Best Way to separate cracked glass from digitizer/LCD

[lom8104]

Cracked my screen earlier this week and have decided to replace the outer glass only (the LCD and digitizer work just fine) . I've seen a lot of folks on this site say that its not possible blah blah blah but a number of sucess stories can be found in this thread https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/423263/ .....

Anyway, my screen has several long cracks but is not polverized. What is the best way to break up the screen more without damaging the digitzer and LCD? I want to be careful to scrape and not pull the pieces off. I was thinking to hammer a pick in the black top and bottom sections and maybe try to use a hairdryer to heat and then an inverted canned air to freeze to force more cracks across the screen? Any thoughts?

Some say that the digitizer underneath the glass is also glass, is this the case?

 

[paulsostereo]

digitizer --- separate from glass

OK so here's my situation -

my digitizer is bad - outer protective screen is good - lcd is good.


the one million dollar question - can you remove the outer screen from the digitizer with out damaging the outer glass? -

then i have to remove the digitizer from the lcd?

ugh.. i found the digitizer piece on ebay for 10 bucks - called a repair tech i know and he said it is impossible and a scam -

what do you all think ? has anybody seen a thread that voices that it is actually possible? thanks!! this thread has been really helpful.

 

[NOFSChef]

My experience

OK, it is definitely possible to replace either the glass or digitizer. The glass is much trickier, but I have done it twice. There is a lengthy video on YouTube (probably 8 parts total) of two guys taking it a apart. I was the most realistic showing of how it goes.

Remove the two screws at the bottom of the phone, slide a thin screwdriver or separating tool between the glass and silver bezel at the bottom and separate the screen from the rest. There are three cables at the top of the phone that connect the earpiece, digitizer and screen, carefully disconnect those and the screen setup comes free.

Then there are 5 or so small screws that hold the digitizer/glass to the lcd. It is very importaint to remove these or you will probably screw up the LCD. At this point the second poster can easily replace the digitizer. Here a heat gun or hairdryer comes in handy. Heat the glass for several minutes to loosen the adhesive and start working the glass off. It helps if it is in pieces, but be very careful not to bend the digitizer - it is supposedly next to impossible to get it back if you do.

IF you buy replacement glass on eBay, make sure to get the adhesive strips also - they are sold seperately and you need them to attach your new screen

Good luck!!