Adventure iPhone Repair via iCracked!
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Adventure iPhone Repair via iCracked!
 
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An adventure right here in river city! I recently cracked my iPhone 4s screen. I'm not sure if it was caused by a drop, or by my carrying my phone in my pants front pockets .. and bumping a door or something. I was surprised by the crack until I read that iPhone 4 glass breaks are 82% higher than the earlier iPhone 3gs after 4 months of use. (This from a warrantee company)
The usual "fix" is to trade it in for a new phone, getting replacement value for your broken phone .. i.e. a cost of $200 and hassling with Apple and Verizon. I started to look for alternatives and was surprised how many you-tube videos showed how to "tear down" the iPhone (and most others as well, this is a general problem). And there are kits from places like iFixIt and iCracked that are do-it-yourself.
iCracked is a recent Y-Combinator award winner .. VC money with a fascinating business model: they train folks all over the US so that they immediately became a large company with hundreds of local repair people. They have three modes for customers getting their phone fixed: 1: mail in to iCracked central and get it fixed a few days, 2: find a local repair person (there are 3 in Albuquerque!) or 3: DIY kit.
Here's their DIY video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EXTWp6bd6Y&feature=related
Normally I wouldn't think much about DYI but with computers and phones getting smaller and smaller, they are costlier to do simple thing like repairing batteries etc. Heck .. I decided to buy some tools, buy the kit, and see if its possible.
Well, it seems to have worked! I just stitched up the patient and its doing OK, apparently. We'll see after a few days if there are any oddities. As a side note, it turns out teens here in Santa Fe are doing this for pay. One neighbor mentioned a classmate charging $40 + parts cost for screen repairs, so its not a bad business.
Here are some pix: A picture of the work space: The tool setup, showing a ridged work surface to make sure parts and screws don't get lost! A closeup of the above, showing the chart used of the steps for the tear-down. A view of the instructional video .. a really great tool! -- Owen
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: Adventure iPhone Repair via iCracked!
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Owen, so glad you live near me, so I know where to bring the doll to be fixed!
On May 10, 2012, at 4:51 PM, Owen Densmore wrote:
"Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show."
Charles Dickens, opening lines of David Copperfield ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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My wife and I are both literally hell on iphone and even MacBook
screens. I've successfully replaced 2G and 3G 3Gs glass, though
the last time into my 3gs to replace *back*, *battery* *and* glass,
I'd apparently insulted the "video" connector/cable to the
motherboard one too many times... the screen is blank unless I
squeeze the phone just right... but this was the third time into
all this on that phone and a good excuse to go to a 4.
Overall, I feel like the 4's screens are *more* robust... Just Friday I was driving to Denver, discovered I didn't have my phone 1 mile down the road, went back and looked high and low for an hour only to finally find it when I gave up and discovered it had in fact fell off the top of my car in my driveway... dusty and overheated (in the sun) but no broken (or even scuffed) screen! I like the DIY motto: If you can't open the case, you don't own it. What kind of technoweenies are we if we can't follow a youtube video and do some simple component replacement? - Steve Owen, so glad you live near me, so I know where to bring the doll to be fixed! ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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On Thu, May 10, 2012 at 5:12 PM, Steve Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:
Yeah, its clear to me that my 4s won't survive this done more than once more, its pretty tough on the insides of the critter. I made at least 4 mistakes I feared would be fatal, but weren't. Damn these screws and protectors are TINY!
iCracked is changing almost daily. I went back to look at the parts they sell, and they have one real life-saver: a complete screw set: As you may have found out, they can easily be lost. I was surprised I didn't loose one, but it was close. One stunt I used was to use scotch tape loops on the workflow chart to place the screws on. Worked quite well.
Question: I have not yet mastered the reassembly stunt that requires you to take these micro crews and place them accurately on your magnetic screw driver. They seldom "seat" properly and thus are always slipping and getting off-center. I ended up using a travel magnifying glass (only 2x or so) held in one hand, steadying the driver w/ screw. But getting the screw in place is an artform that I hope the pros can tell me about.
Do you have any tricks? I tried tweezers but heaven help you if they "pinch" sending the screw across the room! They're all the size of a period at the end of this sentence.
Whoa, now that is encouraging! The "82% higher" is pretty old, and definitely pre-iPhone4s. My personal concern is wondering what happened causing my screen to crack. I had dropped my earlier iPhone 2g (original) several times with no problem. I've dropped the 4s 2 or 3 times, generally bending over and having it drop out of a shirt pocket. Never saw a crack. That's why I think my putting the phone in pants pocket may be the culprit.
I'm not a case user, why should I make a beautiful thing ugly! But iCracked included a bumper and a screen protector with the order .. I guess I'll try them.
Well, honestly, its a bit harder than that, but courage and taking your time and listening to EVERY word on the video does bring it into the capacity of a 70 year old tech-y.
