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Trying to find the *correct* way to repair Super AMOLED or other fully bonded display

First some background: Current replacement guides for displays used on such devices as the GS3, HOX, HOS specify replacing the full-screen bonding agent with an edge-taped solution. This results in much lower contrast ratio due to a non-spec air gap and if done improperly, dust in the air pocket over time.
The *proper* solution would be a liquid adhesive lamination (LAL) or liquid optically clear adhesive (LOCA).
The requirements of these adhesives for this application are the following:
Code:
- OEM contrast ratio
- Dust abatement
- No bubbles in final product
- Rebondability
I believe the process for using these adhesives would be the following:
Code:
- Removal of all existing adhesive from substrate
- Application of *appropriate amount (TBD)* of adhesive in center of substrate
- Application of new glass lens with even pressure to spread adhesive outward, avoiding air bubbles
- Curing of adhesive if necessary
In fact, this seems more straightforward and less error prone than applying adhesive tape around the lens perimeter.
I am willing to try this on my screen, but...
What I need
I cannot determine which adhesive will work, or even work best. I'm hoping that someone has a lead on a proper adhesive through experience. Obviously a DIY fix would need only a small amount, so a gallon jug wouldn't be a good option (unless for a group buy or something).
I'll post links to the resources I have found already when I reach 10 posts

Found a reasonable amount of LOCA
I found some LOCA for $30 shipped, not sure of the quantity or how many applications it will provide. I think it will take some experimentation to find the correct amount to entirely fill the void without airspace and without squeezing out the sides. Might have to apply it with the screen out of the phone frame. Also, I do have a UV flashlight but I don't know if that is sufficient to cure this stuff. I'll test it out on some microscope slides. I'll also test whether it can be taken back apart via heat after bonding.

This topic is really interesting, since I broke my GS3 gorilla glass and would like to change it by myself. A good DIY would be appreciated

mkendra said:
This topic is really interesting, since I broke my GS3 gorilla glass and would like to change it by myself. A good DIY would be appreciated
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I ordered some LOCA so we will see how it goes I guess. I'll try to take pics/video when I can.

crakarjax said:
I ordered some LOCA so we will see how it goes I guess. I'll try to take pics/video when I can.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
can you share link of supplier ? thanx

i would add few more steps to process for using these adhesives
- if OCA used, according to post from phonefreaks h t t p ://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=31321004&postcount=13 alcohol spry on glass or screen before application OCA, then alignment, then again alcohol spry on glass or screen
- vacuum application to remove air bubbles
and i would search for LOCA which cures in "shadow" area

Kancler said:
i would add few more steps to process for using these adhesives
- if OCA used, according to post from phonefreaks h t t p ://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=31321004&postcount=13 alcohol spry on glass or screen before application OCA, then alignment, then again alcohol spry on glass or screen
- vacuum application to remove air bubbles
and i would search for LOCA which cures in "shadow" area
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The link you posted is regarding a different adhesive, that is in sticker form. The adhesive I am trying out is liquid and hardens with UV light. I found some on ebay.
I bonded two microscope slides together as a test and it worked well, no bubbles. The only problem I had is that lots of adhesive leaked out the perimeter of the slides... it is going to be hard to determine the proper amount for my screen. I also need to take into account the perimeter tape adhesive if I use it but I might not even bother since the LOCA bonds pretty tight. Another setback is that the slides are really stuck! I haven't tried applying heat to break the bond yet but I have been unable to separate the slides.
On the brighter side, LOCA is nice to work with because it will not set until you want it to; if you mess up you can just try again as long as you have some adhesive.

crakarjax said:
The link you posted is regarding a different adhesive, that is in sticker form. The adhesive I am trying out is liquid and hardens with UV light. I found some on ebay.
I bonded two microscope slides together as a test and it worked well, no bubbles. The only problem I had is that lots of adhesive leaked out the perimeter of the slides... it is going to be hard to determine the proper amount for my screen. I also need to take into account the perimeter tape adhesive if I use it but I might not even bother since the LOCA bonds pretty tight. Another setback is that the slides are really stuck! I haven't tried applying heat to break the bond yet but I have been unable to separate the slides.
On the brighter side, LOCA is nice to work with because it will not set until you want it to; if you mess up you can just try again as long as you have some adhesive.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
theres some locktide LOCA dam adhesive, which has greater viscosity, its main purpose to create borders and not allow LOCA to leak, but i think double side tape would help to keep it in place.
Hope heat will help to separate, or we will get permanent glass replacement :/ and we all know how fragile glass are :/

