Glo Memory Upgrade Mod Guide (With Pictures)

[parkher]

Can someone explain in more detail how to open Aura HD?

I did pry open along all four edges - but what next?
If I try to widen the gap at any of the four sides - the screen half seems to bend and I am afraid to break the screen. Something is holding in the middle.
I heard about a sticky tape which has to be separated, but I can't see it through the narrow gaps and I don't want to try to force the gaps wider before I hear from someone who knows what exactly to do.

Also, I saw in this thread about issues with some other model about a misalignment of the external SD card slot and about the power button falling apart.
On Aura, it seems that both the SD slot and the power button stay in the bottom half and are not moving at all when the gap at that edge is widened. So probably those issues not relevant to Aura HD. It does not seem that the whole pcb has to move together with the screen leaving just an empty back lid.

[Ken Maltby]

You are right it would be the two sided tape that is on the inside of the Bezel and needs to be pulled off the slicker screen. If the screen is bending I would find a way to hold it down next to where I was trying to lift the tape. You want the tape to separate from the screen, not the Bezel. You need to lift the Bezel so that the slots on the outside edge of the Bezel are disengaged and moved away from the bumps/tabs that are on the inside edge of the bottem/case, as well as slowly lift the tape from the screen.

The "Narrow gaps" are really not a separation of the Bezel from the screen. The Bezel is made up of two pieces of plastic, inside the outside/top piece is a black plastic IR guide that allows the touchscreen to work without obscuring the display. It is this that has some tape on it to attach it to the outside of the screen area. In my experience the tape has come off easily and I noticed no bending of the screen. Holding the screen down when first lifting the Bezel would be a good idea, just in case. Once the tape has started to come up there should be no problems.

Luck;
Ken

[parkher]

Yes, the slots are disengaged around all four sides. But the next step is not clear, because any attempt to widen a gap on any side meets with resistance, the top part just bends, it seems, like something is holding in the middle. Maybe the tape. If I only could see it.
But "You want the tape to separate from the screen, not the Bezel" is not clear.
I probably have a wrong idea what has to be separated from what.

BTW, there was a picture somewhere where somebody made a lid to access the card without disassembling Aura every time - so it seems that the card slot is on the bottom side of the pcb, not on the inside. If so, the whole pcb should stay with the screen and only the bottom lid removed. But pcb seems to be well fastened to the bottom side.

[Ken Maltby]

I think you mean: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=217702

If you click on the first picture of the case with the electronics removed, you can see the hard point/mounting points in the corners. The PCB board, screen and light guide are all attached to a pot metal frame. Four screws secure the metal frame to the case at the corner hard points.

The case forms the back of the device and is what the electronics fits into. The Bezel is the part that snaps into the case and forms the "top" with a big hole in the middle to view the screen. There is no bottom lid, the bottom part is the case bottom and four sides.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/att...2&d=1367520084

If you look closely at the Bezel insides shown on the right above, you should see the tape.

Luck;
Ken

[ewphoenix123]

Check out:
http://ux.getuploader.com/KOBO_HACK/

The following file includes pictures of an aura disassemble
Aura分解.zip 2.3 MB

[parkher]

Thanks. Now it is pretty clear.
Especially from this picture:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/att...2&d=1367520084
Somebody had no choice but to open it, judging from those five squares on the screen

It is just that the screen is stuck to the bezel and does not want to separate.
Do you push the screen itself near the bezel with your fingers while pulling the bezel to begin the separation? Otherwise I don't know what will give first - the sticky tape or the glass of the screen.
Maybe some flat surface is needed to increase the area - to put it on the screen and push it so that all the pressure is not applied to a small spot.

Where is it better to begin the separation, at a corner? More pressure on a smaller surface of the sticky tape. Once the separation begins then it should continue easily.

Some pretty brutal pictures in that 2.3 MB zip
I have opened all four sides without any visible trace. No damage done. Yet

[Ken Maltby]

Actually, the dancing squares were just what was displaying when I shut my AuraHD off, the e-Ink display just leaves up whatever was there when the power is removed. The picture might have been taken after I lifted the battery connection, I don't remember.

My tape wasn't that hard to overcome. I would recommend starting at the upper right corner and work your way down and around the tape should have separated from the screen as you start moving the slots away from the tabs, it starts right away. It is beginning to sound like your screen layers are separating which should not be happening, if that is the case you do need to find a way to hold the screen down as you lift the Bezel.

Luck;
Ken

[filmo]

Google spudger tool to find link to many pictures of different versions. many different versions made of metal and plastic used for opening cases of cell phones and tablets for disassembly. I would slide tool along inner surface of bezel to help separate tape from bezel without trying to pull tape from screen. I have used small knife blade or guitar pick that I have on hand for this. Most tear down of devises show how this is done. I just saw disassembly of Nexus 7 on line yesterday using spudger to separate tape from bezel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spudger

[parkher]

Interesting.
So now I have two advices - to separate the tape from the screen - leave it on the bezel
or to separate it from the bezel - leave it on the screen.

