Glass on my brother's HP Touchpad broke- would like to replace the glass

[Marketpantry]

It looks like the image on the screen is fine, but that the outer glass is broken. cant returned it. looked into credit card company's insurance on my purchase as well.

[MINKIN2]

The glass can be replaced rather easily as the digitizer is a separate layer to the LCD panel. The only problem is finding the replacement as spares are hard to come by. You might be able to find a truly bricked unit or a TP with a cracked housing cheap on ebay?

Edit: Even then you would have to do a lot of searching, A quick look on ebay came up with ziltch!

[Marketpantry]

Originally Posted by MINKIN2

The glass can be replaced rather easily as the digitizer is a separate layer to the LCD panel. The only problem is finding the replacement as spares are hard to come by. You might be able to find a truly bricked unit or a TP with a cracked housing cheap on ebay?

Edit: Even then you would have to do a lot of searching, A quick look on ebay came up with ziltch!

i heard about people getting glass professionally cut for tvs for relatively cheap (100$) is u was wondering if i could go that route?

also are you saying the touch part of the screen is beneath the glass or something?

[MINKIN2]

The LCD panel sits inside the touchpad and the digitizer is the glass that you touch.

See here 2:00 HP TouchPad: Teardown and hardware analysis | TechRepublic

I doubt that you could ever find anywhere who could remake the glass for you as it would not be the correct material. If you would hold the TP up to the light and look at it horizontally you will see the dotted grid that makes up the digitizer.

Hope the video helps

[TopTongueBarry]

Originally Posted by Marketpantry

i heard about people getting glass professionally cut for tvs for relatively cheap (100$) is u was wondering if i could go that route?

also are you saying the touch part of the screen is beneath the glass or something?

Dead TP's are starting to show up on eBay. I've got two on the way, one is a TP 4G the WiFi stopped working on and the other is a TP WiFi, same problem.

I also had a TP 4G that was driven over with a car. Successfully took the LCD out of a firesale TP 16GB WiFi and was able to repair it.

Don't give up hope. If you do, then I'll buy your brothers TP from him so it won't be a complete loss.

[awats]

HP Parts Store - HP Computer Parts - HP Printer Parts - Compaq Parts

[qwst]

How did you break the glass? I was under the impression the TP came with gorilla glass. No?

[eblade]

TopTongueBarry,

You could start a store with your spare parts soon. Or maybe a service to replace TP batteries, in about a year...

[cjpeltz]

I have the exact same problem - my son accidentally dropped the Touchpad on cement last night and shattered the glass. I searched on EBay and did come across items like the following:

Digitizer Touch Screen Glass FOR HP Touchpad Parts Repair Fix OEM | eBay

However, I have no idea whether this will really work, so have held off buying it until I hear from others...

[cml21]

I bought one of these - different seller, but same deal. I was able to repair mine, but it wasn't a total piece of cake...

The glass is taped to a bezel (a plastic frame), and the glass/frame then attach to the display. I pulled the glass from the bezel, picked the old tape off the plastic frame, and then attached the new glass to the bezel with some 3M tape that I picked up from a local iPod repair store. The whole thing then went back together, and is working just fine.

Only other tip: It wasn't a painful repair, but I would have happily paid an extra $10-$20 to be able to buy the glass and bezel pre-assembled. I don't currently see anything for sale like that, but I'm not too proficient on the eBay / CL sites. Best of luck!

[adobian]

Where is the least expensive option to buy this replacement part? My niece broke one yesterday.

[adobian]

Best I found on Ebay was about 32 dollars from a seller on Ebay. Anywhere else?

[cml21]

Seems like eBay is the place to go...

[marcedhk]

I got my replacement glass from eBay too, and was able to replace it successfully. You'll need a few good prying tools (both plastic and metal ones), and you need to do it carefully so you don't scratch the case, or damage internal components that are near the edge (look at the various TouchPad teardown photos on the web so you know where they are). Also, be careful not to accidentally break the little plastic clips that help the case snap tightly together. Also, I needed to use a blow dryer to heat the old glass and frame so I could separate them as the adhesive holds them together very securely.

Lastly - I had tried searching for the TP parts on HP's site and no matter what I tried there where no results found. Does anyone know why this is? I would have thought that even though the product is discontinued they would have to stock replacements parts for it? I mean I can still find parts for an old laptop I bought almost 6 years ago, and even the parts they don't have are at least listed as out of stock. For the TP search I get nothing.

[dentz]

Looks like I will be giving this a try myself also. Somehow(oops) my touchpad landed screen first on the cement driveway. Any other tips that can be recommended would be appreciated. I'm mostly worried about the plastic tabs breaking and then not being able to reattach the front panel.

