Ipad repairs - digitizer and LCDS

[River Valley Computer]

OK - about 2 months ago I was commenting on how lucrative repairs are on IPad minis and Airs.

Well.........................we have two techs who were doing great on them - about 4-6 a week were coming in and turning them around in a day (after adhesive sets).

This is another month and I don't know what has changed but the last 5 or 6 that they have repaired have developed digitizer problems or power on issues. The digitizers are unresponsive in certain areas and others will not power on. They probably repaired 30-35 of them with no problems - not true the last two weeks.

We googled these issues and many are saying the replacement digitizers have some exposed contacts that cause the problem and you need to cover the contacts before assembling. WE have been using the same digitizers from the same company all along.

Has anyone else experienced this issue??????

We DEFINITELY would be doing cell phones

 

[frase]

DONT purchase cheap UNORIGINAL PARTS..simple

 

[kwest]

DONT purchase cheap UNORIGINAL PARTS..simple

You can't buy original parts unless you are Apple. Yes buy good parts with warranty. My supplier gives me 6 months.

 

[frase]

As far as I know iFixit sell OEM parts

 

[kwest]

They do not sir. They sell expensive parts.

 

[gadgetfixup]

Practically every digitizer we replace we have to mask off the problem areas. You need to look at an original glass next time you remove one and compare to your replacement.

What happens is when you replace them, you're not smashing down on the glass down around the home button or lower half so you think the repair is a success. Customers are much more violent with usage. Many repairs don't exhibit "ghost touches" until you smash down that lower area and then they won't stop ghost touching. Practically all that we replace will ghost touch if you don't mask off all the places vendors miss. GV even has videos showing some of the problem areas but still sells the glass without masking off these areas - smh. To me, if you know your replacement part won't work 90% of the time without masking off an area, I'd think you'd have people masking. They apparently don't agree.

Yeah don't call a repair good until you've pressed hard that whole bottom area to make sure ghost touches don't occur. We have 5 different widths of kapton tape just to mask contact areas.

Our latest issue with digitizers are tape that doesn't stick! We clean the old surfaces spotless, swab it down with alcohol, peal and stick the new glass, heat it up, clamp it down for hours. Verify no ghost touches. Two days later the darn glass looks like we never stuck it down with lifts everywhere. I think we're done buying pre-adhesive glass and just use our own tape we know works. Last few, we've had to do over, peeling all their cheap tape, install our good stuff and putting it all back down. A real pita.

 

[Krynn72]

Kapton tape and BowlerTech adhesives have solved a lot of our problems. inbargains hit the nail on the head regarding phantom touch issues. They're still finnicky though. Last week a mini and an air came back because of deadzones in the digitizer. The mini didn't even have the digitizer replaced, we just fixed the home button on it. It had a deadspot in the top right. I fixed the mini by cleaning the frame again, removing the adhesive from the part and replacing it with new bowlertech adhesive, and just reseating the cable. Worked fine then, so deadspots are not necessarily a result of bad parts.

The Air I have to look at today, but we did replace that digitizer and about the bottom 1/4 inch of the screen isn't responding. Most likely it will be the same deal, clean the frame, new adhesive, reseat cable.

 

[River Valley Computer]

So where do you all buy 'quality' parts? We have tried Ifixit - sometimes good - sometimes bad. We found a company in Springfield,MO that is excellent for support but their quality has been slipping too. Any suggestions? None of us really need these headaches from poor quality parts.

 

[gadgetfixup]

I'm beginning to think there isn't a good quality provider of aftermarket parts. But I've only used 4 different vendors so there definitely could be a better one than we tried.

We just ordered 10 iPad Mini charging ports to solder to mainboards. The first 3 were defective. Wasted 3 hours before getting a good one. The bad ones had solder splattered all over the cable. I think we'll start ordering from China so tossing them in the trash doesn't hurt as bad. We tried to RMA them and of course accused of not soldering them correctly. Well I understand, not just anyone can solder those cables but we've only been doing it a couple years and done a few hundred at least. I'd rather just get them cheaper and toss them in the trash when they're defective.

For glass, once you get better adhesives, we use nothing but 3M, and know where to mask those digitizers then you'll worry less about who's name is on the glass. We've purchased $15 glass and $40 glass and can't hardly tell the difference other than a lighter wallet.

 

[Krynn72]

I think the problem is that there are only a small handful of manufacturers. All the suppliers get their inventory from these limited manufacturers. So everyone is pretty much selling the same parts. What makes people say one place is better than another is the supplier's quality control. A place may test every single digitizer and earn a great reputation for selling only good parts, and then more and more people start buying from them because of that rep. As their volume gets larger and larger, quality control can't keep up, so they start to test just a small amount out of each batch they receive. As a result more defective ones slip through. Its not that your preferred supplier is making worse quality parts, its that they're not catching defective ones at the rate they used to.

Its all conjecture, but thats why I think we'll never find a reliable supplier :/

 

[kwest]

Don't laugh but seller on dhgate called assphone. Company is efaith. We buy everything in bulk from them. Rma is a pain because you don't what to ship it back. So far I haven't had to. I just send photos and after a couple emails they send me extra on the next shipment. iPhone 6 parts are good as well.

 

[AlohaTech]

We have had pretty good luck with a company called Group Vertical. They offer qty discounts and wholesale accounts. I work in an educational environment so we have an educational account with them.

 

[frase]

They do not sir. They sell expensive parts.

Fair enough never purchased anything from them, as are expensive even for tools which one can do the same thing with equipment in ones tool shed. Opening kits lol - just need a Keycard and Guitar Picks

 

[JamalAshur]

There is OEM parts you just need to find the right supplier ask them if they get it from Foxconn.

 

[kwest]

There is OEM parts you just need to find the right supplier ask them if they get it from Foxconn.

But they are not oem by definition if they are not bought from Apple. May be who supply's Apple but not oem

 

[JamalAshur]

Actually Foxconn is who makes and supplies all Apple LCD and Digitizer so they are OEM.

 

[kwest]

So if the bottler of Pepsi agreed to sell me bottled soda would it be pepsi?

 

[Mercenary Roadie]

The only way it's an OEM Apple part is if it has the Apple logo on it or it's in a bag with all of the Apple stock numbers on it.

Just because you bought it from Foxconn doesn't mean it's a legitimate Apple part. These Chinese manufactures are known for running off extra runs of parts and selling them on the gray market. Only problem is they don't do all of the quality checks that they do when making the real parts.

 

[River Valley Computer]

I think we have found the solution - we are going to quit doing IPAD and tablet repairs. We have probably done 100 of them over the last 9-10 months but this month has totally turned us off. We have had to tell at least 6 customers that their tablets are not repairable. Now before someone fires off that we are doing it wrong I don't think that is the case. The same two techs that were doing them last Fall are the same ones doing them this month and the only variable is 'crappy' parts. Our reputation is more important than the $40 profit.

We found a new startup company that came to town last month and they said they would give us 20% for any tablet (or phone) that we send to them and they repaired. $20 for just referring is a lot better that worrying ourselves silly over the numerous problems with repairing them.

 

[JamalAshur]

I am sorry but maybe i should've made this clear i order about 4,000 dollar worth of merchandise from china every month all of them for apple products and i have being doing it for about 5 years. I know what OEM is and I know most of the companies that do this. I know which ones make their own screens and the ones that don't so both of you chill with your silly analogies If you don't know what you're talking about its okay to say I don't know. and OP i think thats a smart choice sometimes its better to be the middleman in business then to be the front man.