Insane Laser Device Fixes Broken iPhone Displays Without Even Switching Them Off

Posted on 21/07/2023 by Sarang Sheth

Uncovered by YouTuber Spare Parts, this novel machine can fix OLED displays that have weird lines running across them. The machine (shown in China where Spare Parts spends the bulk of his time making videos) uses a laser to fix the damaged or dead pixels, reviving phone displays… and it’s so advanced it can fix the displays while they’re still on! In theory, this solves pretty much the only problem there is to solve with damaged displays. Barring probably torn or shattered OLED screens, the machine fixes any problems with the flex cable or with dead pixels creating those annoying vertical lines across your screen.

The technology is incredibly fascinating, but even more so when described by Scotty Allen (who goes by his YouTube moniker Spare Parts). Allen’s worked on crazy projects in the past including building his own iPhone from scratch, and actually even attempting to design a flexible iPhone, so this unique machine is right up his alley. The video does a pretty rudimentary (yet sufficiently detailed) job of explaining how the technology works.

OLEDs (or even LCD displays) are manufactured in large sheets and subsequently cut out into the shapes needed for companies building televisions, smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, etc. Lasers are used in the process to help manufacture these OLEDs, and this machine uses the exact same type of laser to fix the OLED when it’s damaged. The process is laborious because it involves manually looking for the dead pixel that’s causing the problem and zapping it back to life. With millions of pixels in even a smartphone display, that’s quite a tough task… and for now, it has to be done by a human who painstakingly looks through the pixels row by row to identify any dead pixels. Once done, the laser helps rebuild that pixel, fixing the screen without really needing to change any parts!

The process is somewhat invasive, and requires dislodging the screen from the smartphone itself. The machine works with both flexible as well as hard OLEDs, and it isn’t limited to just iPhones. Technically any phone with an OLED or LCD screen should do. The screen does need to be removed from the phone, along with manually separating the OLED unit from the glass on front using a metal wire to cut through the glue. If the flex cable on the display is damaged, there’s a separate machine for that. However, if there’s just a pixel or a cluster of pixels causing problems, the laser helps fix that issue. The machine can do this task even with the display running, and the video shows in real-time how the annoying line disappears as soon as that problematic pixel is fixed. You don’t need to replace any expensive parts, helping both consumers as well as companies reduce repair costs and e-waste generation in the process!

The post Insane Laser Device Fixes Broken iPhone Displays Without Even Switching Them Off first appeared on Yanko Design.

The folding iPhone may be more of a reality than concept, thanks to this YouTuber’s rough prototype

Posted on 03/03/2021 by Sarang Sheth

If there was one person on the planet I’d trust with hacking together a folding iPhone, it’s Scotty Allen. Based out of Shenzhen (and for a good reason), Scotty has a penchant for tinkering with electronics and we’ve even covered some of his exploits before, including building his iPhone entirely from scratch, and even adding a headphone jack to the iPhone 7 after Apple famously removed the beloved feature.

Of late, Scotty’s been obsessed by the idea of a folding iPhone, so much so that he decided to embark on the journey of making one. Now this video is by no means anything close to what Scotty’s gearing for (and he even talks about the obstacles against him), but it’s an introduction to this new journey he’s planning on taking, and he even has a resourceful hacker-friend who can help him realize this dream.

So what is the video about? In short, Scotty managed to get his hands on a flexible display that he hooked to a control board and subsequently to a Raspberry Pi 4. The Raspberry Pi was then instructed to mirror an iPhone’s screen, bringing the familiar home page to the flexible display. The flexible OLED doesn’t even have a digitizer module, which means it doesn’t register touch functions either. Unfortunately, that’s about as far as Scotty’s gotten, because it isn’t as simple as putting a flexible display on a rigid iPhone and calling it a folding device. Both pieces of hardware need to communicate seamlessly, and Scotty mentions how difficult that can be, given that the protocol MIPI (Mobile Industry Processor Interface) isn’t exactly accessible to everyone and that you really need to be a major player to get access to the documentation and the NDAs. Moreover, iOS itself is a closed-source operating system, which means building a device that’s iOS-compatible is another challenge altogether. However, Scotty seems determined… and as someone who’s literally built an entire iPhone from scratch by buying parts off the roads and markets of Shenzhen, he’s quite literally positioned to be the one guy who can beat Apple to the punch when it comes to building the first folding iPhone!

