My husband bricked his 10.2" tablet while flashing it for a zillionth time. Last time, the boot chip was damaged and he had to replace it. The tablet didn't even turn on.
We live in Argentina, so finding a specialized technician is difficult. In fact, he is a specialized technician, so he decided to get the part, unweld and replace the boot chip which went out of service and, of course, as it was impossible to find the chip here. We made research and found there are lots of places in Hong Kong which not only have all sorts of boot chips, displays and parts for tablets, but also will sell by the unit and dispatch by mail shipping to all the world.
In his case, he needed the boot chip, so he found out the part code (which he did at XDA forum) and then searched for sellers. Ten places answered his mails and quoted for the part. Each chip costs 0.50 USD... so he decided to buy four, because he plans to brick the tablet as many times as it takes...
(or repair another local nerd's tablet, who knows).
So the whole thing cost him 22 dollars (shipping included). The chip is preburned with the necessary ROM boot processes, and he is eagerly waiting for it to arrive, so he can unweld and replace the part.
His reasoning was: "If this doesn't work, I will buy another tablet as soon as I can and then I will use this to experiment, disassembling, and learning". The funny thing is he was even happier with this perspective than with the prospect of reparing it.
I thought this could offer a partial solution for Edge users around the world who don't want to send their devices to Phillipines for reparing.
Perhaps a useful thing to do could be to prepare a spreadsheet with the knocked-down list of parts in the Edge, with their corresponding codes, and find sellers in Hong Kong who will provide these parts.
If you have the parts, then it is easier to find a local technician (or yourself, if you are knowledgeable enough) who can replace them.
Some of the parts will be standard, common to all tablets, and some have to be Edge specific, but I am sure there is some parts provider out there who could ship parts on demand. We initially had thought nobody would sell just one chip, but it was not the case, fortunately.
This is just an idea, on seeing how my husband decided to solve his problem (or at least try to do it).
Those who opened up their Edges, has anyone of you tried to make a part list?
(By the way, we got the chip tech spec sheet, and we found out that it was designed to support
100.000 instances of flashing and reflashing. Husband said jokingly "Ah, okay, now I know why it broke!". Gosh, who will honestly flash a device 100.000 times? It would take the concerted effort of your children and grandchildren with the lifelong mission of flashing a tablet! This reminded me of an antinuclear exhibition I visited. The information provided by a nuclear country (I don't name it) was that their "nuclear assets and stock were enough to destroy the whole population of the Earth ten times". I though, "Who can logically destroy life ten times? Isn't one time final?". Then I realized the whole thing never meant to be logical.)
Have a good week-end all!