[marcedhk]

Originally Posted by dentz

Looks like I will be giving this a try myself also. Somehow(oops) my touchpad landed screen first on the cement driveway. Any other tips that can be recommended would be appreciated. I'm mostly worried about the plastic tabs breaking and then not being able to reattach the front panel.

Even if you break a couple plastic tabs, you'll still be able to close it up, but try your best not to or it won't close as tight as before! A few tips based on my experience with it:

1) It took way more strength than I expected to pry the case open. But you still have to be gentle at the same time and keep in mind where the sensitive electronics are close to the case. I used plastic prying tools for most of it because I was really afraid that I might scratch the case if I used metal ones, but in retrospect the metal ones would have worked better.

2) During the prying, some of the clips may shift out of place and need to be repositioned. There is one clip in particular near the USB port that shifted out of place and couldn't be pushed back - I had to unscrew and lift up the USB circuit board, reposition the clip, and then put the USB board back. When properly positioned, the top ends of the clips should be a little below the level of the case edge - not raised above it! I wasted a good deal of time wondering how the case was going to close up before I realized this.

3) Be really careful about how you disconnect and reconnect the cables that connect the glass and digitizer to the circuit board. Tech Republic had the best instructions on this in my opinion.

4) Depending on how shattered your glass is, a pair of tweezers to remove little pieces may come in really handy.

5) I used a pair of latex gloves to handle the glass to make sure I wouldn't leave fingerprints on it. I picked up a box of 4 pairs in the pharmacy section of Walmart for 97 cents.

6) I used double sided tape to secure the glass to the frame. I laid it down in strips on the plastic mounting frame, laying each one down first and then using a scissors to cut it to size. After laying down a strip of tape, I peeled the tape's plastic backing off, so that only the adhesive remained on the mounting frame.

7) When you put the glass onto the adhesive, make sure you don't forget to put the power CENTER button in place and that you position it correctly. The adhesive is going to hold the glass on really firmly, so you don't want to have to take it off because you forgot the power CENTER button.

[cml21]

I agree with everything marcedhk called out. All good advice. My few bits of wisdom:

A // I also had to fight with getting the clips out. In my case, I didn't break any clips, but I did break the fingers on the back case that grab the clips. Actually, I broke all but one of them off, and the thing still went together, and seems to be as good a fit as ever (it was never perfectly flush to begin with).

B // In addition to the power button, be careful about the properly placing the center button on re-assembly.

Good Luck!

Originally Posted by marcedhk

Even if you break a couple plastic tabs, you'll still be able to close it up, but try your best not to or it won't close as tight as before! A few tips based on my experience with it:

1) It took way more strength than I expected to pry the case open. But you still have to be gentle at the same time and keep in mind where the sensitive electronics are close to the case. I used plastic prying tools for most of it because I was really afraid that I might scratch the case if I used metal ones, but in retrospect the metal ones would have worked better.

2) During the prying, some of the clips may shift out of place and need to be repositioned. There is one clip in particular near the USB port that shifted out of place and couldn't be pushed back - I had to unscrew and lift up the USB circuit board, reposition the clip, and then put the USB board back. When properly positioned, the top ends of the clips should be a little below the level of the case edge - not raised above it! I wasted a good deal of time wondering how the case was going to close up before I realized this.

3) Be really careful about how you disconnect and reconnect the cables that connect the glass and digitizer to the circuit board. Tech Republic had the best instructions on this in my opinion.

4) Depending on how shattered your glass is, a pair of tweezers to remove little pieces may come in really handy.

5) I used a pair of latex gloves to handle the glass to make sure I wouldn't leave fingerprints on it. I picked up a box of 4 pairs in the pharmacy section of Walmart for 97 cents.

6) I used double sided tape to secure the glass to the frame. I laid it down in strips on the plastic mounting frame, laying each one down first and then using a scissors to cut it to size. After laying down a strip of tape, I peeled the tape's plastic backing off, so that only the adhesive remained on the mounting frame.

7) When you put the glass onto the adhesive, make sure you don't forget to put the power button in place and that you position it correctly. The adhesive is going to hold the glass on really firmly, so you don't want to have to take it off because you forgot the power button.

[marcedhk]

Originally Posted by cml21

B // In addition to the power button, be careful about the properly placing the center button on re-assembly.

My bad - I actually meant the center button. I've corrected it.

[e_killa]

HP TouchPad Repair Manual - iFixit

Have a look an it.

[Mutoidi]

USA HP Touchpad Front Panel Touch Glass Lens Digitizer Screen Replacement Parts | eBay

Not Bad! $33 // 10+ available.