Video Credits: Scotty Allen

The iPhone 7 – Jack is back!

Posted on 07/09/2017 by Sarang Sheth

It’s effectively been a year since Apple killed the headphone jack… and this year something big is on its way. No it isn’t the iPhone 8. It’s the iPhone 7 headphone hack! Yes, I say hack, because serial tinkerer, Scotty Allen literally hacked his iPhone 7 to fit in a functioning headphone jack! Here’s how…

Remember how initial teardowns of the iPhone 7 revealed that the area where the headphone jack would usually sit was not occupied by a speaker, but in fact lay empty because Apple executives said that the gap was a “barometric vent” that helped the iPhone’s altimeter work with precision? Well, Scotty decided to make a trade-off by filling that gap with a headphone jack. He first figured out how the circuitry would work, by connecting a headphone port component to the lightning port of the phone. While this worked in practice, it had one major flaw. The solution would mean the lightning port would stop charging the phone (because of a circuitry overlap). Scotty then decided to use Apple’s Lightning to Aux adapter and craft himself a circuit switcher out of a flexible PCB, and voila! After more than 15 weeks of constant fiddling with the iPhone’s electronics, he managed to make a solution that worked. Oh yes, he also had a neat little hole CNC machined into the side of the phone for the headphone jack to slide through. The end result would allow the jack to work perfectly, and the lightning port to charge the phone too… but not together. While that seems like a small caveat, it goes to show that Apple’s ways aren’t always the best for the consumers, and given the opportunity to fix or hack one’s electronics, there will always be someone who puts a consumer’s needs above the strategies of a technological super-company.

The process of putting a headphone jack onto the iPhone 7 is by no measure an easy one. The video shows how many times Scotty had to try (and fail) to get his solution to work. It involved a lot of broken hardware. However, he decided to publish all the necessary files on github. Although be warned… the price of innovation doesn’t come cheap (in other words, try this on a spare phone please). You can check out Scotty’s Strange Parts website to read about his endeavor.

Video Credits: Scotty Allen

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Building your own iPhone

Posted on 07/06/2017 by Sarang Sheth

This article is as far away from and as close to design as possible. Sounds strange, doesn’t it? However think about the amount of time and effort that went into designing the iPhone. Now look at your iPhone and imagine that with the correct resources, you could literally build your own from scratch.

Following serial tinkerer Scotty Allen into China, the above video showcases his journey towards building his own iPhone from top to bottom. Standing in Shenzhen, China, Scotty finds himself in the most appropriate place to build his own smartphone. He chooses a 6S and immediately hunts down the parts he needs. Finding most parts in separate locations, he’s forced to opt for a rose gold variant because the buttons seemed to be only available in that color. He procures a screen and has a repair-man input the 3D touch module in, then sources a logic-board, and finally a battery and then sits down to put the entire phone together right from the building blocks, to the small screws, camera modules, and even the home button (that has Touch ID). The completely built phone looks exactly like something you’d pick up at an Apple Store, and works like a charm. Scotty admits that it took a few months to get things right, but I assume it cost him a whole lot less.

It’s quite a journey, but it captures the essence of a person filled with curiosity and determination to reach a goal. It also shows that technology no matter how state-of-the-art, or how glossy, always has a flip-side. Maybe one of us can build our own phone someday. I guess we’ll have to go to Shenzhen to make that happen.

Video Credits: Scotty Allen

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