Replacing a broken screen

[Miklagard]

Hi all,

I'm hoping that someone here might be able to solve my problem. I broke the screen on my Kobo Touch. I bought a broken demo unit with an intact screen from eBay. I swapped out the boards. The new screen works in that I can see my library, the boot-up screen, and the language selection screen. However, I have no touch functionality at all. The reader it's coming from is definitely a touch, but I couldn't power it on to determine if it had touch functionality when hooked to its own board. Is there any hope, or is it time to just buy a new ereader?

[frostschutz]

I have a Touch where the display itself is broken but touch screen functionality still works perfectly fine. In my case it's easy to verify because the lower third of the screen still works. With a completely dead screen you could verify by hooking up USB and see if the PC detects it after touching the screen in the right place (the connect button). On my touch this button is in the center of the screen, about one inch from the bottom.

Touch screen failure can be caused by dirt (outside in the display borders, and inside the device itself). It's also possible that the board itself is not mounted/aligned properly.

Sometimes it's just a failure of the infrared emitters/sensors, I've bought a used Glo with perfect display but no touch whatsoever. I suspect it's the board itself in this case, but I can't test it... haven't had luck on Ebay lately, people just bid too much for broken stuff.

[Miklagard]

Originally Posted by frostschutz

I have a Touch where the display itself is broken but touch screen functionality still works perfectly fine. In my case it's easy to verify because the lower third of the screen still works. With a completely dead screen you could verify by hooking up USB and see if the PC detects it after touching the screen in the right place (the connect button). On my touch this button is in the center of the screen, about one inch from the bottom.

Touch screen failure can be caused by dirt (outside in the display borders, and inside the device itself). It's also possible that the board itself is not mounted/aligned properly.

Sometimes it's just a failure of the infrared emitters/sensors, I've bought a used Glo with perfect display but no touch whatsoever. I suspect it's the board itself in this case, but I can't test it... haven't had luck on Ebay lately, people just bid too much for broken stuff.

Turns out that you are right - it just wasn't mounted tightly and when I made some adjustments the touch functionality came right back. So this eBay screen from a "broken" Kobo touch does indeed work just fine. Now my original battery seems to be acting up (claiming 100% but not holding a charge) so we'll see if that needs replacing too. Unfortunately the battery that came with the reader has a different type of connector, so I can't try it out.

[Ken Maltby]

Originally Posted by Miklagard

Turns out that you are right - it just wasn't mounted tightly and when I made some adjustments the touch functionality came right back. So this eBay screen from a "broken" Kobo touch does indeed work just fine. Now my original battery seems to be acting up (claiming 100% but not holding a charge) so we'll see if that needs replacing too. Unfortunately the battery that came with the reader has a different type of connector, so I can't try it out.

You could use the existing leads, still attached to the connector, and solder the new battery's leads to the leads from the old connector.

You might find it easier to remove a battery, if you can work some solvent saturated dental floss under the battery.

Luck;
Ken