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IPad 1 repair - OJ incident

aquiz1980

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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.
connector 2 cable.jpgconnector 2.jpg
connector 1.jpgconnector 1 ribbon cable.jpg
 

zphone

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aquiz1980 said:
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"/>

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

aquiz1980

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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
 

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