Phone, tablet and laptop glue

[Theo Markettos]

[posted to sci.electronics.repair then I thought might be on topic here, apologies for the multipost]

It seems to be the thing these days to build gadgets with glue rather than screws, so that all the bits like LCD, digitiser, battery and case are stuck together. This has caused much bewailing by the likes of iFixit, because things aren't fixable by a screwdriver any more.

I wonder whether the problem is that we need new tools and new approaches, rather than just giving up. For example, heat gun techniques seem to me a bad idea, because the heat goes away easily. It you're trying to lever the screen off with a few dozen guitar picks, that also places stress on the screen.

So I wonder what's a sensible heating method? For example, there's the 'hot pillow' approach:

Heat up pillow in microwave, apply to surface. For some reason this is a small pillow - I would have expected a better one would be the size of a dinner plate or larger, enough to take a whole tablet in one go. Or would that induce heating stresses in the screen?

Another approach is the temperature controlled table:

possibly with vacuum (either integral, or simply invert then use a sucker).

I wonder what kinds of household appliances could be abused to do the job? For instance, there's a nice use of toaster ovens as PCB reflow stations - just add a PID temperature controller.

Anyone done this and have any tips?

Thanks Theo

[Andrew Gabriel]

We do loads of mobile glass and screen replacements at repair events (I've only done a couple of Samsungs, but several colleagues specialise in mobiles). Traditionally, a hot air gun was used, but I have one of the Aldi minature butane blow-lamp/heatgun/soldering irons, and they now find that the heat gun attachment on that is the best, being hot and concentrated, it is much more controllable.

When you are replacing the glass, you are normally doing so because it's smashed into pieces - there's no point trying to heat the whole thing up at once, as you will end up removing it piece by piece anyway.

[Tim Watts]

Samsungs are fiddly - I have had one to bits but not as far as the glass. That was difficult enough :-o

[Theo Markettos]

Interesting. What's the risk of damaging the surface? I assume the heatgun is 'cleaner' heat than the blowlamp?

Well, it depends. On many you need to remove the glass to do a battery or mainboard replacement, or simple things like fixing the microphone. In that case you'd rather the screen comes out in one piece.

If the glass is shattered there's always this approach:

though your customer may not appreciate it ;-)

Theo

[GMM]

An excellent diversity of household cutlery in that one! I'm a bit surprised his fingers weren't shredded by all the glass fragments ( assuming that is real glass).

[Andrew Gabriel]

I'm not aware of it happening at any of our events. The glass obviously isn't going to come to any harm.

Of course, there's a risk when you open up any of these devices that they might never work again. I don't think we've ever had that happen with a phone, but it has with a tablet. Someone did bring in an iPhone they had tried doing themselves at home, because they couldn't get the battery connector to stay on. Well, it turned out they had pulled the surface mount socket off the motherboard, rather than unplugging the connector, and we didn't have a small enough soldering iron to repair that.

Doesn't seem to be an issue. The blowlamp only gives off CO2 and water vapour. (It's used in heat-gun mode, with a catalysing flameless grid.)

Ah, true for some iPhones - I don't do them!

When the glass is shattered, you can easily get a glass splinter (has happened to me), and you also need eye protection for all those around, as bits can ping off whilst you are working on it.

[Theo Markettos]

You know you're in trouble when you're wandering around the shops and spy the George Foreman grills and think 'I wonder if that would work...?'

Theo