Help Liquid bonding lcd to digitizer touch screen help???

falkie · Jun 26, 2011

So, once again (after the 2nd time it happened so easily, I decided to just live with it for a while), I managed to screw up my phone with water damage to the LCD display... This is the 2nd HTC Desire G2 I've done this to, and neither phone was more than 3 months old at the time - bad luck!!!
I finally decided it was too bad to live with and since the warranty does not cover water damage, I'm not entitled for another upgrade for a while from my carrier, and paying for a new phone or a professional repair are a bit out of my reach these days - I figured: I'm pretty handy, why not try to fix it myself?
So I did. Bought a replacement part on Ebay, and installed the new LCD today. Works great, except... that I did a really dumb thing. Seems there's some kind of oily liquid / gel between the lcd and the digitizer touch screen, and the first time I took the phone apart (before realizing I had been sent the wrong part, and had to put it back together again and wait for the right part), I did not expect that to be there, and accidentally got a finger print on it.
Anyway - long story short, I didn't think the liquid did anything but act as an adhesive to make sure the lcd had full contact with the glass, so I cleaned it up and replaced it with some WD40 (hey - I SAID it was stupid... :eek:

). Now the screen works great, but looks like there's one of those polarizing anti-glare tints on the inside of the glass. I guess whatever was there before refracted the light differently.
Any ideas how I can replace that with the correct substance? I'll even buy a new digitizer touch screen if I knew that it came with that on it already - what do I do?????

A friend I consulted seems to think it's some sort of optical gel, which makes a lot of sense, but how / where do I replace that?! All my google research has come up with a lot of nothing.

Please help me. If there's anybody reading this who fixes these for a living and knows what it is, how to get it, or what to do about this - please let me know!

Thanks.

SiHa · Jun 26, 2011

Now I've never stripped down a Desire, but I've seen photo's of someone doing so here:
Blog: HTC Desire tear-down and re-assembly ? TJworld
And I have stripped down many similar devices over the years, but I have never come across any sort of gel under the screen, or between screen & glass. To be honest, what you describe sounds more like the actual liquid crystal from the display - it may have been damaged enough for the stuff to leak, but for the display to carry on working for a while. Or it could be off another one that got damaged in the warehouse.

Anyway, my suggestion would be to strip it down again, clean off the WD40 with alcohol and reassemble again only when completely dry.

Edit: Just realised this has been moved to the G2 forum. So ignore the tear-downlink. Still reckon the same though.

falkie · Jun 26, 2011

And the saga continues...

Thanks for the advice SiHa. As I mentioned in my original post, I had taken the phone apart one time before installing the new screen, not realizing I'd been sent the wrong part, which was when I discovered this mystery liquid. I did not think it was an LCD leak, because the screen did not apear to be broken at all. So I cleared it up and reassembled the phone without anything there the first time (still using the water damaged LCD that time). The screen did not work at all after that, and I thought it might have to do with the stuff I cleaned off the glass. Hence the whole WD40 attempt at replacing it.
Anyway, I just got finished following your advice and it still looks the same. How bizarre!!! Maybe I really did just get a faulty part...
I'll try and replace it (Ebay seller graciously offered an exchange after I wrote him for some advice). If that still doesn't do the trick, maybe I managed to ruin the digitizer somehow. Bummer... so much for a cheap repair!
Still, even if I have to replace that part too, it'll cost less than taking it to a shop, and hey - now I can pretty much take apart and put back together this phone blindfolded! haha.
If anybody has any additional advice or ideas as to what might be causing this strange problem - please let me know.

Thanks!
Keren.

SiHa · Jun 27, 2011

Just one last stab in the dark - the LCD hasn't got some sort of protective film on it maybe, that needs to be removed prior to assembly?

falkie · Jun 28, 2011

Thanks SiHa,

Nah, that was what I first thought as well the first time I turned the phone on after installing the LCD. It's what I wrote the vendor I bought the LCD from to ask about. But just a side note, I realize now, after a bit of research, that my phone is not called the HTC Desire, but the HTC Desire Z. (It's the T-mobile G2 - slightly different model than the one in the photos you posted. These names are so confusing, I wish they'd pick one and stick with it!!).
The more I look at it, the more I suspect it's something either with the digitizer, or, perhaps, there IS supposed to be an oil layer there after all. This occurred to me yesterday when I was working at my school's microbiology lab... We use immersion oil for the high power magnification lens on the microscope because it's stops the light from refracting outwards. So you put a drop of immersion oil that bridges the gap between your sample slide and the lens, so the light travels directly into the lens without bending outwards. I wonder if it's a similar thing here.

We'll see, supposed to get the new replacement part tomorrow, if it still looks the same, I might try taking it to the lab and fiddling around with it there for a bit. A dash of ethyl alcohol, a smidge of immersion oil... hahaha, this is turning into quite the experiment.

falkie · Jun 30, 2011

Ho-ly COW, Finally figured it out!!!!!
Wow, this is one of the weirdest things ever. Turns out that the top layer of the old LCD, which, I guess WAS cracked after all, but kept working, had pretty much fused to the glass of the touchscreen. when I took the old LCD out, it stayed attached to the glass, and looked like it was part of that.
I couldn't believe it when I finally peeled that thing off! No wonder the old LCD was a different color than the new one... it was missing the top polarized layer. So basically, every time I installed the new LCD, I was looking at it through a double layer...
Guess that liquid I encountered was the crystal after all. Kind of figured that when I decided to take the old screen apart to see what's inside (hey, it was broken anyway and going in the trash, might as well learn something from it).
Anyway, thanks for all the help and suggestions, SiHa. I'd delete this post, but thought I should leave it up here on the freak chance that something similar happens to somebody else like me who has no clue what that should look like...

blueseasandsun · Jun 16, 2013

Hello,

A couple of days ago the screen on my GT-19300 G3 began flickering and then died. When I took of the back cover I found liquid inside the back cover and on the battery. I don't think it's water because it seemed oily and the phone never got wet. The phone is not covered by warranty since it is an international phone bought in the US. I would like to try and repair it myself but I'm not sure where to start. My best guess is that the liquid was leaked from the LCD. Is this possible? What parts do I need to replace? Thank you.

MikH · Jan 11, 2016

falkie said:
Ho-ly COW, Finally figured it out!!!!!
Wow, this is one of the weirdest things ever. Turns out that the top layer of the old LCD, which, I guess WAS cracked after all, but kept working, had pretty much fused to the glass of the touchscreen. when I took the old LCD out, it stayed attached to the glass, and looked like it was part of that.
I couldn't believe it when I finally peeled that thing off! No wonder the old LCD was a different color than the new one... it was missing the top polarized layer. So basically, every time I installed the new LCD, I was looking at it through a double layer...
Guess that liquid I encountered was the crystal after all. Kind of figured that when I decided to take the old screen apart to see what's inside (hey, it was broken anyway and going in the trash, might as well learn something from it).
Anyway, thanks for all the help and suggestions, SiHa. I'd delete this post, but thought I should leave it up here on the freak chance that something similar happens to somebody else like me who has no clue what that should look like...

Thanks man. I had the same problem (with a different phone though), I changed a cracked lcd display and tried to clean a spill of the liquid crystals from the inside side of the digitizer, but there was still this dark film that made it unusable (I thought I wasn't able to clean up the spill). Thanks to you I realized it was the top glass layer from the old LCD stuck to the inside of the digitizer. Just pealed it off (which was kind of hard though, it was stuck real hard) and it was all good. Thanks a million.

Help Liquid bonding lcd to digitizer touch screen help???

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