DIY GUIDE TO REPLACING THE 19$ BROKEN GLASS on the galaxy note

rubberwheels said:

Does this apply for thr note 2 as well?

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drevilatwork said:

hi folks. i managed to replace my galaxy note front glass with a new one i got from ebay for 19$ and i want to make a step by step guide on how it can be done.
i did it using common tools and a s load of pacience and attention.
the tools i used are: heat gun with hi and low settings, exacto knife set,small phillips and flat screwdrivers, goo gone, and optional a screen protector.

first take the phone apart as it's describet in countless of threads and youtube videos. you should end up with the screen assembly shown in the first picture.

now we have to separate the glassscreen from the frame it sits on. for this we fire up the heat gun.
a few words about using the heat gun.
-my gun had 2 settings: low and high. during all this process i used it on low.
-don't put the gun directly and/or close to the thinn plastic wires that hold the two connectors.
- dont hold the gun in the same place more than 3 seconds, instead swipe the gun around the spot and the screen like u would do with a paint brush when painting.
- dont hold the gun too close, that is closer than 3 inch
-concentrate on the spot u working at but try to heat up the whole screen assembly, as it has to give away from all the points kind of at the same time, and not just the point u working at.
- dont overheat the screen as this will damage the amoled. thats how i got the two yellow spots on my screen. first one by accident and second one intentionaly to see if indeed the overheating is what caused it.
A very good rule for this is dont heat the phone more than you can bear to touch it cause afterall you have to hold the phone while working on it...
the way i did it is :

-i heated up the whole screen assembly, back and front, for a minute or two
- than i started to stick the tip of the exacto knife between the glass and the metal edge that sorrounds it. i started from the upper right corner, the side where the front camera is. see photo 2.
the goal is to unstick the glass from the frame. in photo 3 the frame and the screen is shown without the upper glass. this photo was taken after i finished everything, thats why the screen can be seen inside the frame. but i posted it to show the black sticky tape that its used to hold the glass to the frame. i think is the same kind of sticky tape thats used in all the touchphones including iphone to hold the front glass to the rest of the phone. in photo 4 i unsticked some of the tape to show it better. this tape is the main thing that holds the the glass to the frame. the other thing that hold the screen to the frame is some sticky glue on the back of the screen. but this is much softer and thiner glue. this is the reason why i say to heat up the whole screen assemby including the backside, to make it easyer to unstuck the glass and scren thats glued to it.
- once you get a bit of a foothold in the upper corner between and the glassand the frame you continue the folowing procedure again and again until the glass and screen detaches from the frame:
-every 2 minutes or so , when i feel the asemby cooled down, i'd heat up the whole assembly for 5 seconds or so, than concentrate on the spot i worked on for another 5 seconds, than move/push the exacto knife a bit. dont force it. after a while youl get a feel of it. if the exacto knife happend to be out, i would heat up the blade after heating up everything else, and than put the blade in.
prevent the freed parts from sticking back to the frame by using the rest of the exacto knife blades as shims.
once it detaches it should look like photo 5- the glass glued to the screen.

- now we have to detach or unglue the glass from the screen.
procedure is the same: start somewhere, heat, put knife in, etc... i used a second knife as shim folowing the first knife, and after avery couple moves i would get the knife out and wipe off the epoxy glue. heat the blade and put it back in.

when finished you should have something like photo 6 and 7: free screen covered in glue epoxy residue.

