Gadgetory

today I'm going to show you how to save a few hundred bucks by doing a Galaxy s4 screen replacement yourself remember if you do this right it'll be a ten dollar repair if you do this wrong it will end up being a lot more so proceed at your own risk check the links in the video description below for the current prices on replacement parts I've already taken apart this foam that's not causing a heat damage to the mainboard and charging port you can go ahead and click the link in the upper corner to see how I did that I also taped down the cables so that they won't be kinked or twisted in any way because if those cables are kinked or twisted it'll end up having a black screen that is unrepairable that'll be a more expensive repair anyway you want to gently heat up the phone it will take about four or five minutes if you heat up in one place too long there'll be a burn mark in the middle of the screen I use this handy laser heat sensor thing to tell me how hot the phone is I will put a link in the video description below for this as well it's relatively cheap now I'm taking a razor blade and gently putting it between the glass screen and the frame of the phone itself the adhesive up at the top is a little bit different than the adhesive that is covering the LCD so I'm using my knife to separate the top so I can slip my wire down inside I'm being really careful because right here on this corner there are two ribbon cables that are in charge of the LCD and digitizer if you rip those cables you're toast and you have to buy the more expensive replacement part here is the wire that I'm going to be using it's a special wire that's used for high-temperature applications like this I'm just going to take it wrap it around my fingers and then slide it in that top part where I've already separated the glass from the phone itself now the goal here is to work it over the earpiece on the phone and then slide it down the rest of the way you can see that it's getting harder for me to cut that because in the sixty seconds that I have not been eating up the phone its cooled down to the point that the glue is not liquid anymore so I'm going to go ahead and heat it up gently the perfect temperature range is anywhere from one hundred and eighty-five degrees Fahrenheit to about two hundred and ten it's about the same temperature as boiling water so when you touch the screen it's going to be too hot for your fingers I'm going to use my knife to separate and clear off this corner one more time and that should give me enough room to get this wire wedged down on the screen itself and then I can tuck downwards on both ends of the wire to separate the adhesive from the phone itself and the shattered glass that we're taking off if your wire does to catch on one of the glass shards you can just lift it up with your razor and then continue going downwards again what's nice about the galaxy has four screens is that they are laminated so they don't come off in shards they're all going to come off in one big piece you can see up at the top of the screen my wire has grabbed this little blue piece of plastic this is a shield that is over the LCD ribbon cable I'm just going to reach in with my tweezers and pull that out sometimes the wire grabs it sometimes it doesn't another method that you can use is playing cards if you get like poker cards you can use those to slide down in the screen instead of wire I actually prefer the poker card method better than the wire method so I'm going to make a video on that here in the next few weeks so don't forget to subscribe if you want to see that now I'm going to heat up the phone again as it's cooled down too much for me to pull the wire through remember once the phone gets too hot to touch you're good to go if it gets hotter than about 212 degrees though you're going to start having burn marks on the screen you can see how easily the wire slides between the shattered glass and the digitizer underneath my wire does catch on a glass shard right here and rips the wire so I'm just going to go ahead and pull it out the rest of the way grab a new piece of wire use my tweezers to just lift up the edge of the glass a little bit and then start over with a new piece of wire pretty simple the wire is pretty cheap as well so it's not too big of a deal if it breaks and then just continue separating the rest of the way down it's getting colder down to 137 I'm going to go ahead and heat it back up to about 190 200 degrees and then continue separating it the rest of the way down you have to be careful as you reach the bottom here because there is a little ribbon cable that is in charge of the menu buttons and the home button so you just want to get the edge of the screen and then once the screen is off as you can see right here you can lift up the glass and pull it away from the device itself this is the little ribbon cable that I was talking about and then I usually take my razor blade and just pry off the buttons from the glass itself making sure not to tear the cable at all even though the cable is only about 4 or 5 bucks it's nice if you can just reuse the old one and then I'm just going to separate the last segment of adhesive from the bottom of the screen and pull it off pretty straightforward and honestly if you've gotten this far the chances are you're going to succeed that getting the glass off is the hardest part here you can see the the shattered glass and how its laminated pretty good move the galaxy s3s weren't laminated they would come off in shards anyway so there is leftover adhesive on the screen of the phone so I'm going to go ahead and just kind of roll that off with my finger it comes off in chunks and it's also strangely satisfying so you can just sit here and roll off the rest the rest of the glue there also is a chance that you won't have any adhesive leftover on the screen it just kind of depends on how the phone was made and how old it is and the temperature you used to separate the glass from the phone and now before I do anything else I'm going to go ahead and test to the screen just to make sure I'm not wasting my time by putting a new one on remember that the digitizer which is the layer right underneath the glass is about as fragile as an egg and so if you break that then you're toast here's the little wire right here in the corner is what normally rips so make sure that there's no tears or anything in that cable if there is a tear buy a new one before you put the new screen on everything looks good with the phone the touch works even though the glass is not on the screen I'm going to go ahead and grab some denatured alcohol which is an alcohol specifically made for electronics to clean off the rest of the adhesive from the phone itself just go ahead and remember that the what we're dealing with here is about as fragile as an eggshell so don't press any harder than you would on the side of an egg now as far as replacing the glass goes you have two options the first of which is the easiest cheapest and most forgiving but will also leave your phone slightly more vulnerable to breaking again it's the double sided tape it's super cheap and all you have to do is lay down the tape around the edges of the phone and then rest the top glass in place over it and that's it you're done you have a fully functioning phone and it's ready to go there are a few places locally to me that only do this type of repair it is easier much easier the second option is using a local glue it is an ultraviolet light activated optical adhesive it's a little more complicated so I'll be making a part 2 video to follow up with this one and explain how that more complicated repair is done it's also not super expensive but you kind of have a bigger chance of ruining your phone but it is more durable as well anyway so if you're going to use the double sided tape make sure to cover up every part you know except for the earpiece and the home button and make sure to get the sides of the phone as well so that the screen will be completely adhered and dust won't be able to get inside the double sided tape is easy to peel off as you can see there grab the glass make sure to peel off both sides of the plastic lay it down into place so it's fully adhered to the sticky tape and you're done I would definitely recommend getting a case this time around go ahead and click on the top corner to see how the local glue is done thanks for watching if you have any questions make sure to leave in the comments don't forget to like if this video helped and don't forget to subscribe means a lot thanks for watching