Modern Tech Fail: iMac 27" Retina 5k Display Panel Tear Down 

~10:30 it's just absolutely incredible watching it go from a single strip of LEDs to a completely uniform plane of light; modern engineering is so cool.

I liked the way you went in depth to using the microscope to show the architecture of the individual pixels...

I used an old broken monitor for exactly that! And you might find this interesting, in the older CCFL monitors the pattern is even weirder, since the light is coming from both sides a lot of times, the dots grow bigger towards the center Also one more thing edited in now, if you look at the pixels, diagonally there's a circle between the groups of 4 RGB groups. Between rows there are larger and smaller circles. As for the actual size of each kind of subpixel compared to each other, between R G and B, in real life we see the 3 colours very differently in intensity so to be able to drive all 3 colours from the same sort of supply, they modify the size. Green is the bigger, red is the middle in size and blue is the smallest. It's there to achieve a more natural colour

I am glad I found the biggest and best GEEK on RU-vid! Jealous.

Nice video. Reminds me of when Garmin kept sending me GPS units with the polarizing filter in sideways. Put sunglasses on and screen goes dark. They are located nearby so I had to show up in person to explain the problem.

@16:30 No, those are BGR pixels. RGB pixels look completely different!

On a much smaller scale, some years back I was asked to look at the boss' laptop - the screen was "murky". Mould had started to grow in between the Fresnel and diffuser layers. Took it all apart and made a best effort at cleaning it. Wasn't too bad, but not long after he complained of a bug....I'd clearly left some path back inside and a 'Thunderbug" (or two!) had managed to get inside between the layers. Doh.

Really interesting video! Can't believe the optical goodies inside the screen, great investigative work. Also love the "bumblefking" and "chooching" LOL

it will certainly make a wonderful light table!

Good to know the board is not replaceable! Thanks Marc!

Thanks for the heads-up, Marc. We have a slower one of the same model. OTOH, we've only seen 2 hardware failures in over 25 years (both were hard drives), out of a number of Macs. One ran flawlessly, and almost constantly, for over 10 years.

It must be tricky manufacturing these defect free given that any contamination will be visible. That’s a lot of surface area to keep pristine!

I recognize that old HP power supply. The new fan is nice and quiet!

You can use your backlight as a tracing table - they're actually a product you can buy.

At first I was like, "oya, I’ve done this, definitely can’t put it back together” but then you found a use for it. That made me very happy.

I recently did the same thing when changing my hard drive. Thank you for finally showing me what I had done wrong. i'm convinced I did the same thing during the adhesive removal. I can sleep now :)

It is like a flat "light pipe" or fiber optic surface. There was a company names Lumanite in the 1990s. They manufactured thick fiber optic tubing for lighting effects. Kind of like neon sign tubing made from plastic. You could order the material so the outer surface had a mat surface and it would emit light over the hole surface of the fiber optic tubing.

Yay... you up-cycled! Glad to see the thing's not a waste. Now... more AGC videos! Pleeze!

Your channel should be AwesomeMarc! This is awesome!! Thank you for the great video!

I would have figured Apple to be using zone-based backlighting instead of edge-lighting based on all of the cultish hype. Interesting that they cheaped out with the edge lighting.

Very nice video sir. Some iMac 5K displays have dust problems (it starts showing up in the lower corners), and some not. I had a 5K iMac (mid 2017 model) for 4 years and the screen never showed this problem. I also had a 2015 5K iMac for two years, same story ... no dust at all. Now I just got a 2020 model and I hope it will be ok too, BUT ... there are a lot of users complaining about this problem, just do a Google search (2014, 2015, 2017, 2019 and even 2020 iMacs have this problem). It would be interesting to understand where is the "weak spot" and why Apple has not been able to completely fix it.

no one did what you did, brilliant man, very good and interesting tutorial, thank you

Interesting to see the pixel pattern - it's just like the shadow mask on a CRT screen. I've noticed quite a variety of pixel / sub-pixel patterns on the various LCD and OLED screens I have. Incidentally, another RU-vid channel called DIY Perks (Matt Perks) made a false window from a number of old laptop screens.

I am so happy the AGC brought me to your channel. I’m home.

High CRI light, those worth a ton of money =) perfect second life for this screen.

I did the exact same thing with an Imac, cut the ribbon cables while separating. It created a black bar 1/3 of the screen, still usable if you kept things on the 2/3 due to the high resolution. Very beautifully crafted screen. Sucks no way to fix it.

I found some of that woven metal fabric a while back in an old 1980s camcorder 😂 and I love diffusers and waveguides, I don't know why, all things optical

Those large polarization filters from LCDs can also be put in front of light sources for photography, in addition to the polarization filters you put in front of the lens. It allows you to eliminate all reflections/glare in the image. Just play with it to discover its effects on still life photography or even pictures of printed circuit boards. I always rip old LCDs apart just for these filters. ;-)

I'm surprised you got it apart! Apple usually just hot glues, and solders everything nowadays.