Kancler said:
theres some locktide LOCA dam adhesive, which has greater viscosity, its main purpose to create borders and not allow LOCA to leak, but i think double side tape would help to keep it in place.
Hope heat will help to separate, or we will get permanent glass replacement :/ and we all know how fragile glass are :/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did see the loctite LOCA but it's really expensive and not sold in small quantities. Greater viscosity would be a plus; how do you know what the viscosity of my LOCA is though? I'll toss my slides in the toaster oven tonight and see if they come apart.

any luck on separation ?

Kancler said:
any luck on separation ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not quite. I perhaps did not let the glass heat thoroughly, but I stuck it in the oven at 190 for 10 minutes and then gave it a shot. I did not use a razor blade but rather a pocket knife so that didn't help, but the adhesive did clearly give; however, the top layer of glass broke. Not a big deal but I was hoping it would be a lot easier. The layer of adhesive wasn't rock hard, and it was very very thin so a thicker layer would surely give more easily. I could clearly see that prying in the glass was causing the kind of outwardly flowing separation that I would have expected so that's encouraging. I think I'll call it good enough and cross that bridge if and when my glass breaks again. As soon as I get my metal pry tool from hong kong I'm going to give it a shot.

[Q] Any interest in an Acrylic (or similar) back glass replacement??

Take 2: I'll try to play nice....Usually I would have just deleted the thread....however, I'm trying to change....so....I'll take the time to dumb this down for those who aren't quick enough to follow. Open wide, here comes the spoon feeding!
What:
I'm trying to find if there's any interest in getting a (cheap <$10) replacement for the glass back of the N4. Right now...it's just an idea. There might not actually be anything that's thin enough to be used as an alternative. However...it might be possible.
Why:
Why not?...but seriously...once the glass back shatters, it's unsightly for one. It (in my case) doesn't leave a decent enough surface for a DBrands skin (mine looks lumpy as **** because of the bits of glass). And it leads to other possibilities...for example, you can get a clear acrylic/polycarb piece and etch it? Color it? What ever you want to do to make it yours...
How:
I'm not fully sure yet, I know there's a few companies that will cut acrylic however you want, they charge per sheet, and per cut...if a cut/corner is rounded they charge per corner/rounding, etc...so that's all going to have to be worked out. Also, there is differences between the types of attenuation of different materials...for example after I put Poly Carb in the title...I found it has worse effects on RF than Acrylic/Plexi. Along with that, there are downsides of each alternative...some are more impact resistant but easier to scratch....some the opposite.
Please don't come into this thread and post about how it's not possible, how it can't be done, how it's a dumb idea because of one reason or another. It's in fact...POSSIBLE, it CAN be done, and it's NOT a dumb idea...(according to the poll and the post on Reddit anyhow). I've been dealing with these devices for almost 2 decades...I know what I'm talking about when it comes to this sort of thing.
Now, for those who will start crying about how there's antennas and NFC and "other stuff" attached to the back...refer to the last sentence of the previous paragraph....THEN look at the pictures below, the first of which shows there is NOTHING other than the NFC antenna.....which picture 2 shows is removable from the glass....Thanks for reading...if you even got this far...
Edit: That's actually not the NFC antenna, it's actually the charging coil.
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Credit goes to Fencesitter for the above image

Ok let's start again shall we... OP, you can edit your original post with the extra details from your follow-up post (minus the colorful adjectives).

Bump

I've thought about this and yes, I'm interested. Ideally polycarbonate with soft touch rubber coating like the one x+ and droid dna.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

If it's just 10 bucks, I'm down for one!
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

Go for it. It's a good idea.
Send by me.