I hoped to leave this decision to a chance - whichever it goes.
I doubt if at the initial stage - to begin the separation - there is a gap wide enough to reach to help that separation with a tool. But when I tried a few days ago, it did not start by itself either.

I did use a guitar pick to begin the separation of the bezel from the case, though. Then I continued with a plastic card.
I disengaged all four sides successfully and then after closing there is no damage done. Not as in some pictures where a metal tool was used.

[uboot]

Hi! I did the memory mod just yesterday to my Kobo Mini and I noticed that the KOBOreader fat32 partition is somewhat damaged. Windows does not recognize it properly and under Linux, fsck.vfat says, that there is a minor error with the boot sector backup copy. That's why windows wants to format it, I guess.

I'm not sure if this boot sector thingy has been there from beginning or - I don't really believe it but... - if it was introduced by an unclean umount, i.e. unplugging the USB cable without unmounting...

Anyways - this is not much of a problem until you try to resize the partition.

I tried Paragon Partition Manager 12.5 Free which did resize it without errors, but the Kobo refused to boot (green light never turned to blue but turned black). I also checked the partition for errors with Paragon.

Without resize and with the messed up second boot sector on the fat partition, it _does_ boot up without errors.


Finally I resized with gparted under Linux and the Kobo likes it.


Bottom line: don't get nervous if the Kobo doesn't boot after resize. Try different resize tools.




EDIT:

Regarding speed - I didn't take the time to mess around with benchmarks, but discovered that the Kobo got notable slower with a Sandisk 4GB class4 card. Opening the table of contents of a 10MB epub took much longer with it as well as booting up. I also had a delay when going into standby until the standby screen is shown.

The stock 2GB Sandisk card has around 18MB/s reading speed. The 4GB one had only half of it.

I don't know how much the sd card interface of the Kobo will take at max, but 20MB/s definitely makes a difference....



Writing speed, especially for small blocks, should't be that important on an eReader. It's more important on Android devices or Raspberry Pi

The Kobo places log files that are written to frequently in tmpfs, that is: RAM. There are no frequent writes to flash memory.

[tigran]

I tried it on Aura HD and the storage upgraded nicely (to 32GB). HOWEVER, there are two big problems:

1. The light doesn't work anymore. Pressing the light button causes the lamp symbol to appear and I can change the brightness but there is no light. Could I have damaged the actual leds on the sides?

2. The top right corner of the screen is no longer sensitive to touch. I can touch anywhere else on the screen but top right corner is dead. Again, could I have damaged the IR sensors in that corner?

Please help. Should I take the cover out again and see... I guess that is my only option.

[Ken Maltby]

Originally Posted by tigran

I tried it on Aura HD and the storage upgraded nicely (to 32GB). HOWEVER, there are two big problems:

1. The light doesn't work anymore. Pressing the light button causes the lamp symbol to appear and I can change the brightness but there is no light. Could I have damaged the actual leds on the sides?

2. The top right corner of the screen is no longer sensitive to touch. I can touch anywhere else on the screen but top right corner is dead. Again, could I have damaged the IR sensors in that corner?

Please help. Should I take the cover out again and see... I guess that is my only option.

You might have not gotten the tab from the slider switch into the red slider's slot, when you put it back together. If so, you could have the light button misaligned and the corner of the bezel lifted away from the IR emitters.

Luck;
Ken

[tigran]

But if I press the light button the lamp bulb symbol comes up. If the button was misaligned then the software would not display the symbol, i.e. the event wouldn't occur, right?

Also, the corner of the bezel seems to sit very tight, just like the other three corners.

But do you suggest I take the cover out again and put it back? Any other suggestions? When I take it out, should I look out for anything strange?

UPDATE: checked that the tab is inside the red slider. Putting it back together again. Let's see.... No, still the same story: no light and the top-right corner of the screen is unresponsive.

[Ken Maltby]

Originally Posted by tigran

But if I press the light button the lamp bulb symbol comes up. If the button was misaligned then the software would not display the symbol, i.e. the event wouldn't occur, right?

Also, the corner of the bezel seems to sit very tight, just like the other three corners.

But do you suggest I take the cover out again and put it back? Any other suggestions? When I take it out, should I look out for anything strange?

Was there any black tape on the sides? (There could be some across the bottom of the screen area, but there should not be any on the sides.)
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/att...2&d=1367520084

Which build of Koreader are you using? There has been some work on the frontlight, in the last few builds.

Oh, I guess you are talking about the light while in Nickel. What is the Brightness set to?

Luck;
Ken

[tigran]

There is black tape at the bottom, but not at the sides or top.

Ignore Koreader (though I am using the latest build, 479), because all this is happening in the Home screen of Kobo, i.e. not with 3rd party applications.

UPDATE: Should that black tape be removed?

UPDATE: the brightness is set to various values (from 0 to 100%) with none of them working.

UPDATE: Ironically, it was me who always criticized the idea of "eInk with backlight" and I always wanted more storage. So now I got what I want --- LOADS of storage (64GB in total) but no light. The only worrying thing is that the top right corner IR sensors are not working, so I can't come out of Settings other than via reboot. I hope koreader doesn't need top right corner for any functionality