Apple uses a tool that has a specific depth to open the screen, that avoids the problem altogether.

At the end, I believe the term you're looking for might be "light box". ♥

makes for a nice photographic lightbox

Maybe use it as either a light over a workbench (have it fold down off a wall maybe, or as Brian Ullmark suggested, a tracing table.

This is my new favourite channel. Your videos are fantastic 👍

I don't know what to say about the pc world. The last machine I built was an Amd machine. For almost a year I have been battling a lockup issue. About every day and or three days, give or take. Just a hard lock up. After doing some research. Found a few things to try. Now I got it down to locking up once every three weeks. But still not close on what part I need to replace. I just know when I type in xx processor, xx video card, and xx motherboard. It lights up like a Christmas tree for people with the same issue. The only thing I know for sure was it got worse after installing a different video card. I think it just got the problem to come out more often. But all the hardware tests I run. Everything checks out fine. Also doesn't help it is such an intermittent issue. The machine I had before that was a used thrift store find that had an issues with borderline heat on cpu. When I looked up the cpu combo / motherboard. It was a known issue and could just be a bad thermal sensor on the system board or that combo of processor and motherboard. The simple solution was to just increase the thermal shutdown temp in bios. The processor was still in range for temp. according to the manual. But it was the upper range. Besides that every once in a blue moon I would get a bsod. The computer I had before that was very, very stable. It was a an Amd socket a system. The sad part is I do this for a living. The intel I5 machine I built for my son it rock solid. The hp business desktop I picked out for my mom is rock solid. The i5 machine I built my mother in law of all things. Rocks solid except I had to reload it twice to do infections. Also I can tell you one thing. Once Mac went Intel and Steve Jobs passed away. We see more and more macs in than ever before with hardware issues. Not just the standard hardware failure once in a blue moon. I'm talking several software corruptions for what seems to be no reason among other things. Anyway keep up the good work Marc. Also once again I have to ask what is the update on the IBM tape drive and the hp 2000 mini computer system too.

I love that AvE's dialect is sneaking in.

Well, way better than iFixit could do. Great Video, thank you!

Beautiful, thanks for sharing. I will buy the special rotor tool from Apple so I do not make the same mistake taking apart mine!

The iMac 24" A1200 (2006) has eight ccfl tubes (not LEDs) behind those diffuser/polarizer sheets.

Now, the even more ingenious thing would be pairing the photo etched plate with a delay line. The little pegs should make for quite a number of paths… :-)

I hope one day you get your hands on a decomissioned OLED screen and show us the individual OLEDS light up on their own under the microscope

Et bien... La manière de conceptualiser le Hardware chez Apple a bien changé... Sauf les prix évidemment... Très bonne vidéo ! ;)

Love your retrocomputing videos, and I was amazed to find out your background. Just out of curiosity, what's all the noise in the audio track (e.g., around 9:15)? And then there's some sort of motor or pump in the background, noticeable especially starting at 17:33 or so? (Please note, I'm not unhappy about the noises, I'm just curious what they are! ♥ )

Looks like a Regular LCD-Screen with LED-Backlights.

Hi, thanks for the great video! Do you have a video that covers how you identified the power input?

why does apple make it hard to fix their computers. My imac has a cracked glass, LCD is fine but the glass is cracked at both top edges. I still use it but lately it has been running quite slow and i was thinking of upgrading my hard drive to an ssd but because i have to remove he screen to get to the hard drive it becomes a project for changing the whole display when i could just have changed the glass only because apple thought it wise to bond the glass to the lcd...crazy

It’s going to be the driver. Check the signaling with a probe. Bet the lvds driver overheated or cooked off. There should be two awesome magnifying lenses in there that are great.

Now you have a cool light box!

Could you kindly assist me by giving the detailed sketch to how to power the Back Light. Please give me the Exact Voltage and the Amperes you gave to light the Screen Back light. I have an iMAC 21.5" 2.9Ghz late 2012 and it's Logic board Back light Inverter area is burned and the Back Light is not coming on but the Image is there on the Screen and I can see it when I flash a Light on to the Screen and also the Thunderbolt Ports give a the out out to external Screens. So I am now trying to power-up the back light by an external DC Power supply and please assist me to make it work. Thank you.

Top work

is there a solution for repairing the pink edges problem of the imac 27 retina late 2015 ?

Thank you. This was really informative.

I have a question please, can I replace the broken glass in this 5K retina screen or not, because I have an iMac that the screen fell off due to having an upgrade inside, and the glue wasn't storong to hold it in place

What if you put the plastic with dots upside down? Should be a nice very precise gradient

Another awesome vid. What's with the mic noise? It's amazing how much engineering goes into a modern LCD panel and it's just one component

Did you ever consider when you flipped it over, you are now looking at the wrong side? If the problem was on the left, when you flip it over, the connectors will be on the right, not left.