-- Owen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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Owen -
yes and amen to all that!
I hit the vision wall myself a few years ago... I've not had an eye test, but what was an acute 20/20 is now pretty lame when it comes to small things up close. I use a hands-free magnifying glass, the kind that come from China for like $3.99 at Harbor Freight? I also used the highest power reading glasses I had laying around (I can hardly stand to use reading glasses, they make me crazy, but sometimes they are the only option). Yes, that is disconcerting. I must have dropped my 2G 30 times onto various hard surfaces without a crack... then one day as I dropped it, I commented to my nephew that "it never cracks" and viola! it was cracked! Given our track record with screens, we are pretty good about working around the cracks, though the style of cracking on my 3gs meant that I picked up tiny slivers of glass in my fingertip for the first week... and eventually the touch screen started to flake in areas that were important (answer the phone? no way!). I'm not big on cases either... but given my screen breakage style I've thought I would design my own based around a set of brass knuckles, called the iKnuckles. The case would come as an add-on to an app that upon a sharp blow would put up the image of a cracked/crazed screen over the surface. This grew out of my flip irritation with the many people who think they can tell others when/where/how to use their phones. I don't get much of this myself because I'm actually thoughtful, polite and careful when and where I use my phone, but I've heard one too many self-righteous boobs tell off someone else or make rude comments in front of them about their texting or talking on the phone. So when people commented on my cracked screen I just told them it happened the last time somebody made a rude comment about my using my phone in their presence and I "just popped them one!". I can't tell you how many times I rewound several different videos and *hated* the makers of the videos because NONE of them actually showed re-assembly... they simply stopped at the end and said "reverse the process to reassemble)... watching the tiny components popping loose when you unscrew or tug them apart is not always that helpful for understanding the tricks to putting them back in place! The point still holds, we *should* be able to do this kind of repair if we call ourself techies, but it is not for the faint of heart! An inordinate amount of my misspent youth was misspent rebuilding carburators on various vehicles I owned. Anyone with experience with such can see the relevance... when you release a part and check-ball just about twice the size of the proverbial period at the end of the sentence, propelled by an equally tiny spring, flies across the room, it is quite frustrating... and of course, the thing about finishing the rebuild and discovering you still have parts left is also quite disconcerting (until you realize that they furnish extra screws, check valves, springs, etc. just in case you lose one, and they make a single kit for a dozen variations on the same carbuerator). As always, good workflow management (and yes loops of scotch tape sound promising) and very careful step-by-step processing is key. I *also* photographed each configuration before I disconnected anything... it was *almost* enough... but still I think I had to back up several times, thus adding to the ultimate trauma that left me with only 3 rebuilds before failure. I was raised to believe in investing in good tools and learning to keep them sharp, well lubricated and how to do repairs as needed, this is the one thing I like YouTube videos for... most of the rest of the time, I find them a terrible sinkhole of my time! - Steve ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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2012/5/10 Steve Smith <[hidden email]>
Haven't been rebuilding any phones, yet, but dealing with surface mount components for kit building is much the same. Head mounted magnification, the visor thingy with replaceable lenses in it, absolutely indispensable for years around here. Tweezers are difficult if you don't practice with them under magnification, you need to develop a completely different force feedback loop for handling tiny parts.
The tiny screws may be non-magnetic. That would require balancing the screw on the tip of the screwdriver, pointed up, and bringing the hole to it. -- rec -- ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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In reply to this post by Steve Smith
The trick is don't look at what you're doing when trying to seat the
itty-bitty screws on the driver. You'll have better luck seating
them by feel. Also know that Apple products often use several
different driver sizes for the same machine. I had to buy several
sets to get the right combination of sizes for a Macbook Pro fan
replacement.
A good jeweler's loop that fits on your glasses helps. (You have glasses, right?) I also tried working under sunlight with a jeweler's loop on good polarized sunglasses, which kinda helped a bit, maybe because it was weird enough to keep my attention from slipping. The old iBooks, you had to dismantle the entire machine in order to get at the cracked screen. I could almost hear some designer laughing diabolically.... On 5/10/12 10:56 PM, Steve Smith wrote: Owen - ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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Just FYI: I bought these for my next projects:
It really makes a huge difference. I looked at things that I couldn't see well before, even with a magnifier. All crystal clear now. The 2.5x model was recommended by a few reviewers and I agree, you don't need large magnification and the related 8" focal length is very convenient.
Using a binocular magnifier did make a difference too, and the headband design is very comfortable and effective. -- Owen
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
Re: Adventure iPhone Repair via iCracked!
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Now we need the mad engineer portrait of you in it. -- rec -- On May 12, 2012 6:08 PM, "Owen Densmore" <[hidden email]> wrote:
Just FYI: I bought these for my next projects: ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org |
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