Just Sharing This Mobile phone screen repairs

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Until recently, I have never had a reason t0 change my screen and indeed still do not but friends and family are very clumsy.

I cannot say I would like to do it for a living either but for a cheap one off repair it is OK. I have recently repaired my mate's iPhone 4, a friend's iphone 4S both very successfully with new screen and digitizers, they are basically the same model with minor differences, I would add although each one took a number of hours. My daughter has been living with a broken screen for weeks now and I offered to fix it this weekend as she was coming home for a couple of days. It is an HTC Sensation Z710e which by coincidence is what I have. What a dogs dinner.... two part mother board connected by a flat ribbon and tiny little connectors and having fitted the new digitizer was dismayed upon assembly to find that one of the flip up connectors for the digitizer had become damaged, new mobo £60, not really worth in my opinion but if anyone has an old one hanging around in a drawer that may have some salvageable parts I will certainly pay the postage and packing and see if I can get this donkey of a job off my back
 

PaulR

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Sounds like almost EXACTLY my experiences. I've replaced screens on various phones over the years but when my daughter dropped her phone (an HTC Sensation XE) and cracked the screen she went ahead and ordered a new screen and digitiser and then presented me with the bits to fix.

I looked at it and couldn't see how to separate the screen assembly and so looked at a YouTube video of someone in the States doing the job. I had got so far by myself but just at the point where you had to physically rip the glued digitiser off it seemed to gloss over the subject.

Well, in for a penny - in for a pound I dived in and I think I had the same problem as you. When separating the digitiser one of the flexible printed circuits ripped. And even worse it wasn't one that came with the new screen/digitiser. I took it to phone shop in Birkenhead and all they could offer was to fit an OE complete screen assembly for over a £100. My daughter cut her losses at that point and bought an identical model that a friend of hers was selling.

Postscript. It didn't take too long before she dropped that phone and cracked the screen on that one. This time she did her own research and took it to a shop in Heswall who were able to fix it for, I think, about £70 - still cheaper than a replacement phone.

Post postscript. I decided to take the bits of the first phone and new screen and digitiser to see if he had a source for the broken pcb strip. I don't know where he found the strip but he did and put the phone back together. Cost me another £70 but that's given me phone worth over £100.

Post post postscript. I'd had the pnone for a day when she revealed to me that she had stopped using the other phone because of a drink she'd spilled over it. I took pity on her and lent her old phone back whilst I took the second phone in to see what cold be done. It took over a week's soaking in IPA to clean and dry it enough but he got there in the end.

So now she has her (second) phone back and I have her first phone. I bought a (very) good S/H battery cover and it looks almost new. 99p for an unlock code and I could use it with my own SIM card.
 

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Phone bloke in Heswall wanted £15 - I felt 99p was quite a bargain. I did look at the free unlock code places but I wasn't prepared to agree to their conditions.
 

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Well, all you really need is to go over to the XDA Developers forum, scout about for phone unlocking, and they usually have a freely available tool that'll unlock in less time than it takes to take the phone to a shop (and 99% of the time, the shops are using these pieces of software too, and charging for the use, which is against the conditions of the use of such tools!!), there's lots of clever people on that forum... :)

My previous phone, the Samsung Galaxy S, was quite odd in that it actually had the unlock code stored ON the phone, you just needed to access it with a simple DOS-based tool to read it, though I think when they updated the version of Android for that line of phones, it changed all that making it a little harder to access the code, but still accessible nonetheless... :D
 

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This is exactly why I only moved to the smartphone bandwagon about 6 months ago. Before that I used my trusty old Sony Ericsson W610i. I forgot how many times I dropped it and it never suffered any damage.

My HTC One X is in a very padded case, in case it does get dropped.
 

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Yes it must be a multi million pound business this screen repair lark, if I was not working ATM I would consider doing more but alas.................... I should not grumble, a bird in the hand etc
 

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Success

Yes I have managed to salvage the situation with the broken flip up connector.
(See photo for comparison with Micro SD card from phone)28082013 005 (1364 x 1091).jpg
I managed this by thinking what the flip mechanism actually does. indeed all
it does is press the ribbon contacts down onto the pins with minimal force to
effect a circuit path on each connector28082013 004 (1172 x 828).jpg . I carefully thought about how I
could simulated this contact pressure and first tried finding a stiff but thin material
to insert on top of the connector after it had been inserted into the now
flipless connector. A lightbulb moment made me reach for my airfix kit
polystyrene glue, I placed a blob on the back of the connector and left for 36
hours to harden into a dome shape28082013 003 (1260 x 977).jpg . As I then inserted the ribbon connector I felt some
pressure but was able to pull the ribbon in using the ridge of the connector.
re-assembled for the fourth time and dadaaaa.
The least I have are the full contents of the phone which my daughter
had not backed up and hopefully the phone can be re-used now that
the touch screen is working.
 

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Enterprising - I like that.
 

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Well done! Have a house point for that. Sadly mine was most definitely torn across the printed circuit
 

Lazarus

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Eh?

Have we run out of Blue Peter Badges?
 

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Not allowed to present them any more for H&S reasons as they are the old type with a safety pin at the back. ;)
 

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What a world we have become :(
 
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