Skip to main content
« Back to All Stories

With experience (and dirty adhesive) comes speed

lizalayne -

My Problem

We have an iPad that we have been for my daughter's education- she is 3 and has autism, but has always responded to people well using the iPad. I'd stepped on this iPad when it was left on the floor by the rugrat. We recieved an older, second iPad- iPad original- and I decided to try to repair this one so each of us had one to use at all times. I also wanted to troubleshoot my Wi-Fi. I hadn't used the iPad much after downloading OS 7, until I had the screen replaced. After doing both, I noticed decreased Wi-Fi connectivity. I had seen online comments about having Wi-Fi problems from both replacing the screen and downloading OS 7, and I wanted to make sure I hadn't cut or dislocated anything slightly that was connected to Wi-Fi.

My Fix

I'd replaced this screen once before when she dropped the tablet on its corner and it spiderwebbed across part of the screen, so I knew what I was doing. I hadn't adequately removed the previous adhesive, and used my hair dryer as a heat gun. It took less than ten minutes to get the screen removed cleanly.

Placing the adhesive strips around the edges of the screen was tricky, because there wasn't a clear picture of which adhesive strip to put where on the instruction screen. I guessed which ones to use based on the picture of the full front panel assembly, but the adhesive strips were shaped differently and the opening on the upper right side of the front panel is now toward the right end of the top side of the digitizer panel. I can live with that for now, but I plan to do it properly if anything like this happens again.

Everyone makes a big deal (out of caution and to make people aware) of the locations of buttons and the wi-fi antenna. After taking things apart, though, I found nothing wrong with the antenna. I unscrewed part of it but it didn't have any loose bits, and I didn't see any play in the plug where it was connected to the logic board. Everything looked good. I have Cerebral Palsy with tremors in my hands, and I can't trust my hand-eye coordination. I was very nervous the first time I replaced the digitizer (this is why, on my first go, I rushed through replacing the screen when the adhesive wasn't properly removed). I had two screaming kids to keep track of at the time I was changing things out, and it STILL worked fine for me.

My Advice

One thing that made it easier to keep the screen clean while I was changing out the parts was using disposable nitrile gloves to keep my finger oils off things. I had a terrible time keeping track of fingerprints last time, and that kept me from observing dust between the screen and the glass. This time, I was only working on one thing at a time-- the dust-- and it was gone quickly. This repair looks much better.

Also, the little piece of adhesive that belongs in the upper right hand corner could be attached to the metal case instead of the screen, so that the open space in the adhesive stays in the right place.

I wish there had been an instruction manual just for the adhesive, because I didn't want to dig through the instruction manual for the entire replacement when I had it basically memorized.

Also, I much prefer a carefully aimed hairdryer over an iOpener. It's a great concept but mine never got more than warm on the one-minute setting that is recommended, and I couldn't get the glass off with anything but the hairdryer.

iPad 3/4 Screen Digitizer Image
iPad 3/4 Screen Digitizer

$24.99

« Back to All Stories

0 Comments

Add Comment