Without a doubt. AS LONG AS... Incredibly detailed instructions are included with the purchase as far as how to separate the phone... Although I guess anyone can go to iFixIt or something... But it would also have to retain NFC and wireless charging...
+1 on the soft touch BTW...

as we start shattering the back glass this ideal will no longer be thought of as anything but the greatest... go for it!
just wondering, will it effect the wireless charging?
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium

That's a great question...though I can't imagine it actually affecting it, I'd have to test it (if this thing ever goes forward)...
Edit: according to this site it's less dense therefore less obstructive.

Alright, so I've got a place here in Chicago that does this sort of thing, it's just the matter of finding out if they can make the cuts for the speaker...and I'm unsure if the LED lens is a part of the back glass or not....

Gonna need a cover for the camera built in too
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

That's actually the NFC antenna AND the wireless charging coil (NFC antenna is the outer coil, charging is the inner coil).
No one said in the other thread that they couldn't be separated, it's that the antenna, coil, connectors, plastic housing, camera cover, etc. are all glued to the glass. Separating them for a tear down article is one thing, separating them to later reglue them to a polycarbonate cover is quite another. It's not impossible, but it's a lot more work than most people are going to be willing to do (unless they've already broken the glass and their only other choice is a $$$ replacement).

As an optometrist, I'm curious about something....
Polycarbonate would be a great material for impact/breakage resistance, nothing better actually.
But, non-scratch resistant coated polycarbonate will scratch almost with a fingernail. Is it easy to get scratch resistant coated poly for this type of stuff?

would you just glue it on? or how would it be applied and yet friendly with the antennas in the back, gsm,wifi etc. i would like a rubber backing so i can be rough on it and something that will absorb the heat more

FYI- I just measured the glass and it looks like it's 0.5mm thick.
Removal of the glass isn't too hard, even though it has adhesive all over it (on second thought, maybe it's just around the perimeter and in patches in the middle).
As I had mentioned before, the thing to be careful about is removing the copper shielding from over the NFC+Qi coils. The copper tape is really thin so it tears easily, and if you do get it off, it'll curl up and stick to itself (luckily though, it's usually not and adhesive-to-adhesive stick, so it's possible to unroll it). I've been able to get a couple of removals and reapplications out of both the copper tape and the coils, but the adhesive on the coils is wearing off, so I probably won't be able to do remove and reapply (using the same adhesive) many more times.
Removing the glass from that point is relatively easy, done by pushing out on the glass through the speaker and coil holes in the plastic housing. The problem is that the adhesive around the perimeter sticks better to the plastic case, and cleanup is a bit of a pain.
The adhesive actually sticks pretty well to the paint on the back of the glass, however, the problem is that the paint isn't so good sticking to the glass, so on the back plastic, there will be a ring of adhesive with paint on it and the glass will have a relatively bare spot around its perimeter, say maybe 1mm wide. But I guess that's not that big of a deal if you're just planning on replacing the back glass.
With the LED lens separate from the back glass, adhered to the plastic case, you don't have to worry about removing that.
Certainly, if my back glass breaks, I'll be replacing it with plastic. I'd probably use PETG instead of polycarbonate since PC is harder to lasercut and yellows along the cut, though for 0.5mm thickness, it might not be that bad, and you could always CNC mill the PC instead. Finally, I'm not sure if may places will laser cut PC. Acrylic might be nice- it's really easy to laser cut and relatively scratch resistant, but I'm not too sure how easy it is to find in that thickness.
As I see it, you'll want not only a polycarbonate/plastic back, but also the adhesive around the perimeter and possibly some patches of adhesive in the middle. The polycarbonate will probably need to be die cut or something, but you can get the adhesive lasercut. Certainly factor that into the replacement kit BOM (Bill Of Materials) and also price.
If I were to assemble it- and what I did for my glass back- is/was to cut the adhesive large, apply it to the glass, then use scissors or a craft knife (X-acto) to cut the excess adhesive from around the perimeter of the glass, then apply the glass to the back housing. After that, then you can reapply the NFC+Qi coils, the camera gasket and put the speaker grille into place. You can probably get the adhesive preapplied to the plastic, however, that increases costs.
edit: maybe acrylic isn't that scratch resistant.

