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Repair information and guides for the iPhone 6S Plus that was released on September 25, 2015. Model A1687, A1634

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Is there a way to illuminate (white) iPhone LCD without a phone?

This may seem like an odd question, but I have a box of hundreds of broken iPhone LCD’s from 5 series through 8 series. These are non-recyclable due to digitizer failure or other issues. However, I have a hobby project in mind where I want to create an illuminated picture frame for small art pieces cut from translucent obsidian and other types glass. I want to use this box of otherwise useless LCDs as the backlight in these tiny display frames. My question is, how can I illuminate an iPhone LCD (a plain white screen is fine) without it being connected to a logic board? Does someone with knowledge of the schematics have any ideas on how to light up the LCD by sending voltage to certain pins on the LCD connector? My original thought was just to put power to the backlight pins themselves, but I know in the past I’ve seen screens with GPU issues where the backlight lights up, but the screen is actually still dark. And if there is a way to light the backlight alone in an iPhone screen, what voltage should be used? I know there is an inverter or coil on the logic board that ups the backlight voltage to something higher than the 3.8 volts of a typical iPhone battery.

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Getting the backlight to “light up” is pretty easy. You just need to supply it with 16V - 22V rail to the anode and a return via the two cathode lines. You could experiment a bit to see what works best as It’s hard to say with certainty if every iPhone model uses the same voltage (I’m assuming yes). If you look closely at the damaged screens, there is usually a small sticker covering the soldered contacts of the backlight.

As for the LCD, it is more complex and as a repair tech, I haven’t really spent any time trying to figure out how to use it independently ;>).

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