Can the driver board on be replaced? i found one of the strips on my was damaged and didn't know if i could replace that board any info would be helpful

Use polarized light to look between the LCD pixels :)

It can be a great light table for viewing some Kodachrome slides.

It also makes a neat X - Ray viewer light box. ☠

Super nice one! Thx a lot.

I've damaged more ribbons with a card during glue battles than I would like. As you were doing it I was thinking you were probably hitting ribbons. Most are completely replaceable. Were they attached directly to the led layer?

Hi, thanks for you video. I really hope that you will se this comment. At 15:40 we can see the black LCD panel is it entirely glued to the front glass ? Is it possible to separate the front glass front the LCD pannel ? Thanks

Adding a third polorizer to two 90 degree out of phase polorizers can actually re-emit light due to a very strange quantum effect.

A bit late in finding this video, but I'm looking to do basically the opposite kind of project with an iMac 5k display. I want to completely remove the backlight assembly and mount the LCD panel to the side glass of a desktop PC case, inspired by the projects that led to iBuypower's Snowblind case Once you removed all of those diffusion and lense layers, is the LCD panel transparent? More importantly, does it function? I'll be providing my own source of backlighting.

So after you learned what went wrong would you say it would be possible to fix the flex cable or maybe replace it..? I got the same issue with my 2015 but only one thin line. Replacement display is almost the price of the whole unit so I would rather fix it if possible... Otherwise I might buy a used 2014/15 5k iMac and sell the faulty one... looks like it would be cheaper than replace the display...

Successfully upcycled :)

Very interesting. Thanks.

Hi! Great video, first time I see someone disasssemble an LCD display so comprehensively. Do you think it would be possible to fix the torn flex cable you showed? Asking for a friend, you know...

Marc I have same imac A1429 EMC 2834 backlight issue tested backlight with led tester . And found three pair of them working led and others three pair no any response. So I assumed that back light are faulty so I open it and remove light from penal and I tested individual all 90 pcs led smd and all work fine . I am very confused on the connection of the the led . I believe there is 6 pairs of wire in led main connector gray and black.so could you help me out that every pair should should light when I test it with led tester . Any configration of connection please

thanks man this video was awesome

Love your videos!! Keeps me interested everytime.

16:44 nice BGR pixels Marc :)

Hi @Curiousmarc I have 2 iMac screens one screen glass broken but lcd intact and works fine and the other one screen light up backlight works but no display. Do you think I can make one working display out of these two. Both are 27 inch 2015

How thick is that waveguide plate? 12:20

Is it possible to open this screen to remove a little bug inside it? I have one and my iMac is out of warranty.

Hi is it possible to remove the glass from the lcd? you got to the lcd then stopped, I was wondering if it's possible as there's very common issue with dust inside these screens thanks.

Are polarizers used in data optics at all? Do they even have an effect on lasers?

Curious Mark, I spent many hours trying to figure out if this specific screen (late 2015 iMac Retina in my case) could be split open and the diffuser lifted so I could wipe down that typical Apple fail black 'shadow' - black - grey magnetic or whatever dust it is that's start to come out from the corner of the screen.... Is this doable without damaging the screen?

Imagine if this had the T2 anti-repair chip like the new Apple products. You wouldn't have been able to replace your screen like that.

Is the "5k" in the title refering to the cost of the product in US$?

Luis Rossman intensifies

What is this microscope/magnifier and where can I buy a similar one please?

Good video! Some of the older iMac LCD's gain yellowish tint, due to some of the internals "burn" and turn yellow. Do you know by any chance if it is possible to fix it? Thanks in advance!

I have a question I went to the site and can’t find the lcd/glass screen on there does anyone know where to buy one that isn’t going to cost 800 dollars

One expensive floodlight, and it only took a credit card to make it :-)

LMAO he said “chooch”

The more I know, the more I know that I don't know.

My late 2013 27” half of the screen turn yellow ( not pure white ) do anyone know what happen ??

make a nice ceiling light

Is there a place to buy custom flex cables? jlpcb??

Ouch. An expensive mistake on your behalf, even modulo the manufacturing defect.

does anyone know what microscope marc uses?

I think it would probably be a failure of the conductive adhesive bonding the ribbon cable to the LCD, or possible a microscopic crack. Not typical for iMac panels, but I have seen both be an issue with LG manufactured macbook air LCD panels - with a similar connection. Typically from impact stress or repeated flexing (many are school issued student laptops). If it is a micro crack you can prove it by putting pressure on the panel, enough to flex it but not enough to break the panel, and the crack will propagate. This will of course make the failure much worse.

Sorry about your screen, but nice video... :)

what year did you pull this from?

Wait a moment... The fault was pretty much where I guessed?

Its look like very expensive....

how hard is it to tear this down and put it back together again? An ant decided to die within one of the screen layers. My imac has been working fine since 2017, I would hate to spend several hundred bucks if I can just tear this thing down wipe off the ant and put it back together again lol

Why are those pixels such odd shapes