Yes do this!
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

Fencesitter said:
FYI- I just measured the glass and it looks like it's 0.5mm thick.
Removal of the glass isn't too hard, even though it has adhesive all over it (on second thought, maybe it's just around the perimeter and in patches in the middle).
As I had mentioned before, the thing to be careful about is removing the copper shielding from over the NFC+Qi coils. The copper tape is really thin so it tears easily, and if you do get it off, it'll curl up and stick to itself (luckily though, it's usually not and adhesive-to-adhesive stick, so it's possible to unroll it). I've been able to get a couple of removals and reapplications out of both the copper tape and the coils, but the adhesive on the coils is wearing off, so I probably won't be able to do remove and reapply (using the same adhesive) many more times.
Removing the glass from that point is relatively easy, done by pushing out on the glass through the speaker and coil holes in the plastic housing. The problem is that the adhesive around the perimeter sticks better to the plastic case, and cleanup is a bit of a pain.
The adhesive actually sticks pretty well to the paint on the back of the glass, however, the problem is that the paint isn't so good sticking to the glass, so on the back plastic, there will be a ring of adhesive with paint on it and the glass will have a relatively bare spot around its perimeter, say maybe 1mm wide. But I guess that's not that big of a deal if you're just planning on replacing the back glass.
With the LED lens separate from the back glass, adhered to the plastic case, you don't have to worry about removing that.
Certainly, if my back glass breaks, I'll be replacing it with plastic. I'd probably use PETG instead of polycarbonate since PC is harder to lasercut and yellows along the cut, though for 0.5mm thickness, it might not be that bad, and you could always CNC mill the PC instead. Finally, I'm not sure if may places will laser cut PC. Acrylic might be nice- it's really easy to laser cut and relatively scratch resistant, but I'm not too sure how easy it is to find in that thickness.
As I see it, you'll want not only a polycarbonate/plastic back, but also the adhesive around the perimeter and possibly some patches of adhesive in the middle. The polycarbonate will probably need to be die cut or something, but you can get the adhesive lasercut. Certainly factor that into the replacement kit BOM (Bill Of Materials) and also price.
If I were to assemble it- and what I did for my glass back- is/was to cut the adhesive large, apply it to the glass, then use scissors or a craft knife (X-acto) to cut the excess adhesive from around the perimeter of the glass, then apply the glass to the back housing. After that, then you can reapply the NFC+Qi coils, the camera gasket and put the speaker grille into place. You can probably get the adhesive preapplied to the plastic, however, that increases costs.
edit: maybe acrylic isn't that scratch resistant.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Now THAT is a response. That's what I was looking for. Thanks a LOT!
Now as far as what I've found out about potential materials:
Acrylic has the...better? combination of factors (surface hardness, durability, and RF attenuation) that make it the most suitable however, if the glass is indeed .5 mm thick, it's not the best of options...since most places I've reached out to only have/go down to 1/32" or 0.7938 mm.
PC we all know is the best as far as durability however with that...the surface hardness is not ideal unless it's going to have a skin on it to begin with...Oh and RF attenuation is definitely higher than with acrylic/plexi...
PETG I never knew about to be honest (this started out as an idea) but from the little that I did read into...It's similar to PC it seems to me...though I literally spent all of 3 minutes trying to find out about it...
This site has some great info related to attenuation which, with me being a HAM, actually matters. Knowing how ****ty the design of the mobile device antenna is from the get go (due to obvious limitations)...
Edit: After reaching out to a few fellow hams, the RF attenuation isn't even something to worry about at our frequencies...The loss (if it's even measurable) would be so low that it's not even worth considering.

Very very interested in this. Though my back is protected in an Acase dual layer, I don't rule out one day tragedy striking as is seemingly common with our device.
Sent from my Nexus 7

My back glass is broken and so is my digitizer... Be carefull that phone is hell more complicated and expensive to fix than my old desire.
Anyway I ordered the front assembly for $90 (with frame). For the back, I will first use a cover. Then I will look at alternative, but replacing glass with glass no way, it would break again. It was looking good though, before it broke.

