iPhone 12 Restoration - Almost Impossible

hi guys welcome back to another huge jefferies video in this video i'm going to be restoring this iphone 12. the 12 series of iphones proves the most difficult phone to repair compared to previous models thanks to its software locks and alert messages this phone is trying to prevent third-party repairs i extensively covered this back in october of 2020. six months later there's an influx of broken iphone 12s appearing online i imported this one from the us it's missing its sim card tray the screen while not cracked has failed and appears to be growing another notch and the glass on the back is heavily smashed with the back and front both made from glass they are common areas of failure and often need to be replaced while a straightforward process with many phones this iphone 12 will prove more challenging in fact we'll need to use lasers more on that later in its current state the phone will power on and the touch even works but it is almost impossible to see what's on the display we'll start by removing the two pentalobe screws at the bottom of our iphone and placing it on a heat plate at 120 degrees for several minutes afterwards the phone should be hot to the touch and we should hopefully be able to get inside just like my original iphone 12 video opening this phone proved just as challenging after trying several tools and reheating the phone several times i was able to create a gap to pry open the phone this is a result of the increased water resistance over previous models the adhesive has been strengthened with the pick inserted we can work it around the perimeter of the display upon lifting up the front display panel we'll need to unfasten two brackets and disconnect several flex cables going to the front display panel and earpiece we need to proceed with caution not to damage the front earpiece cable as it forms part of the face id sensor which is a paired and non-replaceable part of the iphone 12. with the display removed we get our first look inside this particular iphone 12. before installing the new screen i'll need to take care of the broken back glass with the iphone 12 you have two options to replace the frame which requires everything to be removed including dozens of screws and brackets all the way down to the mesh grilles in the speaker ports the alternative way is to just remove the glass from the back which is the way i'll be proceeding with this phone to do that i'll still need to remove a few more pieces after removing the cameras it's time for the logic board to come out as this is a us model there's a few extra pieces compared to the international models that i took apart a few months ago with an additional antenna on the side of the phone as well as an extra component between the face id cameras which is the millimeter wave radar after removing all the screws it was time for the motherboard to come out well at least i thought so there is an extra cable attached to the bottom of the board preventing me from removing it it's running to the millimeter wave antenna on the side of the phone the cable can be detached at the antenna however the battery is in the way and needs to be removed first but to get access to the battery removal strips i now need to remove a portion of the charging port which essentially means the us model of iphone 12 is more complicated to repair than its international variant after carefully removing the first battery removal strip i realized to get access to the second one i had to remove more of the charging port assembly out came the sim card reader and the taptic engine with those out of the way i could finally access the last pull strip which i'll remove i can now extract the battery without the need to remove the remaining pull tabs getting a look at the side of the phone underneath this sticker is the antenna bracket taking that out i can disconnect the flex cable going to our 5g antenna but it's not free yet the cable is adhered to another antenna wire and will need to be separated before the logic board is finally free with our board removed we can finally get a closer look at it if you remember my previous iphone 12 video you may notice an extra connector on the board as well as that extra antenna wire peeling back the sticker on the underside of the board you can see that this wire is soldered directly onto it so if you damage it that is a big problem it also means it's a lot more difficult to remove however we can proceed by removing the volume and power buttons from the phone we'll need to do this as they're attached to the wireless charging module which we'll remove next the iphone now features magnets to align the magsafe charger and accessories this has made this repair more difficult as we now need to disassemble the phone further to first take them out before proceeding to separate the glass this is done so they're not damaged on removal after creating a gap i can use a plastic pick and work it around to separate the wireless charging module from the back of the phone here we can get our first look at those magsafe magnets this is as far as we need to disassemble the phone it's now time to get that glass removed and to do that i'll be using this refox laser machine to begin i'll place the iphone 12 housing under the laser machine's focus probe and allow the unit to adjust itself once we're given the green light indicating it's adjusted to the correct height i can proceed by placing the phone under the laser from here we can use the software to bring up the iphone 12 back template and ensure it's aligned correctly with the phone under low light you can better see this process once we're happy we can press mark and begin the process the laser will now begin etching away at the adhesive underneath the glass this is quite an interesting process to see if you've never seen this happen before it's currently running in real time so you can get a feel for how long this process would take we are using a laser to assist in the backlash removal as the glue apple uses is so strong it is unaffected by the usual removal methods such as a heat plate or adhesive remover the laser works best in areas where the glass is less cracked but should still prove effective the laser avoids areas which could be damaged like the antennas and cameras however i modified the template to run over the center of the phone as we have removed the wireless charging module and can use the laser to break down the adhesive holding the magnets in place after passing under the laser for three times our iphone is now looking semi-transparent and is in a frosted red color i did attach the display to see how much dust would collect inside and you can see this is definitely a process you don't want to do without first disassembling the phone failure to do so would result in all this dust being stuck inside the phone thanks to the laser we can now remove this magsafe magnet array we'll need to reuse this and glue it back into place after installing the new back glass while we're at it i'll remove the face id module and detach the rear facing microphone this needs to be done so we don't damage it whilst removing the glass it's now time to clamp the phone down and begin removing all that broken glass without the laser this process is incredibly difficult although some people succeed it often damages and dense the frame quite a lot using the laser does help assist in this process but thanks to those magnets this whole process is now a lot longer than it used to be of course this isn't a feasible option for people who don't have access to a laser machine designed for this very process and in that case i'd recommend replacing the entire frame and back glass as one whole piece one major obstacle to this repair is the glass surrounding the camera it sits underneath and has to be smashed in order to be removed this is made more challenging because of the