- now we have to get rid of the glue residue. i took the bulk of it usinga flat exacto knife blades like the one in photo 8 and 10. just warm the place a bit with the air gun and scrape it off with the blade. to clean what was left i used a bit of goo gone on a pice of cloth or napkin photo 9.
cleaned screen can be seen in photo 11 - sadly out of focus.
if u are like me and r impatient to test the screen you can just connect with just the side connector like in photo 12 and 13. the upper connector is for the s pen digitizer. side connector is for the screen and touch digitizer.

now all that's left is to put the phone back together except leave the new glass for last.
-first thing is to put the screen(without the glass) back on the frame. try to center it just right, so that ther's a little bit of space between the sides of the screen and the frame.
at this point all that will hold the screen to the frameis the thin layer of glue on the back of the screen. after centering and lowering the screen in the frame procede to put the phone back together folowing in reverse order the same steps used to disasambe it. when finished you should end up with the whole functioning phone except the front glass -as seen in photo 14.

now you can chose to trim and put a screen protector on the scree so as to fill the empty space between the screen and the glass - the space where the glue was, or you can just leave it empty. you can put a screen protector anytime after by removing the glass. which should be much easier to remove now that its held in place only by the blach sticky tape on the edges. just use some suction cap to remove it, starting at an age, and remove it like fliping a page. see photo 16. i used the note for 2 weeks without the screen protector in the empty space and it worked without a problem onlt thing was that when i pushed hard the glass would touch the screen and leave a bit of dirt in that place. thats why i decided to put the screen protector to fill the void. in photo 15 i raised the screen protector to make it visible in the photo.

if you are like me and worry that somehow the glass might fall off the phone you can always get a hard plastic case for the phone, like the one in the pics. it's made of 2 parts. one goes on the back one on the front and they snap togeter around the phone. this will hold the glass in place no matter what while it will also protect the phone.the case is in photos 17 and 18. i got this one of ebay for 8$ and free shipping.

the last thing to be done is:
for some reaseon the touch screen became much more sensitive after removing the glue so you need to lover the touch sensitivity. for this get the touchscreentune app from the market. it works with galaxy note and galaxy s2. put the sensitivity from the recomended 25 to 50.

the best thing about this procedure is that i dont have to worry about the f ing glass anymore. if it brakes again i'l just order another one and in under 2 minutes i can replace it. all i have to do is get the phone case off, put a suction cap on , , remove the old glass , and put the new glass. that's it.

because it takes 4 to 8 hours i would recommend the process to be done in 3-4 sessions as people would get tired after 2 hours of work and tend to lose focus, attention, patience and start to push to get it faster done, and that's when bad stuff happens like yellow spot burn on the screen or small scratches. another thing about scratches, even if u manage to scrach the screen dont worry to much as the scratches are almost invisible when the screen turns on. youl see what i mean ....

i do have one question: WHY DID SAMSUNG DECIDE TO GLUE THE SCREEN TO THE GLASS INSTEAD OF HAVING THEM SEPARATE LIKE ALL THE OTHER TOUCHPHONES?

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Mussels84 said:

just popping in to say theres lots of threads about this all over XDA, and i've repaired many phones now.

S3, S4, and now a note II.


My advice:

always, ALWAYS use an OCA adhesive (cheap, easy, can make it look 'wet' where glass touches it) or LOCA.

without it, the phones build up a static charge inside, and can collect dust and debris. they work for quick testing, but ALWAYS have side effects.

Always use a UV blacklight glove - cost me $15 for a 24W 'power saver' blacklight globe that cures LOCA in about 5 minutes, vs sunlight that does a crap job after several days. cheaping out with a low power globe or trying to use sunlight WILL result in leakage, and you'll have horrible patches under the glass where air got back in.

so in summary:

1. remove glass, clean it well. START FROM THE TOP! careful of touch sensitive buttons at the bottom!
2. remove everything from the LCD/frame - cameras, PCB, etc. you dont want to risk LOCA gunking up your camera lens, do you?
2. OCA strip, or LOCA adhesive (i vote LOCA every time - do it well and its good as new)
3. if you used LOCA, UV the crap out of both sides of the phone for as long as you can. if you get dried or wet LOCA gumming up the sides of the LCD, clean it off, and UV it again - theres likely un-dried liquid still in there somewhere.
4. put phone back together, enjoy. done right it looks good as new. done wrong its better than smashed glass, and a lot cheaper than a new phone!

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