E970 screen on nexus 4

I got my hands a E970 screen with a cracked digitizer. I hoped to use it to replace my cracked E960 screen,with a cheap 30 buck digitizer. So I carefully checked the pin-outs and it looked good. I then plugged it in and what do you know,worked just fine. So for what its worth,if its useful to anyone else,the LCD screen from an E970 will in fact work in an E960. Unfortunately it didnt work out. The screen,like the nexus 4 display,was glued t the front frame. I tried getting it out and ended up destroying the lcd. However,I did experiment with heating the front and separating it with a molybdenum wire. That part seemed to go smoothly. If anyone else has to do this,heres my best suggestion. Get some sandpaper,perhaps 80 grit and glue it to a board. Then sand the edge,moving parallel to the plane of the screen until you have ground away the frame and exposed the edge of the glass digitizer. Repeat on all four sides. This way you should be able to get to the adhesive under the digitizer without further cracking any glass. Remember,the front of the digitizer is cracked,so the lcd is vulnerable. I would get a piece of window glass and cut it to about the same size as the glass digitizer. Then used adhesive transfer tape to bond it to the front cracked glass.
Keep in mind,Ive not separated one successfully yet,so this is a combination of a report of my experiments and my educated guess on how to proceed in the future. It goes back to a previous attempt I did on a broken LCD. I conjectured that if I were to separate the plastic digitizer from the FRONT glass,I could more easily peel it away from the LCD. SO I took separated about a mm of the digitizer from the front glass. Then I ran a qtip dipped in acetone along the edge. The acetone was drawn into the gap by capilary action. I then waited a few minutes,repeated the acetone dipped qtip procedure,and then carefully slid the corner of the foil coated plastic package of a nicotine patch through the gap. The packet is very very thin,way thinner than a credit card,but very stiff. It easily removed another mm or so of the adhesive,and better still,left a gap,so that your not forcing the display to bend. This went well until I got near the last half inch of a shard of glass,about 1/3 of the way up the display. At that point,I applied a bit of upward force and that shard,about two inches long,with a sharp point,held only by a the last half inch by perhaps 1/3 inch section of adhesive shattered the LCD under the point. The lesson learned is,a cracked digitizer is going to have this lever effect on the shards that crack the lcd with a tiny amount of force due to the combination of the long lever arm and sharp point. So the glass is to hold that all together and keep it from doing the lever thing.
My experience tells me that ,yes,those techniques you see on the internet with the credit card and the heat gun MIGHT work,but your going to need a lot of skill. And that skill is developed by trashing DOZENS of LCDs. And its still not going to be 100%. Probably no more than 50%. My guess is that these were developed by people who repair these for a living. If you do,then you probably have a big box of broken displays. Some only have broken digitizers,some broken LCDs,and you think "If I had a way to reuse some of these parts,I could make a bunch of extra money" so you start with the broken ones,and then when you get something that works,even 50% of the time,you can make 50 bucks or more extra profit per screen you can fix,from parts that were previously worthless junk to you.
But I want something 100%,not for my nexus,but because more and more phones are made like this,and in the future they all will be. So I want to make a procedure that will fix it all the time. So far,I suspect that you have to choose one part to save. Either the frame or the LCD digitizer stack. I may try working around the edge with a plastic tool and heat with a glass bonded to the front and see if I can get the glass free of the frame without destroying the LCD,but Im not optimistic,first Id like a sure fire way to save an LCD.
My feeling is that if you bond the front glass to a ridged substrate,you can then use the sandpaper to grind the edge away. If you do it parallel to the plane of the screen,it should be very gentle on the display,avoiding any damage. Then you can perhaps with the aid of heat,cut the digitizer away from the frame. Im thinking at this point,you need a screen separator.
So Im going to make one. My plan is that I will make a device from plywood. It will have a backing and a part that slides. The part that slides will have a heated piece of aluminum with a thermostat that holds it at 175F and an inductive heating coil behind the aluminum. This "carriage" will slide back and forth,and there will be an guide that will constrain its motion to one axis. The "carriage" will actually be made from two blocks,one that will be in the guide,then a second that bolts to that,using some studs,and washers and wing nuts. Between these two plywood layers,I will uses sheets of paper as shims to adjust the height so that a 0.08mm molybdenum wire (I have 100' of it I got off ebay) is at the right height to separate the screen. The screen will be stuck to the glass with adhesive transfer tape,the edges ground away,then mounted to the separator with adhesive transfer tape,and shimmed to the right height. I can then heat it to temperature (the glue *I* use SHOULD be strong enough to hold it in place,if not,I just buy one of the higher temp adhesives. I can then separate the digitizer from the front glass AND the frame. At that point,the LCD should be free of the frame. Now,if the digitizer is OK,I can simply ,carefully clean the adhesive off of it and repair it using a 12 dollar front glass.
Some people use optically clear adhesive that is uv cured,because its easier to get a bubble free bond without a vacuum oven or autoclave so I will just use an optically clear adhesive transfer tape. I however have access to a vacuum oven at work,so I'm good to go. Even if I did not,I suspect that there are other options. I might try one of those vacuum storage containers they sell at target that go with those "food saver" vacuum packers. (I want one anyway to freeze food in,very handy. Buy 40lbs of chicken breasts when they come on sale for 1.89 a lb and freeze them! Pays for itself in no time) My hope would be that ,perhaps of first heated to say 180F or so,then placed on paper to avoid melting the plastic container ,you and a vacuum pulled,it would remove the bubbles. But I have access to the oven so I don't care much about that.
If not,then I can probably make sure the wire is on the other side of the digitizer and separate it from the lcd instead. Then the same procedure can be used to bond the LCD to a new digitizer/glass assembly. But first I need to find some more broken LCDs to play with. But hopefully my experiences will help others in their quest. The end result of what I have determined though is,Im going to have to make the separator,becuase while its obvious that its POSSIBLE without it,its just not reliable or practical.

