IPad 1 repair - OJ incident

A buddy of mine brought me an IPad Gen 1 to look at. Apparently one of his kiddos spilled a cup of orange juice all over it. He went to the all mighty google and learned how to open Ipad so he could take a look. I'm guessing he thought he was dealing with a simple cell phone fell in the toilet kinda problem. After breaking a coax connector (from LCD side) he decided he was out of his league and brought this beast to me. I love how all my friends think I can repair anything electronic under the sun.

First thing first was fix the coax connector - done. Plugged it and nada - no image on screen, so sounds, lights, bells or whistles. So I opened it back up and probed around for any voltages. I didn't find anything. I then informed the owner that I would have to tear down into this thing and by no means guarentee I won't cause more damage. After his blessing I removed the charger connector board. It was covered in OJ so I tried to clean it with alcohol to no avail. I then spot tested it with electron 3A and it held up fine so I dipped it in a jar filled with electron 3A. The chemical ate thru the orange juice no problem. I connect this board to the usb cable and measured around and didn't see anything suspicious. Before putting it back in I decided to do the same cleaning to the other two boards. I reconnected the boards and was now able to access the picture memory...Yay! (btw this guy has a hot wife, lol)

Thinking I was done I reconnected the LCD and turned the unit on put still no image. Hmmm, feeling defeated I for whatever odd reasons decided the clean the finger prints off the screen. This proved to be something of a miracle. I was able to see a very, very dim clock time and slide arrow. OMG it works...maybe. Well i found my way to adjust the brightness but it didn't get brighter.../wrists. Then God sends me some help in the form of my electronic design engineer with 40+ years experience. He says oh thats just the back light thats dead. Try looking for a power supply circuit that would have a step up transformer to run the back light leds. So behind the LCD is a board covered in black tape. Underneath this tape is the back light power supply circuit.

So connector 1 of the LG Display board is toasty. The ribbon cable attached to it has electrical arc and electrolysis damage. This is actually repairable. Thinking again I'm near finished I find a very bad problem. Connector 2 is fried beyond repair aswell as the cable connected to it. I found the cable for $12 (its on order) and the connector (not on order...can't believe someone wants $18+s/h). If anyone happens to know where i can find this connector cheaper than ebay please let me know :). I removed the bad connector and inspected the pads. Still in good condition. Measured around and didn't find any suspicious shorts/opens.

I've attached a couple of photos of the horror that OJ can do to an IPad.
Attachment 18053Attachment 18056
Attachment 18054Attachment 18055

Quote:

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Originally Posted by aquiz1980

A buddy of mine brought me an IPad Gen 1 to look at. Apparently one of his kiddos spilled a cup of orange juice all over it. He went to the all mighty google and learned how to open Ipad so he could take a look. I'm guessing he thought he was dealing with a simple cell phone fell in the toilet kinda problem. After breaking a coax connector (from LCD side) he decided he was out of his league and brought this beast to me. I love how all my friends think I can repair anything electronic under the sun.

First thing first was fix the coax connector - done. Plugged it and nada - no image on screen, so sounds, lights, bells or whistles. So I opened it back up and probed around for any voltages. I didn't find anything. I then informed the owner that I would have to tear down into this thing and by no means guarentee I won't cause more damage. After his blessing I removed the charger connector board. It was covered in OJ so I tried to clean it with alcohol to no avail. I then spot tested it with electron 3A and it held up fine so I dipped it in a jar filled with electron 3A. The chemical ate thru the orange juice no problem. I connect this board to the usb cable and measured around and didn't see anything suspicious. Before putting it back in I decided to do the same cleaning to the other two boards. I reconnected the boards and was now able to access the picture memory...Yay! (btw this guy has a hot wife, lol)

Thinking I was done I reconnected the LCD and turned the unit on put still no image. Hmmm, feeling defeated I for whatever odd reasons decided the clean the finger prints off the screen. This proved to be something of a miracle. I was able to see a very, very dim clock time and slide arrow. OMG it works...maybe. Well i found my way to adjust the brightness but it didn't get brighter.../wrists. Then God sends me some help in the form of my electronic design engineer with 40+ years experience. He says oh thats just the back light thats dead. Try looking for a power supply circuit that would have a step up transformer to run the back light leds. So behind the LCD is a board covered in black tape. Underneath this tape is the back light power supply circuit.

So connector 1 of the LG Display board is toasty. The ribbon cable attached to it has electrical arc and electrolysis damage. This is actually repairable. Thinking again I'm near finished I find a very bad problem. Connector 2 is fried beyond repair aswell as the cable connected to it. I found the cable for $12 (its on order) and the connector (not on order...can't believe someone wants $18+s/h). If anyone happens to know where i can find this connector cheaper than ebay please let me know :). I removed the bad connector and inspected the pads. Still in good condition. Measured around and didn't find any suspicious shorts/opens.

I've attached a couple of photos of the horror that OJ can do to an IPad.
<img src="http://www.ipadforums.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=18053"/><img src="http://www.ipadforums.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=18056"/>
<img src="http://www.ipadforums.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=18054"/><img src="http://www.ipadforums.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=18055"/>

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Man, That proves that you have stamina!
Not sure the hot wife's going to see it that way :-)

I got the connector and cable in last night. I replaced the two and modified the bad ribbon cable. I had to scrape the plastic coating off so that I could tack a 30awg bus wire to it and routed it to a nearby capacitor connected to the ground plane. I fired it up and wahlah it works!! There is only one more problem with this unit. I can see that the oj got underneath the glass (not the digitizer). For $40 its not a big problem at all. Still maybe or maybe not I will dissassemble the screen layers to clean out the juice. Its causing a small light refraction which makes some areas appear brighter. The digitizer works 100% and I can't feel any high spots which is why I believe its under the glass. I snap a picture later and post it up

OMG. Note to self. Never spill on on my iPad.

Wow, you can fix anythingl

Thanks for posting what you did. Might come in handy for someone else someday.