Hey guys, great forum!
There are not two versions of the digitizer connector, the replacement part simply needs the other portion soldered to it. A heat gun is a decent way to slowly, evenly, heat the old connectoion so that it comes away WITHOUT tearing the pads off, which is pretty easy to do and if you do need to destroy one part, make sure it is the OLD digitizer side! An iron does work too, but you have a lot more risk of the solder setting before you can get it off and it takes more work. You can always clean up afterwards with a razor blade and your iron, flaking away the old flex cable pieces, then using Isopropyl to prep the pads.
Secondly, for the heat gun method use Aluminum foil to "mask off" anything you do not want to heat, 2 layers at least! Tape it all down to your work bench.
I would like to add a quick tip for the soldering portion of the repair procedure that I have not seen ANYWHERE online yet. After prepping each connection with a small pad of solder, (since we will be heating them from the back side).
->Look for 2 small pads (not connections to anything) to either side of the 70 connector pads. (You can see them in the first pic at the top of this thread)
->On the other flex (that you are soldering to) there are two tiny pin-holes that line up with these two benign pads.
Take a small bit of solder on the tip of your iron and touch each of the 2 pads quickly "pulling up," (away from the flex cable) which creates a small "spike." After doing this to both, line the 2 "spikes" up with the 2 pin-holes on the other half, apply your flux and clamp them together with hemostats or something similar. This will keep them from moving when you are soldering them together. Also, USE PLENTY OF FLUX! The flux will also assure that the solder stays where the heat is appropriate and helps make sure you do not overheat the flex cable thereby damaging it. The first one I did took two tries to get correct, the first time I did not apply enough heat to fuse them all but less is more since you can always go back and add more heat, versus burning it up the first time. Touch each one until you can FEEL the solder flow and the cable looks flat, if there are bumps, you either used too much solder or it did not flow completely and you will end up with a "cold" joint, which is non-conductive!
Hope this helps! Good luck!
Also, I have been unable to find replacement Digi-IC's for the mini (for under $100), has anyone else had any luck? If so, can you post a link?
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