Nexus 7 faster method for separating and glue removal from LCD and digitizer

Hello,
I got a Nexus 7 tablet with a broken digitizer for free, I started watching info and videos on the net on how to separate that digitizer from the god LCD.
The heat gun solution looks a bit too hard to control. I chose to try to make my own heat plate.
I have made the heating plate based on stuff found around the house, also I borrowed some stuff from work until I will receive the controller I ordered from Ebay.
Basically, I got an aluminum plate cut from a scrap piece, drilled holes to hold those lock down clamps, everything is just made to resemble those professional separation machines.
There are 2 small round heaters underneath, each around 200W, more than needed for this application.
I tried heating the assembly up to 85 deg C and the lcd metal back cover starts to lift up, separating from the lcd glass itself, oops, had to press down on it and lower the temp to around 65 C ,now it sits in place.
I bought 2-3 broken digitizers with screens from a guy that repairs tablets, just to practice before I really try to do the change the digitizer on my tablet.
I will put pictures of the removed and cleaned LCD’s, the digitizers were just used to practice the LOCA glue removal, I throw them away after. Too much glass pieces.
Here is the name of the video: Nexus 7 LCD separation from digitizer, fast LOCA removal. Please turn on CC on the video to see more info.
The separation of the lcd is done with some guitar wire 0.007”, not sure if smaller diameter it will do better or not.
I had a problem on one practice screen, I cut thru the front polarizing film on the lcd. that’s why I started the separation from the lcd connector side, wire gets better there between the digitizer and the lcd.
One great thing I found is by using silicon grease, it makes the sawing much easier and you only need one pass to separate the lcd.
After separating the lcd, cleaning up the loca glue is also easy, thanks to my other interesting finding I did, by using essential oils.
There are so many out there, like tea tree oil, oregano oil, tried them, they all do a good job.
I finally used the citronella oil because it was only 4$ for 15ml, probably you can do lots of cleaning from one bottle and also repelling the mosquitos around you.
As you can see, apply small drops, spread uniformly with your finger, then wait, after 4-5 hours the glue comes off very easy.
If any excess oil, absorb-it with a paper towel. If it’s too much oil, not good also.
The good thing about oil is that it will have much less ( more like zero) chances to go inside the LCD panel and make spots, like the alcohol can do.
Finished the cleaning with some 99% isopropyl alcohol ( from the pharmacy).
I’m sure after this, some people will try to sell “ miracle” loca glue remover. Hope this post will remain here to give some great info to those searching.
This is valid for any kind of lcd loca glue cleaning, is it a phone or tablet, it will work.
I think I will try to reapply the uv loca glue to the new digitizer, I will wait for the ordered glue to come.
With all the things I purchased maybe is not economical for one tablet, but the experience I got is priceless, I’m happy to share with others.

