Whats up YouTube?! I have a fantastically interesting video for you today. If you are
watching this you either have deep love for technology guts, OR... your phone is broken...
And you want me to show you how to fix it. Well... You're in the right spot. Today I
am going to show you how to do a GLASS ONLY iPhone repair with Dry ICE! If you are subscribed
to my channel already ... You are seriously the best type of human. If you have not yet
subscribed.... Hit that subscribe button and buckle up. We are JerryRiggin' all the things.
So I have two cracked, but still completely functional iPhone screens in front of me that
have already been removed from their phones. The black one is an iPhone 6, the white one
is an iPhone 5. You can watch my previous videos for the screen removal process. This
particular video is JUST explaining the Dry Ice Glass removal. I paid about 5 bucks for
this block of dry ice.
Now, iPhone screens are made up of a few different layers. The important layers that YOU need to worry
about is the top layer, which is just glass. Under that you have the digitizer layer and
the LCD. Both of those are fused together in one unit. And is about as
fragile as an egg shell. You think I'm joking about that egg shell stuff? But I'm not. Its
VERY fragile.
Now... normally when a tech does a 'glass only' repair. They either have super expensive
refurbishing equipment, OR it is possible to use a heat gun to bring the phone up to
100 degrees Celsius. To melt the glue between the Top Glass and LCD layer, it is a difficult
and painstaking process. Now, I was on the phone with TECH MD, another YouTube channel
about a week ago, and we were talking about the new Liquid Nitrogen machines that can
FREEZE off the glass. These liquid nitrogen machines can get down to -140 degrees Celsius.
Which is incredibly cold. But the machines also cost thousands of dollars.
Now, Dry ice, while not as cold as liquid nitrogen, gets to about – 80 degrees Celsius,
and is available at most grocery stores. So I was curious to see if that was cold enough
to accomplish a 'glass only' repair. AND IT WAS! As you've seen, I set the broken glass screens
on the dry ice, and let it sit for about 5-10 minutes to get to temperature. Then I can
lift the screen up and gently twist it in my hands to break away the glass from the
LCD. When I tell you to be gentle... I mean GENTLE. It's like trying to flex Doritos without
cracking it. I was also able to use a razor
blade and playing cards to help persuade the glass off the LCD. The iPhone 6 screen was
easier than the iPhone 5 screen.
The nice thing about dry ice is that it is never actually a liquid. So you don't have
to worry about liquid damaging your screens. It goes from a icy solid, to a gas through
a process called 'Sublimation' Now... this is also important to know... because Dry Ice
is made up of Solid Carbon Dioxide. Carbon dioxide is not as good as oxygen when it comes
to staying alive... so make sure to open any windows in your car or kitchen when you are
transporting this stuff. I don't want any dead Do-It-Yourselfers out there. Hit that
thumbs up button if you enjoy Oxygen.
I am going to test the iPhone 6 screen by plugging it back into the phone. And everything
functions! Yeah Science! It still has glue residue on the screen, so I still need to
clean that off, Apply the liquid optical adhesive, and the new glass layer: BUT ALL that will be explained at minute
mark 8:20 in the linked video.
Dry ice is also extremely cold and can BURN you. Yes. Ice can burn. Treat it like a hot
coal from a fire, wear gloves if you have to touch it directly. I imagine that with
a 5 dollar block of ice like this one... an experienced tech could repair about 4 or 5
phones before it sublimates into oblivion.
The more glass I remove from the screen, the quicker the screen warms up. So I have to
keep setting it on the block of ice to cool down and get the glue brittle again before
I can break off more glass.
The iPhone 5 was much more shattered than the 6. But with my razor blade I could put
a little pressure on each shard of glass and break it off individually. It is much easier
to work with a cold phone than a hot phone. When I do this repair with heat it is blazing
hot and almost untouchable the entire time.
Now... for those of you attempting to do this repair... Keep in mind that even though both
of my phones were successful, ive been doing this for a long long time. For noobs, the
success rate is very low. I've broken hundreds of screens trying to get good at this. So
it might be more cost effective and healthier on your sanity to just buy the complete screen
and install that, instead of attempting the brain surgery equivalent of cell phone repair.
As you can see the iPhone 5 is also fully functional. If you want to watch the glue
cleaning and Liquid optical adhesive application, and the installation of the new glass, click
this link to watch the video starting at the 4 minute mark. Make sure to keep the LOCA
glue off of the edges of the LCD, so it doesn't seep into the backlight.
Thank you so much for watching and subscribing. My viewers like YOU make videos like this possible.
I appreciate it a ton! Leave any questions in the comments. I hope to see you around!