thickness of the camera bump using some side cutters and pry bars i was able to remove all that glass after the remaining shards have been removed we can see the mess left behind some argue the strong glue is used to provide water resistance however other phones such as samsung and oneplus offer the same water resistance on their phones and their back panels can be removed in under five minutes with a bit of heat a suction cup and a plastic pick one possible reason for such glue on the iphone would be to provide extra strength to the frame with all of the glass removed we'll need to run it through the laser a couple more times to remove the remaining adhesive left behind the adhesive is still way too tough to remove with a scraping tool but you can see the laser eat away at it to a point where it's flaking away in some areas it's finally time to remove that glue so we can start reassembling the phone before applying any glue it's important to test fit the back to ensure there's nothing preventing it from sitting flush with the frame in my case one of the camera rings has dropped down to keep it in place i'll use some liquid adhesive to achieve this before gluing in place the glass i will attach the microphone mesh piece into place finally after all that hard effort it's now time to glue on our new red back panel i will apply the glue in a similar manner to the original in order to ensure the glass panel is secured correctly pressing it down into place i'll leave it underneath something heavy like a whole box full of phones for about half an hour whilst i'm waiting i'm going to remove the last magnet from the glass we removed earlier this is used as an alignment magnet for some of the magsafe accessories using some liquid adhesive i will put them back inside the frame speaking of magnets it's time to install the remaining ones i'll apply some more adhesive and press them down into place it's important to orientate them in the correct direction as shown here one interesting thing i noticed is an extra outer wire on the wireless charging module i'm not sure what it's used for but it may have something to do with apple's new magsafe charger next i'll need to secure in the volume and power button back into the frame [Music] back up at the top of the phone i'll need to attach the led flash and rear-facing microphone it's important that this is secured in properly as you may experience issues with the audio if something isn't aligned properly with that secured in it's time to reinstall the face id module and finally reinstall the logic board back into the phone after securing the four screws back into place i can start reconnecting all of the flex cables for those wondering the board has a total of 17 flex cables that attach to it that's a lot of cables for such a tiny phone one of those cables hides under a sticker and needs to be carefully reinstalled beside the 5g millimeter wave antenna are two pieces of metal these fell out earlier and it took me about 15 minutes to find out where they came from after they're installed i can reattach the cable and bracket for that antenna it's now time to turn our attention down to the lower portion of the phone where i'll start reassembling all of the charging port assembly and sim card reader that we removed earlier to be able to access the battery whilst i keep track of my screws quite effectively i managed to mix up two of them on the charging port so i had to switch them around it's always a good practice to clean the camera lenses before reinstalling them into the phone especially when doing laser treatment such as this one as it creates a lot of dust with our phone ready to go it's time to prep our display panel for installation as the old one was damaged i've purchased a refurbished screen to replace it as with a lot of parts inside this phone apple has paired the display this means without taking the phone to an apple repair center the phone will disable true tone and display a non-genuine message you can reprogram older iphones to regain true tone but the non-genuine messages always remain in the case of this phone i couldn't find a reprogrammer and my current one didn't work so i'm just gonna have to deal with having no true tone i'll need to transfer across the old earpiece flex cable from our old screen to our new one this is also paired to the phone so extra care needs to be taken when removing it as it's adhered into place damaging this cable will result in the face id function no longer working even if you replace the cable the software will disable the function entirely while installing all these components it's important to remove any protective films that may be on the display or inside the camera holes of the display before we can attach the two halves i'll need to remove the old water and dust resistant seal i found the best way to do this was wrap it around a pair of tweezers and slowly work my way around the edges of the phone afterwards the new seal can be applied this ensures a seal between the frame and display proceeding i can prep the battery for installation as i didn't have any iphone 12 adhesive strips i just repurposed these ones from an iphone 10 and made them fit i could reinstall the battery into place and now it's finally time to get our new display panel attached to our iphone 12. after holding it in place with an eye hold tool i can then connect all of the flex cables after which i can go and test out the phone before we seal everything down on boot we're greeted with the important display message but everything appears to be working except of course true tone which has been purposely disabled now that i can confirm the phone is functioning as it should i'll need to install the last two brackets to hold in place the display flex cables after attaching all of those screws i can use a microfiber cloth to clean off any dirt or fingerprints i left inside the device and finally removing the protective film over the adhesive for the display before attaching the two halves i can reinstall the two pentalobe screws at the bottom of the iphone install our new sim card tray which was previously missing and remove the protective film from the front display panel as well as the film from the back and we're done so this is it my now fully restored iphone 12 product red 128 gigabyte this repair was quite challenging as of the work required just to remove the glass from the back of the phone however not only is the device back in a functional state but cosmetically is quite good with only a few minor marks and a small line of missing paint on the camera lens from an error in the laser template as a result of installing a new display truetone has been purposely disabled and has disappeared from the software entirely i covered all these software issues faced with third party repairs in my teardown video which i highly recommend watching new laws in france require a repairability score to be given for certain products according to an ifixit article these are self-declared apple has released these scores on their website with the iphone 12 having a six out of ten repairability score what are your thoughts do you agree leave a comment below and on that note this has been a huge jefferies video if you like what you saw hit that subscribe button and consider checking out the phone restoration playlist for more videos just like this one and if you're looking for any used devices be sure to check out my online store link for which is down in the description that's all for this video and i'll catch you guys next time

Channel: Hugh Jeffreys

Views: 1,289,872

Rating: 4.9408712 out of 5

Keywords: Hugh, Jeffreys, Apple, iPhone, iPad, iPod, technology, repair, restore, restoration, destroyed phone, broken phone, phone repair, android, samsung, iPhone 12, iPhone 12 pro, iPhone 12 repair

Id: tKPQ0OFClIc

Length: 17min 26sec (1046 seconds)

Published: Sat May 22 2021