My daughter dropped my wifes Kindle Fire and shattered the touch screen. Wife checked on the cost to get it repaired $120 for a $200 Kindle Fire. I searched on ebay and found this replacement digitizer for $30 with free shipping and decided to take this repair on myself. ( This was not an enjoyable repair process even with a youtube video to start and stop with each step as for 1 bad move and the kindle would be junk if the LCD should get cracked for example when trying to pry the old digitizer up that is stuck on with designed intent of never to come off in the next 100 years. )
http://compare.ebay.com/like/360639498036?var=lv&ltyp=AllFixedPriceItemTypes&var=sbar

Found video on youtube that showed very good step by step instructions on replacement technique. ( *Although not sure why the guy shows additional screws removed and antenna wire and audio wire removed etc, when all you really needed to disconnect was the Lithium Battery Pack Step #1, and the Digitizer Ribbon cable as Step #2. The other parts shown in the video to remove made no sense to me as for there was no need to remove the extra screws and extra cables. To me it was like removing all screws from a computer power supply, motherboard, drives etc, to install or replace a video card that is 1 screw or 2 screws if 2 cards or a card that takes up 2 slots.)

Ordered $3.24 tool kit for pry/spludger tools from newegg here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1NV0KZ7407

And 2.5 hrs later it was fixed.

Tricky steps:

- Getting the adhesive to come appart to seperate the digitizer from the plastic body of the kindle was a pain. It required a heat gun to really get it hot to the touch without melting the plastic and lots of patience. Through the process I had to make sure that the guitar pick did not go in too far and touch the LCD display and the RUBBER adhesive was worse than rubber cement.

- You had to pry the glass that is already shattered in one corner with rubber gloves on and safety googles on as for at one point the digitizer glass snapped due to the leverage under it and tiny shards of glass popped out.

- All snot balls of old rubber adhesive had to be removed so that the new digitizer could be installed or else it would not adhere to the surface correctly and wouldnt sit FLUSH, so after the 1 hour or so trying to get the glass removed carefully not to cut myself as well as not to damage the delicate LCD underneith I then had to SPEND about 20 minutes with the corner of the guitar pick to slowly and carefully scrape the adhesive off the outter rim of the plastic face pocket where the new digitizer will mount flush.

Problems I had:

- Snapped the tip off the smaller WIDTH spludger/pry tool trying to seperate the case clam shell. (*The guy in the video on youtube used a metal pry tool, and I tried to do it with this and it didnt work out well.) I ended up starting the case seperating by using the small flat head screw driver to get a seam seperation started and then used the other pick that is in this kit other than the guitar pick to drag it around the outside and spread the cases seam to pop it appart.

- This tool kit came with a very small phillips screw driver, but the screw driver was too pointed, and so I had to use a different phillips screwdriver from my precision tool kit to unscrew the necessary 2 screws that retained the digitizer ribbon cable wings.

- Some rubber adhesive made its way to the LCD face along one side, as for when the digitizer finally came off it was very hot ( blistering hot ) to the touch and some rubber adhesive got stuck to LCD face. Used a wooden q-tip with windex to very carefully break down the rubber and clean the LCD glass surface.

Additional Tools Needed:

- Heat Gun ( Or a hair dryer the guy states on youtube )
- Razor blade to get the prying started under the digitizer to then get the guitar pick under that small seam once lifted up.

Safety Gear ( PPE ):

- Rubber Gloves
- Safety Goggles to avoid getting small fragments of glass in your eye(s).

* When I get home from work I will post a link to the youtube video that I used in case anyone else ever needs to go through this process... hopefully you will not!





Here is youtube video I used to aid in the repair process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtDQO6Tl_Xc

Then attached some pics to SHARE of my wifes kindle being fixed.

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