Best digitizer separation ( 1 pass) and fast loca glue removal

Hello,
I just realized I have posted before on the Nexus 7 first gen forum, then I came back here to share my experience with my 2013 model.
I got a Nexus 7 2013 tablet with a broken digitizer for free, I started watching info and videos on the net on how to separate that digitizer from the god LCD.
The heat gun solution looks a bit too hard to control. I chose to try to make my own heat plate.
I have made the heating plate based on stuff found around the house, also I borrowed some stuff from work until I will receive the controller I ordered from Ebay.
Basically, I got an aluminum plate cut from a scrap piece, drilled holes to hold those lock down clamps, everything is just made to resemble those professional separation machines.
There are 2 small round heaters underneath, each around 200W, more than needed for this application.
I tried heating the assembly up to 85 deg C and the lcd metal back cover starts to lift up, separating from the lcd glass itself, oops, had to press down on it and lower the temp to around 65 C ,now it sits in place.
I bought 2-3 broken digitizers with screens from a guy that repairs tablets just to practice before I really try to do the digitizer change on my own tablet..
I will put pictures of the removed and cleaned LCD’s, the digitizers were just used to practice the LOCA glue removal, I throw them away after. Too many glass pieces.
Here is the name of the video: Nexus 7 LCD separation from digitizer, fast LOCA removal. Please turn on CC on the video to see more info.
The separation of the lcd is done with guitar wire 0.007”, not sure if smaller diameter it will do better or not.
I had a problem on one practice screen, I cut thru the front polarizing film on the lcd. that’s why I started the separation from the lcd connector side, wire gets better there between the digitizer and the lcd.
One great thing I found is by using silicon grease, it makes the sawing much easier and you only need one pass to separate the lcd. Apply in small quantities beside the lcd before you pass the string.
After separating the lcd, cleaning up the loca glue is also easy, thanks to my other interesting finding I did, by using essential oils.
There are so many out there, like tea tree oil, oregano oil, tried them, they all do a good job.
I finally used the citronella oil because it was only 4$ for 15ml, probably you can do lots of cleaning from one bottle and also repelling the mosquitos around you.
As you can see, apply small drops, spread uniformly with your finger, then wait, after 4-5 hours the glue comes off very easy.
If any excess oil, absorb-it with a paper towel. If it’s too much oil, not good also.
The good thing about oil is that it will have much less ( more like zero) chances to go inside the LCD panel and make spots, like the alcohol can do.
Finished the cleaning with some 99% isopropyl alcohol ( from the pharmacy).
I’m sure after this, some people will try to sell “ miracle” loca glue remover. Hope this post will remain here to give some great info to those searching.
This is valid for any kind of lcd loca glue cleaning, is it a phone or tablet, it will work.
I think I will try to reapply the uv loca glue to the new digitizer, I will wait for the ordered glue to come.
With all the things I purchased maybe is not economical for one tablet, but the experience I got is priceless, I’m happy to share with others.

Thanks for the tip!
How did you assemble new digitizer with the LCD back together? Did you use LOCA glue? If yes, where did you get that?

Hellou,
Thanks for the tips.
Do you know where to find aluminium bar at size 7-10" diagonal in RO?
Thanks

Appreciated your tips re grease and oil. I've done this several times, so I know it can be done with some patience. The big question is, where do you get a separate digitizer that works. I've tried at least 5 that partially worked (dead bands, mostly), but found none that totally did. If you have a source, it'd help greatly. Thanks again.