As a photographer, I especially apologize for the lack of photos of the process... this is a story of my S5 getting broken and repaired.
I left my S5 on the hood of my girlfriends Jeep while cleaning up the dog's feet and being distracted, I forgot to grab my phone. Driving down the canyon road 50mph back home, noticed something thunk off of the front of the car... yep it was my phone. It was in an Otterbox Defender series case.
Upon inspection, I was very impressed to find the phone in very good condition. The front glass totally unbroken with no scratches, the only visible damage was a scuff on the chrome of the top right corner and what looked like a tread mark from the tire. The otterbox case looked very good as well, it took some damage where the tire marks were on the upper right.
The phone's internal display took too much shock/flex and was shattered but still hard a partially visible image and the digitizer worked fine. I ordered a new display around $150, it came with a pre-installed homebutton/fingerprint scanner module. The display I ordered was pre-owned in a+ condition, so it had the old factory adhesives stuck to it.
I removed the small plastic cover on the rear to unplug the home-button cable, removed the old display using a heatgun to ease up the adhesive and it come off pretty smoothly (start at the top from the earpiece), you have plenty of room to get tools behind the screen to unplug the display's flex cable and pull the home-button's cable free.
I was impressed in how well adhered the glass is and how the home-button works, very waterproof design. The metal frame has a texture etched into it to promote even better adhesion.
-I carefully removed the old adhesive from the new display and from the frame. I used alcohol and microfiber rags and took my time, both parts come very clean with some fingernail force and patience. I applied the new adhesive, this part was very easy, the applicator-design the adhesive comes packaged in makes it a breeze to line up and entirely avoid wrinkles or mishaps. I'll link what adhesive I used, it seemed to be factory OEM and ridiculously sticky stuff, several times more powerful and pliable than the 3m strip-tape.
I made a double-check that the frame adhesion area was clean and began to hook the connectors back up, plugged the home button and LCD connector back in, I started applying the screen from the earpiece (earpiece metal fits through the hole in the glass to make lining up perfectly easy. and pressed the entire display into place. Bam, brand new. That adhesive WORKS perfectly. It grabs and holds, very tight. I feel very confident that the phone still carries its same waterproof spec.
I hope this helps any others with broken screens that want to bring their S5 back to life and to be unafraid to dig into this yourself.
Tips:
-You can likely use a hair dryer to heat up the old display when removing, feel it with your hands, don't get it so hot that you can't keep your fingers on it for a few seconds, you don't want to damage your earpiece, front sensors, camera, etc.
-When removing the old adhesive from a good-used display, use plastic to scrape at it, metal will remove the black dye and make scratched in the bezel around the screen.
-The capacitive sensors for Recents and Back have tabs that allow you to push them into the frame of the phone before applying the new screen, makes it much easier to align and worry-free.
The adhesive comes from Ebay seller diy_iparts "Pre-Cut Adhesive Tape for Samsung Galaxy S5"
(unsure if I'm allowed to post direct links to ebay) I am giving you this information because I read that a lot of pre-cut adhesives from other sources are bad quality and not up to OEM spec, made of totally different materials, etc. This won't matter too much if you aren't worried about the water resistance of your phone and the display sitting perfectly flush to the frame.
Related
So I dropped my vibrant and the bezel on the left side came off and there is a large bump in the bezel now. I think the plastic tips on the bezel that hold it to the screen broke off. Any tips? How much would this cost to repair?
PS: Superglue will not work as the bezel will simply not touch the screen at all.
http://www.globaldirectparts.com/Samsung-i9000-Housing-p/smsng6087190.htm
new bezel, new full housing. it is for a i9000 not a vibrant but considering they are identical internally i believe it would fit just fine.
Can't tell from your description, but it may be that one of the clips that holds the bezel down has popped out (but not broken) and is bottomed-out on the plastic surface adjacent to where these clips feed through.
I noticed that this can happen the last time I tore mine apart.
If this is the case, you can pop it back in by removing the back cover screws and sliding the back cover off with a guitar pick, etc (there are lots of teardown videos on YouTube). Once that's off you should be able to see the clips and determine if it's just popped out or busted off.
I smashed the screen on my Tab a few weeks back. While I didn't take a video of the replacement, here are some notes and tips on my experience:
If the glass is cracked but you can still see the display fine (i.e. no rainbow or black ink spills) then it is just your digitizer that is broken. Your top priority at this point is to not break the LCD because the digitizer is relatively cheap (~$35 shipped from China, $60 from the US). This also goes for the picture being fine but the touch not working at all.
Buy a replacement digitizer. I got mine from ebay ( http://www.ebay.com/itm/270938561127 ).
Gather tools:
A clean towel to use for your work area to prevent scratches and scuffs
A little plastic prying tool (likely to come with your ebay order)
A thin and sharp utility knife/razor
A three prong screwdriver. The seller I used sent a few other screwdrivers but not the three prong one. I used one I got from a Nintendo DS repair a while back.
A heat gun will make this a lot easier. I guess a hair blow-dryer might work in a pinch.
I did not see any good videos for the disassembly. The one I watched ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thTt6G27NV8 ) really screwed me over because it didn't show removing two screws first.
Here are my written steps for replacement:
Use a needle to pry out the two caps on either side of the USB charging port
Use the three prong screwdriver to remove those two screws
Insert the pry on the bottom middle between the plastic frame and the glass. Push down firmly so it wedges in up to the L shape.
Slide the pry along from the middle to either end and around the corner. You will feel the frame pop away from the innards.
Continue working the bottom half of the frame apart until you can insert tweezers or something else under the unit and lift it up and out of the frame.
Be careful to lift the bottom half then pull it out away from the top. Otherwise, you will crack the audio port which extends from the unit and fits into the hole in the top of the frame.
Set aside the frame and place the unit on a clean towel. If you have a broken screen, you are going to be dealing with lots of tiny slivers of broken glass.
On the circuitry side of the unit, you will see three big flat ribbon cables. The middle one is the digitizer. Use tweezers or the pry to *gently* lift up the tan colored plastic locking hinge on the far side (opposite the cable). It will pop up and the cable will easily slide out. Go very slow and carefully here. Don't mess with the black plastic because it will chip right off.
Now comes the painful part. Removing the old digitizer. Take a cigarette break if you need one. Maybe a Valium. Basically, almost all of the black trim part of the glass is thick strong glue binding it to the unit. You need to separate this glue to be able to peel the glass digitizer away.
Hold the unit upright with one hand and use the heat gun to loosen up the glue holding the digitizer to the unit. Run it along one edge for less than a minute until the glass is a little too hot to touch.
Quickly insert the razor as close to the glass as you can and about 6 centimeters in. Slide it along the side that you heated. Don't make any prying motions or you'll just crack the glass more.
Continue with the remaining three edges. Heat then separate. You may not make much progress the first time around, but by the second time, you should see the glass starting to peel away. It took me about 5 to 10 minutes per edge and it is grueling work.
Once you can safely peel the entire glass digitizer away from the unit, use the razor to lift up and peel off any of the flat black tape/glue that was left behind. Most of the unit where the glue goes is gray. On the sides there are two parts where you see black plastic. It is okay to leave glue residue as long as it isn't bunched up.
Vacuum up any stray glass slivers. Make sure you set aside tools screws and screw-hole-plugs before vacuuming.
Installing the new digitizer
Use an LCD spray and cleaning cloth to clean your LCD. Don't leave any dust or fingerprints as it will look bad once everything is put back together.
Remove the back covering of your replacement digitizer revealing the glue. Obviously, try not to touch the glue.
Align the digitizer above the unit, make sure the camera hole is on the correct side. Very slowly lower it down and try to have it perfectly in alignment when it touches. You will be able to nudge it a tiny bit, but the glue is strong and if you get it crooked, you are going to have to try to quickly lift it back up without cracking your new digitizer.
Once you have it in place, remove the front protective film and free the new cable. Wrap the cable around to the back and very gently insert it between the contacts then push the locking hinge down.
Testing and reassembly
Power it on and see if it works. Just push down the little metal bump closest to the edge where the power button would be on the frame.
When happy with the test, turn it off again and hold the unit above the frame.
Check the orientation then insert the top part first to fit the audio port into the hole. Line up the rest and then push down on all the edges to snap it into place.
Breathe a deep sigh of relief.
Appreciate the time you put into this, hopefully I never end up in a similar situation.
Could have used some more return key though lol
Sent from my Ceramic White LTE Galaxy Note using XDA Premium App
Wish I would have read this first. I broke the housing by the 2 bottom screws. Dayum! I haven't touched it since. Supposed to get the digitizer Friday. Wish me luck!
Its really easy to replace the digitiser on WiFi version. Use Stanley knife and hair dryer to loosen it off and remove middle flex cable. Videos on youtube
Sent from my GT-P7510 using xda app-developers app
Any picture of these 2 screws cause i do not see it on a p4 here.
I still have one here with a cracked glass but it all still works even the touch screen.
But i do not see the screw so a pic would be nice
Opuske said:
Any picture of these 2 screws cause i do not see it on a p4 here.
I still have one here with a cracked glass but it all still works even the touch screen.
But i do not see the screw so a pic would be nice
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Click to collapse
They are covered by plugs on either side of the charge port. Gotta pry the plugs out first.
Sent from my EVO using xda premium
Ok so i am on a mission this weekend then to try and do that then
Opuske said:
Ok so i am on a mission this weekend then to try and do that then
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
One tip: be really careful not to touch the inside surface of the glass. I ended up with a fingerprint on the inside that drives me nuts every time I clean the screen. Wear gloves if you've got them.
Otherwise it was no sweat. I used this as a guide but with a hair dryer instead of a heat gun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUI2gDQbdDY&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Sent from my EVO using xda premium
Quick question
I really found this post very helpful, but I do have one question. What if when I was trying to pry the tab up to pull out the digitizer, I cracked the black plactic on the other side. Would this cause the new digitizer not to work when I finished replacing everything and put it back together?
Best tutorial on the web (much better than those godawful youtube videos).
Thank you!
Did u get an answer??? I need to
AylaAtreides said:
I really found this post very helpful, but I do have one question. What if when I was trying to pry the tab up to pull out the digitizer, I cracked the black plactic on the other side. Would this cause the new digitizer not to work when I finished replacing everything and put it back together?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you get an answer??? I did the same thing...
DEinspanjer said:
I smashed the screen on my Tab a few weeks back. While I didn't take a video of the replacement, here are some notes and tips on my experience:
[*]If the glass is cracked but you can still see the display fine (i.e. no rainbow or black ink spills) then it is just your digitizer that is broken. Your top priority at this point is to not break the LCD because the digitizer is relatively cheap (~$35 shipped from China, $60 from the US). This also goes for the picture being fine but the touch not working at all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just when I thought I knew the difference between the LCD and the digitizer I read your post. You said if the glass is cracked but you can see the display just fine the digitizer is broken. When you say "see the display fine" I presume when the device is on you can see whatever it should be showing? Correct me if I am wrong. Silly me I would have thought if the glass was cracked you need the LCD. Are the glass, LCD and digitizer 3 separate parts?
Anyway on my Note 10.1 2014 edition the display suddenly went black while I was using it. All indications are the device is working because I hear notifications if I sent email to one of the accounts registered on the device. Given this limited info which part(s) do I need. The glass is pristine in that there are no cracks or scratches. Do I need the digitizer, lcd or both? How can I determine what I need for sure?
Thanks in advance,
~metafizik
The digitizer is the touch sensitive glass, the LCD is under that and it makes the pictures.
If you crack or damage the LCD, you will frequently see something that looks like an ink spill or a rainbow pattern.
If you crack or damage the digitizer, you can still see pictures fine, but some or all of it might no longer respond to touch.
In your case, it sounds like your LCD is not working, but unfortunately it is hard to say whether that is the only part that stopped working since it wasn't due to damage to the screen.
DEinspanjer said:
The digitizer is the touch sensitive glass, the LCD is under that and it makes the pictures.
In your case, it sounds like your LCD is not working, but unfortunately it is hard to say whether that is the only part that stopped working since it wasn't due to damage to the screen.
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Click to collapse
Thank you for the information. I agree there is no telling what might have caused the problem especially given some other problems that proceeded this. I had recently replaced the battery and even with the new one it was draining way too quickly. I concluded it might be the ROM I was running had become corrupted because Google services was using the lions share of the battery instead of the screen. I downloaded and installed a factory Lolipop image and it was running fine for about half a day when the wife started playing around with live wallpapers we had never tried when it went black.
At this point I am reluctant to spend $ replacing the Lcd given it might be something else altogether.
Thanks again,
~metafizik
Accepting offers on my 32GB Note 10.1 2014 edition. As described above the display has gone dark but system is otherwise working fine. Includes very nice MoKo Wireless Bluetooth Keyboard Cover Case and the tablet's battery is new.
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.
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.
This may be of very limited use but I believe I'm far from the only one still using this device and the torn speaker membrane is very common.
Prerequisites:
Moto G3 with torn speaker membrane, preferably in need of replacement screen
Donor Moto G3
Standard tools for disassembly (see iFixit etc. for reaching the point where you have the screen removed)
As this requires removing the LCD it's hardly worth doing unless you have a cracked screen that needs replacing. In my case I had a device with various issues, bought another device with a broken screen but otherwise functioning, and simply swapped screens. You can get spares & repairs Moto G3s for very little (<£15/$15).
Ideally your donor screen doesn't have a torn membrane. If it does, as in my case, you can do the following to repair it:
The entire grille/ membrane is stuck to the glass from the inside.
Carefully run a sharp knife underneath the hard silver plastic and lever it out.
The plastic membrane is actually 2 sheets. Use a knife, fingernail, tweezers etc. starting at the edge to peel the first layer away: it is a thin tranparent plastic sheet surrounding the hole. You don't need to worry about removing cleanly, you won't need these any more.
Then do the same on the grey membrane, which is thicker and held on more securely, requiring more force to remove.
Now remove the entire bottom main speaker grille part from the your broken screen (i.e. whichever screen you'll no longer be using)
This simply has some sort of material mesh-like grille which can be peeled off carefully.
Once removed, align the edge of the material with your earpiece speaker piece and stick on. The mesh is longer so you have to trim the end off with scissors.
You now have a new earpiece speaker grille, with a cloth-like membrane like the main speaker grille, rather than the original plastic membrane.
This can now be replaced as the glue should still hold.
Hope this helps somebody despite being a rather convoluted process. Waterproofing not tested yet! And note the battery light is not diffused as before so appears brighter.
Great write up and thanks for taking the time to post
Nice one even I tore but no issues facing on speaker
Do u have any image or video on doing this !!
ceanosri said:
Do u have any image or video on doing this !!
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I could add some pics of the parts if that would help? Didn't think to take pics during the process unfortunately