutes until it went back to normal. We have heard about this a lot at Mission Repair and customers have even claimed that their phones cracked due to extreme heat.

Virtually all manufacturers data sheets will list both the minimum and maximum storage and operating temperatures for their internal parts. In fact, many parts will be available in multiple versions designed to operate in more strenuous environments.

So for example an integrated circuit (IC) may be available in the following versions:

Commercial 0 to 70°C.
Industrial -40 to +85°C.
Military -55 to +125°C.

Needless to say, the cost goes up with increased performance. There are even chips specified for use in outer space. So for example a chip which costs $2 in the “Commercial” grade might cost $2,000 for the version rated for outer space! (As you can guess, your Samsung Galaxy S5 isn’t rated for a moon walk, but that’s probably ok.)

Let’s talk about the iPhone for a minute. According to Apple:

Use iOS devices where the ambient temperature is between 0º and 35º C (32º to 95º F). Low- or high-temperature conditions might cause the device to change its behavior to regulate its temperature. Using an iOS device in very cold conditions outside of its operating range may temporarily shorten battery life and could cause the device to turn off. Battery life will return to normal when the device is brought back to higher ambient temperatures.

Store the device where the temperature is between -20º and 45º C (-4º to 113º F). Don’t leave the device in your car, because temperatures in parked cars can exceed this range.

Remember that if it’s 87 degrees outside, it’s 132 degrees inside of your car on a hot clear day.

One needs to keep in mind that the temperature of the components is affected by two sources:

1) The temperature of the environment.
2) Self heating – some components generate a large amount of heat in operation, logic boards in phones are one example.

Please don’t leave your expensive electronics in your hot car like I did – especially when they are turned on – to avoid possible long-term damage and an extra trip into Mission Repair for a logic board repair.

Any questions? Give us a call 866-638-8402.

Take care, Ryan

A little sightseeing doesn’t hurt.

Hello there friends,

I’m out here in Colorado this week working with my crew and making a changes and working with Chris our store manager. After my trip to the Otterbox headquarters last night, I decided to jump on my motorcycle – I brought it with me, I knew this might happen;-) I headed up into the mountains while there was still some daylight left.

I made it to Central City, and it was on May 6, 1859, John H. Gregory located, staked, and preempted the first mining claims in what was to become known as the “Richest Square Mile on Earth.”

This spot, marked by the Gregory Monument, is near the city limits of Central City and Black Hawk. The area was originally called Gregory’s Diggings, but very soon became known as Mountain City. Did you know Central City nearly became the Colorado state capital? It is also home to the Gilpin County Museum, Teller House and the world famous Central City Opera.

It’s also known for it’s “left-over” ruins from times past; I rode up onto some dirt roads and stopped to take a lot of pictures. I thought this one was particularly cool:

It’s an old mine ore car that’s been sitting for a hundred years or more. I don’t know why, but these types of things really appeal to me. It was so quiet it was kind of creepy…and I kept looking over my shoulder!

Once I got back to lay down for the night, I got 10 hours of solid sleep and feel like a million bucks this morning. Must be that mountain air, right?

Well, I’m back in the office here in Lakewood this morning, so if you stop by I’ll be sure to say hello. Thanks for reading!

Take care, Ryan

EMERGENCY at the Arter house. Well, kind of.

So Dandra called me to say that the contractors were working on our side yard:

But then she got a knock on the door – by a fireman – who said that they were closing the street and to stay indoors because these guys cracked the gas main that was underground. Yikes, aren’t there precautions that can be taken? Like “Calling before you dig?”.

They got the situation under control, fixed the gas line, and corrected their mistake. However at the same time, they CUT MY INTERNET LINE!

This is the real emergency. Gas line, smass line. Cut the fiber cable? Holy bananas!!

It appears that we’re going to be down for a few days, but it wouldn’t be so bad however it just happened a few weeks ago and was just fixed. That’s what I get for living in a construction zone I guess. I’m just not sure how to avoid this. I suppose Casey won’t be able to get on XBOX live for a while, and I’ll have to take him down to the basement and spank him on the arcade machine for a few days 😉

Have a good day, Ryan

How times have changed. Who else misses this?

Hi there friends, I spend most of my time here talking about Mission Repair and the services that we offer – which is all about electronics.

Well, of course I’ve grown up around electronics and I was one of those kids that hung around video arcades during my teenage years. I can remember getting a dollar for every “A” that I got on my report card, so right around the end of the semester I’d be permanently at Golf Land in Milpitas, California with Marc, David, Nolan and the guys. Hey fellas, long time no talk.

There’s no question my son will destroy me at Call of Duty on the XBOX. I’m good; but he’s great. So last night I needed to level the playing field and take him down to the basement for a few games of CENTIPEDE. Yeah, you remember that one!

We have this strange “antique” box that’s in our living room that sits for long periods of time and only gets turned on when my adult buddies come over. It’s called an ARCADE MACHINE. Centipede is on there.

Casey started by grabbing the joystick to go first. The joystick? Amateur. You need to use the trackball, come on dude. When he moved up to the trackball he said “oh you can move all over the place with this.” Hahaha, come on kid.

We played a few games and he wasn’t impressed when I annihilated him. That’ll show him 😉

He was able to pull a respectable 6532 points on his best game…here’s a screenshot of my list of high scores:

Poor guy, I set him up and he never had a chance! He had no idea that the spiders were so aggressive after level 2. It comes with time buddy, and believe me I’ve sacrificed “many a quarter” in my day 😉 I do miss Atari!

I love Casey, I’d never do anything to hurt him, but I’ll gladly give him a whooping on the arcade machine.

Have a good weekend, Ryan

Do You know how I know school is about to start up?

Hello friends,

It’s that time of year again, and at Mission Repair we’re getting the sense that school is starting up again. It’s not because my wife is a teacher 😉 it’s because we are getting calls from IT departments all over the country ready to spin up their repair programs.

Since a lot of schools are now Apple 1 to 1 (meaning that every student is “issued” an Apple device like an iPad or MacBook Air) it’s becoming more common for schools to send their devices into Mission Repair for service than using AppleCare. In fact, we’ve successfully saved schools hundreds of thousands of dollars by helping them understand that purchasing AppleCare on on those devices just doesn’t add up. While most districts do buy the extended warranties, at the end of the day it’s not “natural failures” (that AppleCare covers) that are the issue. It’s kids dropping the devices and cracking them.

Yes, a lot of our business comes from schools around the nation. Today, we signed up a new school from the State of Washington that has mountains of iPads that they want to begin repairing the first week of school next month. If you’re a school IT director, are looking for the best repair center in the country (in my opinion!) and need to use Net 30 Purchase orders for your repair program…click here for more information. We’ll be glad to help you out.

Thanks, have a good afternoon and don’t forget to get those school supplies purchased soon!

Take care, Ryan