KojiKnight
Member
So it finally, and inevitably happened... Three days ago, my kids shattered the LCD on my wii U gamepad.
I'm starting to think my system is cursed... We just got the system working again from our puppy eating the power cable. Before that my youngest took a pair of scissors to the last cord. My wife was feeling the mood for pikmin and the new cord had come in only a few days ago. She got to play her game and she was happy, and when she was done she let our daughters have a turn. Yep.
So, knowing you can't purchase a gamepad separately (at least without significant cost) I had to look over my options.
Send back to Nintendo which would offer a warranty on the repair and cost $50-100 (depending on whatever arbitrary criteria they were going to use), plus shipping, plus wait who knew how many weeks...
Or risk destroying the gamepad further (Nintendo doesn't do repairs on hardware you open yourself according to their website) and replacing the screen myself for $20-30. That depends on whether you need a digitizer (touchscreen layer) or not. How the screen was broken it was hard to tell if the digitizer was intact. I could tell I could still click on things, but was unsure of it's accuracy.
That said, looking into screen + digitizer combos I saw some things that put me off. Many were being sold with glass instead of plastic digitizers, making the screen much more prone to future damage. There were also many reviews talking about reduced precision, so I took my chances with only ordering a new screen and reusing the original digitizer.
Today the new screen came in (as well as a tri-wing screw driver. I used to have one but couldn't find it). I wish I had taken pictures as I tore it apart and put it back together as I had to keep referring back to slightly blurry youtube videos to make sure I was doing things right.
I would not recommend this repair to someone who's never worked on electronics before or has pretty bad eye sight. Hell, I barely managed with my somewhat poor vision. There is nothing illogical about the layout or design, but the amount of very small ribbon cables and connectors was a pain.
Roughly two hours later, I double checked my cables, made sure all my buttons were working properly and aligned, and I finally closed it up and powered on...
Oh thank god... That was more work than I was hoping it would be, but in the end everything works, including the digitizer. The only downside/sign that I ever worked on it? On pure black screens there is a little bit of light bleed from the bottom left hand corner, but I saved myself $70 and at least a couple weeks worth of hassle and no system for my wife and daughters.
For those curious:
The screen $18~ USD
Tri-wing screw driver $4~ USD
2-day Shipping $10~
Total cost: $32~ USD
I used this awesome video for disassembly
Then I used this one when I realized the other video didn't have a reassembly and trying to move backwards in steps was getting too painful.
You could exclusively use the second video, but the first one does a complete teardown in case you need to clean/repair/replace any other part of the gamepad and it makes far more room for when you are working on the screen.
(update) My children destroyed the screen again. Used this for replacement, and is a much better screen and a kit with the parts you need to fix it.
I'm starting to think my system is cursed... We just got the system working again from our puppy eating the power cable. Before that my youngest took a pair of scissors to the last cord. My wife was feeling the mood for pikmin and the new cord had come in only a few days ago. She got to play her game and she was happy, and when she was done she let our daughters have a turn. Yep.
So, knowing you can't purchase a gamepad separately (at least without significant cost) I had to look over my options.
Send back to Nintendo which would offer a warranty on the repair and cost $50-100 (depending on whatever arbitrary criteria they were going to use), plus shipping, plus wait who knew how many weeks...
Or risk destroying the gamepad further (Nintendo doesn't do repairs on hardware you open yourself according to their website) and replacing the screen myself for $20-30. That depends on whether you need a digitizer (touchscreen layer) or not. How the screen was broken it was hard to tell if the digitizer was intact. I could tell I could still click on things, but was unsure of it's accuracy.
That said, looking into screen + digitizer combos I saw some things that put me off. Many were being sold with glass instead of plastic digitizers, making the screen much more prone to future damage. There were also many reviews talking about reduced precision, so I took my chances with only ordering a new screen and reusing the original digitizer.
Today the new screen came in (as well as a tri-wing screw driver. I used to have one but couldn't find it). I wish I had taken pictures as I tore it apart and put it back together as I had to keep referring back to slightly blurry youtube videos to make sure I was doing things right.
I would not recommend this repair to someone who's never worked on electronics before or has pretty bad eye sight. Hell, I barely managed with my somewhat poor vision. There is nothing illogical about the layout or design, but the amount of very small ribbon cables and connectors was a pain.
Roughly two hours later, I double checked my cables, made sure all my buttons were working properly and aligned, and I finally closed it up and powered on...
Oh thank god... That was more work than I was hoping it would be, but in the end everything works, including the digitizer. The only downside/sign that I ever worked on it? On pure black screens there is a little bit of light bleed from the bottom left hand corner, but I saved myself $70 and at least a couple weeks worth of hassle and no system for my wife and daughters.
For those curious:
The screen $18~ USD
Tri-wing screw driver $4~ USD
2-day Shipping $10~
Total cost: $32~ USD
I used this awesome video for disassembly
Then I used this one when I realized the other video didn't have a reassembly and trying to move backwards in steps was getting too painful.
You could exclusively use the second video, but the first one does a complete teardown in case you need to clean/repair/replace any other part of the gamepad and it makes far more room for when you are working on the screen.
(update) My children destroyed the screen again. Used this for replacement, and is a much better screen and a kit with the parts you need to fix it.
