I'm Alex from iFixit, and today I'm gonna show you how to replace a display on an
Apple Watch Series 2. For this repair, you'll need an iOpener, a curved razor
blade, tweezers, a wide #000 screwdriver, and a couple of opening picks.
I also recommend getting a force touch gasket. It's inexpensive, and it's really
easy to break, so it's good to have it on hand. And remember when it's time to do
your repair, make sure to follow the step-by-step guide on ifixit.com.
And we're gonna start this repair by removing these two bands so we have
better access to the watch itself. To release the band, press the band release
button and slide it out of its groove. Now that we have the bands off, we get
our first real job, which is to loosen the adhesive so we can take the display
off. This adhesive is really tenacious to help with the waterproofing, so it
usually takes quite a bit of heat, but we don't want to burn the LCD, so we're
using our iOpener to get it to about 160°F,
and then we're gonna try to open it with our curved razor blade so that we don't
damage the metal very much. When I'm opening the Apple Watch I always want to
make sure I'm coming in at the safest possible side. For the Series 2, that's
gonna be the side across from the digital crown. That's because the display
cables come in from the bottom of the display, and the crown also holds a
little bit of the antenna. So I'm gonna stay as far away from those components
as I can and open from the other side. So you'll notice that I use a metal tool
which some people prefer not to use so that's to not scratch the watch, but as
this a watch has never been opened, it's a little bit harder for me to get in.
Now that we have this watch open, we're gonna switch away from the sharp blade and
then we're gonna switch to the pick so that we minimize our chance of cutting
the gasket. We really don't be lifting any of the black gasket, or cutting
through and exposing any of the copper. I'm going to be moving my pick all the
way around the display, making sure to cut all the adhesive without disconnecting the
cables. Alright, so now that we have the display completely off of the adhesive,
we need to disconnect the display. And the first step to doing that is removing
this black adhesive that's covering all of our connections. With the adhesive out
of the way, we now see our three ZIF connectors that we're going to open, and
then remove the display.
So now that we have the display off, the thing we want to make sure is that we
didn't damage our gasket. The things to look out for, as seen here, are exposed
copper, or cut all the way through, exposing the casing underneath. So in
this watch, we're probably gonna have to replace our gasket. The first thing we're
gonna have to do is take this bracket off, which is held in with this tiny
little tri-wing. So we're gonna get our driver in there and remove this screw.
With the screw gun, we can get these tweezers in there and remove this
bracket, exposing our first set of connections.
So our first connector that we're removing is this battery connection.
Due to tight tolerances and because these pointed tweezers are ESD safe, I'm going
to go ahead and use these instead of a plastic pick. With that connection out of
the way, we can lift this board that's connected
to the battery, and now we can see further connections deeper down,
including the force touch gasket.
Now that the gasket is disconnected, we have
to get it off of our casing. So I'm going to use this pick, and slide it under our
connections and wiggle it down, making sure to get underneath the adhesive. Once
I have it started, since it stays as one unit, I'm just going to use these blunt
tweezers to lift it off of the casing.
Before putting your new gasket on, it really pays off to clean this surface as
much as possible. So I'm going to use this q-tip and a little bit of alcohol
to make sure that all that adhesive is off of the case. Now that your case is
ready for reapplication, we're gonna take our new gasket and just remove the rear
adhesive cover. We're going to reapply this really carefully, making sure you're
getting into all the edges and seeing it as best as we can. This is really
important to make sure that our 3D touch and just our touch work once the screens
back on. All that's left now is to reassemble your Apple Watch.
I recommend reconnecting your new display, and making sure that display and
touch work before actually removing the top adhesive and sealing it down.
Well that's it for this repair. Make sure you subscribe to our channel to keep up to
date with all the latest iFixit teardowns and repair videos, and I'll see you
next time.