iPhone5 repair success

Mijn probleem

My 13 year old son dropped his iPhone5 a few weeks ago. It cracked the screen at the bottom, near the home button. He lived with it that way for several weeks until the crack spread across most of the screen. We found IFIXIT on the web and ordered a kit with tools.

Mijn oplossing

I wanted my son to perform the repair himself. I repair a lot of things (although never an iDevice) and thought this would be best if he discovered how to perform such a repair. He watched the video and read the guide. We got prepared and I left him to start the repair. After 45 minutes I checked in with him. He had just got the old screen off. To his defence, he was being very careful not to break anything by force the glass off. And the glass was broken/shattered, which made it very difficult even with the provide suction cup. I came in to help and I used a bit more force to remove the broken parts. After carefully removing the parts, following the guide, we quickly put the new parts back and the phone is working 100%, and looks great!

Mijn advies

The screws! They are soooo small. Make sure you are working in a clean area and have your reading glasses at hand. At one point you remove a component that requires a bit of heat. The video shows a heated pad of some kind. We used a regular 100 watt lightbulb by placing the phone near the bulb for a few seconds. Heat is key at that step to get the component removed. If (when?) we do this again for another iDevice, we will be quicker. We were very careful, and thus it took us 75 minutes to complete the job.