glue – Project Blog c@rstenpresser.de

This is probably the worst repair I have recently helped with. This device has almost everything glued and horrible connector locations. The original goal was to replace the loud fan (watch the video with sound), and while we are at it, also put in a new battery and touchscreen.

My main pain-points were

glued in touchscreen + display assembly
- while removing it, I did destroy two antennas that are directly below the glue layer
- if you don’t want to make the same mistake, be really gentle on the top edge of the screen (where the cameras are)
two cameras glued in and need to be removed together with the mainboard
- the camera connector cannot be unplugged without removing the mainboard.
- the mainboard cannot be removed while the camera is glued in. catch22 of disassembly
battery pack glued in (I mean, we are already used to it, still shitty)
fan glued in
wires inside fixed with tape (that is actually not that painful)
screws hidden below ESD-foam
touchscreen controller glued to the back of the screen
- and its important that the bottom of that PCB makes good contact with the case of the screen to have a reference for the capacitive sensing
- There was a conductive glue pad, but I had nothing to replace it
more FPC connectors between the mainboard and the case
- which cannot reasonably be opened and closed for disassembly
- require a dentist mirror tweezers and magic to reassemble
did I already say fucking glue everywhere?
vendor part names and spare part numbers are confusing

Annotated image of notebook components — speaker cable and hidden screw

I want to mention that iFixit does have a really useful page about the device https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Microsoft+Surface+Book+2+15-Inch+Battery+Replacement/160660

Unfortunately, the images were not taken in the exact disassembly order. In the step “Detach the ribbon cables connecting the underside of the screen to the motherboard.” which is before the removal of the mainboard, the corresponding image already has the mainboard screws removed.

But that is complaining on a really high level, considering the guide even says “WARNING: This guide is missing many steps.”.

Having a 95% correct guide is still way more useful than having none at all. I am publishing those images in the hopes that they might help with your repair.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/surface-system-sku-reference, Surface_Book_1793

Turns out the drives of my Scara Robot are not velocity-mode drives but torque-mode drives instead. Setting the drive input to a constant voltage results in constant accelleration. I learned this the hard way by crashing the robot :-/

Even though I had it fixed on an Europalette it managed to fall on its side. Second lesson learned: even ‘small’ a 200W drive can turn the whole thing in a fraction of a second. Hitting the floor broke some pieces. But see for yourself:

Those parts are both made out of cast aluminium. I do lack the equipment and skill to weld, so I asked a Friend of mine to do it. However, even with his long time experience he wasn’t able to fix the parts together. At first I got desperate and tried hard-soldering the Z-Motor-Mount. But even using two torches I wasnt able to get the part hot enough to accept the solder.

Z-Motor-Plate fixed with clamps ready to solder

As a last resort I deceided to glue the parts. Fortunately my sister works as a postdoc and is an expert for aluminium epoxy bonds. She did some rought calculations for me and helped select the correct adhesive: 3M Scotch-Weld DP490.

I prepared the parts by grinding away all paint and about 100microns of the aluminium. The last step helps because cast aluminium has different properties on the outer layers compared to the inner bulk material due to the casting process. I also cut some reinforcement plates from 6061 Aluminium. Then I cleaned everything several times with water/soap and acetone. Everything was clamped down on a clean plate and glued together in two steps: First the two broken bits were fixed together. After curing the residual glue was removed by grinding, then the reinforcement plates were glued. To improve the curing process I put a box over it to trap the air inside and heated everyhing which a hot air gun to 80Â°C. Unfortunately I didnt take that many pictures of the process: