So recently I cracked the rear glass on my Pixel 2 XL. After searching around, I found the "official"repair places wanted around $80 to replace this. Then I found eBay had replacement glass for $13 (in the US, cheaper from China), and decided to give it a try. Figured worse case scenario I end up at the repair place getting the glass replaced anyway, and I'm out $13 extra.
This was not a difficult process necessarily, what I will say is that the glass used is extremely thin (stock and aftermarket), and the process of removing the old glass is likely to produce many tiny glass fragments.
Here's how I did it, if anyone is interested in giving this a try:
1. Mis en place. I used a couple plastic and nylon spudgers, guitar picks, one metal spudger, a hair dryer, and packing tape. I did this repair in the bathroom near the sink so I could easily brush small glass pieces into the sink and wash them down the drain.
2. Start off by heating up the rear glass with the hair dryer, but not too hot. You need to be able to hold the phone afterall. Take a piece of packing tape and place it over the rear glass to somewhat keep it together.
3. I used the thin metal spudger to get started on one side of the glass. I started on the broken side as I already had a gap there to work with. Slowly go around and remove the glass and double sided tape from the rear frame.
3. Remove the camera lens cover from the glass. It's attached to the glass with double sided tape. Most likely going to be small chunks of glass stuck to the front of the lens assembly.
4. Clean up any leftover glue/double sided tape and chunks of glass, so you have a nice clean surface to stick the new glass to.
5. Install the lens cover on the replacement glass, and clean the inside and outside of the lens cover and inspect the camera assembly itself for chunks of glass/dust/etc.
6. Install the new glass (with lens cover now attached) to the back of your Pixel 2 XL. Be very careful to line it up exactly where you want it to sit before dropping it onto the frame of the phone (you likely will not be able to peel it off and reapply it if you mess up, as the glass is very thin and would probably shatter if you try to remove it).
7. Profit.
That's about it. All in all this took me about 30 minutes from start to finish, and saved me just over $60. Worth it for a cheapskate like me ?
Hope this helps someone.
Excellent write up, and the great photos!
Thanks for posting
Superusefull!! Thank so much!
do you feel like this compromised the water resistance part of the phone?
im pretty sure the waterproof feature is gone
jyn1989 said:
im pretty sure the waterproof feature is gone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It has never been waterproof.
Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk
Hello everyone,
I've broken lil bit the glass and considering replacement. But don't want to lose waterprofness. What do you think about this statement:
"The glass back of the Pixel 2 is purely decorative, and the Pixel 2 will still be waterproof with a broken glass back.
Why? As can be seen in the teardown video at https://youtu.be/Zq7nyzldgr4 at 4:14, the back cover of the Pixel 2 goes underneath the glass. Also, it looks like replacing the glass back would not require a teardown, since there seem to be no screws holding the glass in place from the inside. I suspect the glass back is merely glued on or clipped in."
For me it sounds reasonable that waterprofness might still be there after replacement. Attaching screenshot of mentioned back cover which is going under the glass.
Thanks for your opinion!
Pixel 2 is waterproof
Pixel 2 is IP67 rated meaning it's good for up to a metre depth of water, hence it being waterproof but if anyone was wondering even if you do break the back glass as I have it's purely cosmetic as there is some pretty strong plastic and glue behind it keeping the waterproof feature in place
How do you fix it to be waterproof like factory?
|Use waterproof glue around camera lens and LED lens or is there a adhesive to buy?
Related
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.
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.
Just wanted to inform everyone that despite the fact that you can buy replacement glass for the Priv, without some magic solvent I don't have access to, there is no way to remove the glass from the LCD without breaking it too. So probably don't bother paying for a replacement digitizer if it doesn't include an LCD
Did you use a heat gun to loosen the adhesive or is it literally not possible to separate the glass from the lcd and frame
gonka95 said:
Did you use a heat gun to loosen the adhesive or is it literally not possible to separate the glass from the lcd and frame
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Click to collapse
i tried using a heat gun, but due to how it's designed and how thin and fragile this LCD is unless you got some kind of solvent that literally removed the adhesive it's going to break whenever you try to separate them. Luckily i had bought two of them with cracked glass and only destroyed one in this process, and the cracks aren't bad enough to impair the function or visibility of the screen on the one left over. Only problem is i'm using the Verizon model, which can't use LTE band 9 as far as i know, on T-mobile. The thing that bothers me most though is the fact that people DO sell replacement glass for it when you can't only replace that. If anyone feels like they have better skills than i do and wants to prove me wrong, though, i'm rooting for you.
Glass only repair is possible. After 7 hours I did it
DEXEIL said:
Glass only repair is possible. After 7 hours I did it
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Click to collapse
Solvent or 7 hours worth of application of heat gun?
Isopropyl alcohol
7hrs?!
DEXEIL said:
Isopropyl alcohol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi there, just wondering how you went about doing this? Did you use heat first and then the alcohol?
Would you be able to provide a few steps? I imagine it would be heat edges, use pry bar/card to loosen glass, insert solvent and repeat. Can I drop solvent directly into craked surface or "holes"?
I watched the youtube tear down and was hoping to avoid all of that.
I bought a glass screen replacement from ebay ~$15.
Presently the glass is cracked, and shattered but the screen works perfectly, and I'm considering just slapping a film on it instead, unless the glass swap is easy?
7hrs?!
mellofellow said:
Hi there, just wondering how you went about doing this? Did you use heat first and then the alcohol?
Would you be able to provide a few steps? I imagine it would be heat edges, use pry bar/card to loosen glass, insert solvent and repeat. Can I drop solvent directly into craked surface or "holes"?
I watched the youtube tear down and was hoping to avoid all of that.
I bought a glass screen replacement from ebay ~$15.
Presently the glass is cracked, and shattered but the screen works perfectly, and I'm considering just slapping a film on it instead, unless the glass swap is easy?
7hrs?!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Never used heat, just remove glass with a thin card and alcohol, then remove piece of plastic BUT make sure LCD be attached to frame I used tape, see pics
Thank you! I will give this a try
Update
This is NOT worth it! And 7 hours sounds about right!
I can verify no heat is needed, simply pick at the broken shards till there's exposed LCD. Drop in isopropyl alcohol and keep picking. use goggles as broken pieces flew up at my eyes and across the room. Do it in the garage! Wipe off excess with gauze. After 2 hours I got through maybe a 1/4 of the screen. I then made the mistake of taking the digitizer with LCD assembly off to slide a card under the cracked glass edges. It really sped things up, but ended up damaging the LCD (purple lines) permanently. Basically once it's disassembled, the piece is actually quite flimsy and bends too much beyond what the LCD can take.
In short, no way this is worth it.
DEXEIL said:
Never used heat, just remove glass with a thin card and alcohol, then remove piece of plastic BUT make sure LCD be attached to frame I used tape, see pics
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Click to collapse
what the hell ... how is the glass digitizer all curled up like a paper ?
Hi.
I have cracked the rear battery glass cover again on my S8. Its the forth time it happens. And I don't know why.
I have bought genuine battery glass covers from ebay. But it doesn't hold long before the glass cracks again.
Does anyone know if there is an reinforced (maybe aluminium or carbon)?
(Sorry for my bad english)
try putting a skin on it. https://dbrand.com/shop/samsung-galaxy-s8-skins they look nice and should work like a screen protector on it.
Make sure you are taking off the foam part of the sticky part they put on it. The glass should fit flush against the back with the thin thin layer of adhesive they put. My mistake and I cracked the first one because it flexed.
@Class said:
Make sure you are taking off the foam part of the sticky part they put on it. The glass should fit flush against the back with the thin thin layer of adhesive they put. My mistake and I cracked the first one because it flexed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What foam? I only took plastic of the adhesive tape that was already applied on the cover. Then placed the cover on the phone
This cover: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Genuine-Sa...271993&hash=item33d35abcf9:g:iZoAAOSwBEpZnZvO
Getting it for 200aud..
Can replace the glass piece for about 10 off eBay.
My question is how tight that area is in general in terms of the ip68 rating, consisting that the "glass" is just an adhesive. I.e. is the rating still intact
jewnersey said:
Getting it for 200aud..
Can replace the glass piece for about 10 off eBay.
My question is how tight that area is in general in terms of the ip68 rating, consisting that the "glass" is just an adhesive. I.e. is the rating still intact
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if you only replace the glass from the camera and if you replace it with the ORIGINAL part, then you will have the IP rating the same way, BUT...if you buy cheap glass with cheap adhesive...i didnt know how it takes the IP at same level, and how long it will take to lose the glue and maybe crack again.
Better safe than sorrow...
see this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qfQ1TH_KBs
It's very tight. I bought one for a 3rd the price of new the glue was discolored, but the glass was otherwise ok.
Love Jerry's Videos. But he'd already removed that lens, and had an appropriate crack to help leverage up a piece of the glass. I couldn't even get a scalpel blade under the edge let alone a box cutter, I'm quite dexterous. Before I replaced mine I watched someone jam a spudger down there to get it out. Maybe my spudger wasn't thin enough but I could see the main back glass flexing while I did it so I tried something different..
I realize yours is pre-cracked, but just detailing everything I did.
What worked for me:
1) apply just enough force between the lens and the edge, you want a crack to extend outward to the edge, but avoid having dust near the actual camera lens. Saw a video of someone puncturing a hole right where the camera lens is - not smart if you like clear pictures.
2) clean all dust now!
3) take out a shard from the edge with tweezers being careful to not puncture the tape on the under side
4) heat lens then apply a cut and shaped piece of tape on top of the lens to hold in any dust when you peel.
5) place tweezers into the edge in the hole you made where the shard was, try not to put pressure on the back glass - mine was surprisingly tough, ymmv.
6) peel the edge of the under tape slowly upward try not to bend much or the glass will make a ton of dust.
7) vacuum and use compressed air around the opening.
Hope that helps.
Thanks for the comments. New glass arrives tomorrow so I'll be going through the process then. Seems pretty straightforward, but yes, probably will avoid submerging it etc just to be safe.
As far as cleaning the lens, I will use acetone (cotton balls) and compressed air. Good?
No acetone, just alcool
Just an FYI: Thin solvent liquids like alcohol will seep in the gap between the lens cover and the glass back and onto the sticky reflective tape discoloring it. I've seen it a bunch of times with the G6, the effect is worse with replacement lens covers as there isn't any adhesive on the edge.
If I was to redo this job, I'd consider using some B-7000 applied with a tiny brush around the thin edge of the lens cover to seal it. Once dry I wouldn't be concerned about cleaning with alcohol. Maybe depends how obsessive you are lol.
As always YMMV, hope the replacement goes well.
Pic shows discoloration around the edge.
https://i.imgur.com/6JB3uuc.jpg