{"id":998,"date":"2015-08-24T10:20:08","date_gmt":"2015-08-24T00:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bandetech.com\/blog\/?p=998"},"modified":"2015-08-24T10:20:08","modified_gmt":"2015-08-24T00:20:08","slug":"another-repair-e-reader-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bandetech.com\/blog\/2015\/08\/another-repair-e-reader-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"Another repair: E-reader edition"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Broken<\/a>A couple of years ago, I bought a broken Kobo e-reader on eBay for A$10. My hope was that a factory reset or easy\u00a0repair would bring it back to life. Alas, no. It turned out to be a cracked display, so I stashed the Kobo\u00a0in a drawer as a possible source of parts. But I recently found\u00a0that my favorite\u00a0Chinese super store sells E Ink displays. So I ordered one…<\/p>\n

One of the special\u00a0things about E Ink<\/a> displays is that they only use power when the displayed image is refreshed. The image\u00a0remains even without power applied, which is\u00a0why my replacement\u00a0display showed Kindle information when I unpacked it — that’s what the factory used when the display was tested and uplugged. It’s\u00a0also why the top part of my broken Kobo still shows what was on it when it broke.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The new display, showing a\u00a0Kindle test page.<\/p><\/div>The Kobo Touch is easy to open and\u00a0disassemble, requiring\u00a0nothing more than a credit card and a small phillips head screwdriver. Disassembly is\u00a0shown\u00a0in the images below, which boils down to:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Use a\u00a0credit card or spudger (that’s right,\u00a0spudger.<\/a>\u00a0It’s actually a thing) to pop the back cover off.<\/li>\n
  2. Undo the 4 small screws holding the unit to the front cover\u00a0and\u00a0separate the display assembly\u00a0and front case carefully — there’s a piece of double-sided tape that secures these two pieces that might make this a little tricky.<\/li>\n
  3. Pop the battery and display\u00a0connectors off by lifting them directly upwards.<\/li>\n
  4. Undo the 7\u00a0remaining screws and carefully separate\u00a0the main circuit board from the display\/battery assembly.<\/li>\n
  5. Very carefully and gently\u00a0separate the display\u00a0from the battery\/chassis part.<\/li>\n
  6. Even more carefully, use the credit card or spudger to separate the black surround from the display. The surround is held on by double-sided tape, which holds on pretty tightly. I used a hair dryer to\u00a0soften the tape before getting stuck in with\u00a0the spudger.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    \"1a. <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
    \"1b. <\/a> <\/div>
    \"2. <\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
    \"3a. <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
    \"3b. <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
    \"4. <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
    \"5. <\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

    Knowing which replacement display to order was\u00a0surprisingly simple — the\u00a0broken one\u00a0had the manufacturer’s part number on it. I couldn’t find a perfect match to my\u00a0part number, but several were very close, only varying in the last couple of characters.\u00a0I was pretty sure\u00a0that those differences were probably\u00a0hardware revisions and wouldn’t affect compatibility. So,\u00a0I ordered part number\u00a0ED060SCE(LF)T1 for a\u00a0very reasonable A$30. Free shipping and fast delivery too!<\/p>\n

    \"Part<\/a>

    Old display, part no. ED060SCE(LF)C1<\/p><\/div>Reverse the steps above to reassemble. Avoid applying pressure to the display or flexing it\u00a0in any way; it’s very delicate until braced\u00a0by the front and back frames.<\/p>\n

    So,\u00a0I’ve got a nice\u00a0e-reader for A$40 and another bit of electronica is saved from the recycle bin. Props to Kobo for making a\u00a0repairable device, unlike some other manufacturers (Apple, I’m looking at you!).<\/p>\n

    Now I just need to find something worth reading. \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n

    \"Happy<\/a><\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    A couple of years ago, I bought a broken Kobo e-reader on eBay for A$10. My hope was that a factory reset or easy\u00a0repair would bring it back to life. Alas, no. It turned out to be a cracked display, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1005,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[50,49,30,40],"class_list":["post-998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-miscellaneous","tag-display","tag-e-ink","tag-kobo","tag-repair"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/bandetech.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/kt_strap_1a.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8H2X3-g6","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bandetech.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bandetech.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bandetech.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bandetech.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bandetech.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=998"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/bandetech.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1043,"href":"https:\/\/bandetech.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/998\/revisions\/1043"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bandetech.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bandetech.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bandetech.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bandetech.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}