Re: Adventure iPhone Repair via iCracked!
Posted by
Carl Tollander on
May 11, 2012; 5:26am
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Adventure-iPhone-Repair-via-iCracked-tp7548324p7549250.html
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 -
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!
yes and amen to all that!
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.
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).
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!
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.
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 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.
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 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?
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.
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
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============================================================
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