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"If you can fix it, it's yours" - How I got a very cheap iPhone 5

Philip Martin -

iPhone 5

Afbeelding van het verhaal
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  • Afbeelding #3

iPhone 5 LCD and Digitizer Replacement

40 minuten - 1 uur

Moderate

Mijn probleem

While at a party, a friend trying to take pictures while dancing managed to fling her phone across the room shattering the display (the rest of the phone was fine). The cost for her to have Apple repair her device was the same as an upgrade so while she upgraded to a 5S, I received the challenge to attempt to repair it for ownership.

Mijn oplossing

This was my first time opening up an iPhone 5. Much like others have experienced - the screen is much harder to take off than most YouTube videos show - especially if the screen is severely shattered (like mine was). A combination of patience and heating with a hair drier helped loosen my screen, but after a half an hour of pulling with the extremely weak ifixit suction cup i resorted to using a razor blade instead of the green pick to help pry up the screen, which finally got it open ( while leaving one or two scratches on the chamfered edge). As soon as I started working on the screws I realized that they are extremely tiny. You need to be very careful, and make sure you organize your screws. The real trouble came when I went to put the front camera assembly from the old screen into the new screen. The original screen has a little cup for the camera, and a smaller slot for the ambient light sensor. The ifixit screen is missing these which makes it near impossible to line up the front facing camera. The way I got around this was cannibalising the cup from my old screen and somehow cramming it into the new one. This was a massive disappointment for me, but regardless I managed to work around it and align my camera. I'll try to include pictures of these these below (The 1st should be the two missing pieces, the 2nd what ifixit gives you, and the 3rd what it should look like with missing pieces installed). Finally, after closing up the phone the digitizer cables put considerable pressure on the LCD and were making a discoloration pattern. After pressing down on the screen a little bit, I heard a quiet snap as if something pushed into place, and there was no more pressure on the screen. In the end, my cameras, and my screen are working flawlessly, and the entire process was done in about an hour to an hour and half.

Mijn advies

If you have the money to spend, just spend the $60 and get the full display assembly. It'll still be less than what Apple wants, and you'll save yourself a lot of time, you won't have to worry about the missing camera holder, and it'll be a lot less dangerous to your phone.

The screen will take some work. Be patient.

A hair dryer (safer than a heat gun), will be helpful throughout the entire process. Have one near by.

Have some sort of system or safe location to put your screws!

Make sure you use a case or put a screen protector on your phone to make sure it doesn't happen again! ;)

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