M1 Screen & Keys

M1 Arrow Key, LCD

LCD and keys, can be tedious, be careful and be aware of the process; ‘teardown’ process.

The easiest part of the refurb are the keys. Keys, Screen/LCD and then the touch bar. Please note, the refurb process required two teardown(s) per say, I wanted to verify working parts and inspect the touch bar on it’s own. The process you can say is a 1 process job, however, I did this job in two parts for the sake of my own sanity. The key here, is this, I know if I could get the screen working, we would be in good shape. Cost aside, I was trying to avoid purchasing the M1 upper case which holds all parts associated with the computer. So, in other words, a no-brainer… Key, Screen, then touch bar.

Start Teardown bell! We’ve completed our inspection, and we start the easiest of the three R/R (remove and replace) parts in this teardown. Keys can be tricky, please see the video below, if keys are ‘an alien’ concept, we just need the left arrow key. There are a few online resources to check out, below, Snazzy does a nice job, walking through the process in video form, we breeze through the key change. If you need more information, check out Snazzy Labs, quick video on how to replace keys. Please note – there will be some differences between model(s), M1 specifically; hence the video! The takeaway, quick snap key are handy, can be bear if you don’t know how the scissor clips work. I pre-purchase new keys (up, down, left and right – be sure to purchase the ‘left arrow’, purchase the correct key “left” arrow) slide and click, easy as pie.

So, let’s pickup on the cracked screen… We get under the bottom case with a clamp tool and suction cups. Recommendation – iFixit has all kinds of ‘fix it’ stuff, from tools to parts etc. iFixit, we will come back to these folks here shortly, however, we’ve purchased a few items from them. You will need adhesive remover, can you guess where we got ours? This is not a paid advert, but there are some good tools there if you don’t have anything in the electric/technical toolbox.

We pick up under the bottom case, starting with the battery cable, be aware, cables and parts are finicky and will break unless you are careful. So, cable cover, battery cable and screw. Honestly, the more nerve racking part are the variance in size, driver type and prying tools are needed to take on such a task (TORX, pryor(s), spudgers, tweezers etc). Anyhow, once batter cables and screws have been removed, we will unscrew hinge covers and start on the antennae. Good luck seeing the screws on the antennae!

The antennae will require a few more cables, screws and bars. All leading down to the antennae and LCD springs. Once, through those items, we will again remove the antennae wire cover and remove those wires as well. Be aware, or a little bit of caution, we try and leave the piece we are working on in better condition than the way we found it. So, covers, try and peel those back ever so gently, keeping glued areas clean and debris free (or as much as you can, we had some glass bits that required our attention).

Once, the antennae bar is clear, LCD hinge screws will need to be removed, along with the springs and mounting hardware. Voila, LCD has been detached. Noted above, we will continue onto the touch bar, we backtracked, replaced all screws and cables to verify LCD swap and key do in fact work as expected and the touch bar was inoperable. We will pick up with the touch bar, verification, wipe and clean in the next post. Stay tuned.