Gadgets and You: 1.1.2 OOTB Hardware Unlocking: Scratch A17 line

As I said in my earlier post, you will be surprised to know the place where you need to scratch. Atleast, I was surprized even after reading about it on the web. It is very tiny. Initially, I was a bit nervous to do it, but finally did it. See the pictures below to understand how small the area is. The first picture is zoomed around 10 times to show the testpoint area in the second picture. The area which is zoomed out is also marked in the first picture. The second picture shows the two points which should be connected using a conducting wire. The two points are called testpoints.

The first thing I did after seeing the testpoint area is to go and buy a magnifying glass. Luckily I found a magnifying glass which has a big 5x glass and a small 10x glass. 10x glass is really useful. You can clearly see what you are doing. You should make sure that you are not scratching the adjacent lines by mistake. Also with 10x glass you will know how much of the insulation is scratched.

For scratching, you need a pointed device with a sharp tip so that you have full control of where you are scratching. I looked around for a small blade, but later got the idea of a surgical needle which is used for injections. It was very helpful for me. The picture below shows the line that you have to scratch. This line is called A17 line. Take extreme care that you do not scratch it too much. You just need to expose the gold material beneath. The gold line is soft. If you scracth it hard you might break it. Its better to be conservative while scratching. The picture below shows me scratching the A17 line with the surgical needle.

Some other people followed techniques where they did not scratch the A17 line. Instead they used a pointed pin and sticked directly into the line. I never tried that and dont know the details of it. So lets settle for this scratching business. Once you do enough scratching, prepare a conducting wire to connect the two testpoints. Make sure that you have proper insulation over the wire, especially over the place where you are going to catch it. This is to ensure that the 1.8V power coming from the capacitor is not grounded through your body. Some people complained on the forums that the testpoint is not working, but were later able to do after changing their connecting wire. Below is my connecting wire with proper insulation. I did that by connecting two headpins with a normal conducing wire, and then insulating it properly with a tape.

The following are my tools to open the iphone body and to scratch the A17 line. Screw set, magnifying glass, surgical needle, and kitchen knife.