I will be receiving a Google Nexus 5 with a faulty power button, and intend to replace it. Does anyone else have experience with it and know where to most conveniently get a replacement button? This blog states that the button is a Citizen Electronics LS12 Series, a small SMD horizontal tact switch.
Looks like it’s this button on the left in the photo:
Judging by this teardown tutorial, it doesn’t look too hard to take apart.
Here is a bunch of places with the part it seems: LS12 - Google Search
I’ve never soldered anything onto a phone motherboard but I have taken apart an iPhone and a Samsung. It’s pretty easy. You just need to make sure you have the tools.
I’ve repaired a few Nexus phones. Not a 5 though. Overall I’ve found them easy to disassemble and pretty well built. The Nexus 5 back is a bit tricky to get off…which you probably already know.
Good luck with the fix. I’m sure it’ll go well.
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Let me know if you need help replacing the button. We can practice with a scrap phone I have.
Thanks everyone. 
Yes, @DeNomad, that’s the button. I’ll contact a few cell phone repair places around Vancouver and see if I can buy a button off of them.
@Janet, haha yes, my greatest fear is the spudging job on that back panel. I’ve disassembled a Samsung Omnia 7 and a Nokia Lumia 800, and they were both a treat, as there were hardly any plastic clips to deal with.
@hectorh, thanks, I might take you up on that! I might also just grab a random PCB from the 3-week bin and practice desoldering with the heat gun.
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I got two buttons from BeyondScreen on Broadway. @hectorh, I’ll bring the phone and buttons along with me and we can work on it if you’d like.
The spudging wasn’t a nightmare! There was one clip in the upper middle of the back plate that the disassembly video didn’t acknowledge, so I tried heating it (thinking it might be glue) and fidgeting with it for 20 mins before getting the clip to release. Other than that, it was mostly fine. 
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What day are you going to be at vhs?
I can be there any day that it’s open. Tuesday for sure, and I suppose it’ll be open Saturday morning, right? Perhaps every day!
VHS is open right now, so if they’re still open at 5 or 6pm, I’ll be heading down.
That’s great you got the back off and got the glue to release. The 5 seems way more annoying to get the back off.
It works!! After numerous attempts at removing the power button, cleaning the solder off the tiny pads, watching @hectorh excavate solder from tiny 0.6mm holes with a sewing pin, and attempting to reflow the button with the hot air gun, it’s back and assembled and working great! I didn’t take many photos, but here’s one of my first attempts at removing the solder from the pads and the tiny holes (you can see that I did a pretty poor job). For reference, the holes (the bottom pads) are centered 4mm apart, and do not go all the way through the board. Also, those tiny via holes can easily fit a dozen solder paste balls!
Things I learned:
- Electronics repair shops are a good source for small and uncommon phone components.
- Solder is really soft. You can just scrape and dig it away in a pinch!
- You can do incredibly detailed work by hand under the microscope, as long as your tools are sharp enough.
- PCBs are quite resilient.
- Solder paste is made of tiny solder balls. They look like little insect eggs under the microscope if you fail to reflow them.
- Reflowing with a hot air gun is still hard.
- Leave yourself an hour or two to look at invisible details of things under the micrscope. This stuff is so small!
- The button’s external housing is shorted to one of the terminals intentionally through the PCB. I spent 30 mins trying to figure out where I created a short, before testing the volume buttons and seeing that they’re the same.
Thanks to @hectorh for all the advice and help removing the dead button and prepping the board for the second one, to @packetbob for lending ~1ml of solder paste, to @Janet for the spudging encouragement, and to whoever is responsible for the digital microscope at VHS; it is invaluable!
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Awesomeness! Much more annoying to fix than older models so its great you fixed it and kept it running rather than in the bin!
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That digital scope is the best. I think @TomKeddie and @rsim brought it back from China
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Yes we brought it back, but the real thanks goes to those who put money into the pot to buy it.
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