Pandora Body / Lid Not Quite Right

[stuart]

After a very short time with my Pandora, I was upset to see small cracks forming in the corner of the lid. :-((

I wondered how I'd managed to do this as its been ether in use or in its case in my coat pocket (only 3 times so far).

When I looked closer, I saw that the lid doesn't meet the body properly on one side, a closer inspection and I saw that the whole body was actually curved, not the lid.

Is there anything I can do about this to stop it getting any worse. My guess is that any pressure on the part of the lid that's not meeting the body when its in its case in a pocket or being held is bad news. 

 

[levi]

Hmm, now you mention it there is a slight curve to the case on mine too. The lid doesn't meet on the left corner - that's a standard feature, and I always thought it was to do with the hinge mechanism, but maybe the curve of the base has something to do with it too (or more likely, if the hinge was straight, the lid wouldn't meet at the right side either).

I don't know about these cracks in the lid though. That's odd. Is the lid inner clipped in properly and not stressing the lip? Still, those cracks look mostly cosmetic to me - even if that corner fell off it wouldn't stop the Pandora working, although you might consider that to be unacceptable cosmetic damage to be fair. If you're not worried about the looks of it now, and if you can rule out stress caused by incorrect assembly, I suggest it's something you'll have to live with.

 

[stuart]

Yeah - its not a big issue - but I wonder how difficult it would be to replace that lid or maybe adjust it if I bought the parts.....

 

[Hồng Thất Công]

@Stuart Fox:  3 of mine are the same.  They are all like that I guess so don't worry too much I'd say.

 

[stuart]

Ah so its 'normal' like the bowing of the screen bezel..

Its something I'd be interested in 'modifying' at some point... I'm a little OCD about stuff like that but, of course I don't want to end up doing more damage to the pandy. 

 

[Hồng Thất Công]

I changed/mixed and match my pandas couple times.  It's pretty delicate process and I've broken quite a number of cases, LCD cables, and LCDs

 

[stuart]

i know its going to bug me, so i may start trying to collect spare parts

 

[FBnil]

heh... mine looks like that too, including the crack... In my case, I put rubber protectors on the lid (these round things at the corners). I thought mine curved because of that.

 

[rError]

My screen lid is exactly like yours in pic one. Flush on the right, but not on the left. It's normal.

It's a shame plastic injection molding is such an expensive thing to do. These Chinese cases do their job, but I must admit they are a little disappointing. Probably the number one thing keeping people from buying a unit.

The Pandora could really use a case upgrade.

 

[stuart]

Hmm - I've just checked out the spare parts available on dragonbox. Nice and cheap - may just grab some in case. 

So it's fiddly to replace the plastic parts... more difficult than iPhone / iMac repairs?

 

[stuart]

ok - need some more advice... my left shoulder button has stopped working.... it still looks physically the same but its stopped clicking. Is it liklely to be something popping out of place that i can fix... oh and if i do try and solve any of these issues myself am i invalidating any waranty?

 

[Hồng Thất Công]

^  Heh, I had the same issue when I first got mine.  It's easy to fix.  Disassemble the bottom (5 srews total), take out the shoulder buttons and do this for both of them:

Spoiler

Don't you love what you can do with the Pandora

 

[joekutz]

After a very short time with my Pandora, I was upset to see small cracks forming in the corner of the lid. :-((

I wondered how I'd managed to do this as its been ether in use or in its case in my coat pocket (only 3 times so far).

When I looked closer, I saw that the lid doesn't meet the body properly on one side, a closer inspection and I saw that the whole body was actually curved, not the lid.

Is there anything I can do about this to stop it getting any worse. My guess is that any pressure on the part of the lid that's not meeting the body when its in its case in a pocket or being held is bad news. 

Do you actually have a black or silver case? Little difficult to see in the picture.

I guess (almost) everybody (including me) got a Pandora which lid does not close entirely on both sides, because of the already mentioned low quality cases. I never saw this as problem.

The black cases had some serious material problems in the past, leading to cracks in a lot of Pandoras (including mine). They switched to the silver cases because they are of higher quality, although i don't know whether the crack problem was solved completely by that. When the cracks are gettig more, you should contact ED to get replacement.

I personally liked the black one more, and my replacement case I got from ED does a very good job until now.

ok - need some more advice... my left shoulder button has stopped working.... it still looks physically the same but its stopped clicking. Is it liklely to be something popping out of place that i can fix... oh and if i do try and solve any of these issues myself am i invalidating any waranty?

Uuhm.. The "grindawaysomeplastic" answer you got from Shenmue might not help you when your problem is different to his. But opening the case is a first step. When you loosen the screws a bit the button might work again already. After opening the case, you will see what happend. Look whether something is just stuck. When you are unlucky, the pushbutton itself got loose from the circuit board - would be again a case for contacting ED.

 

[stuart]

So its ok for me to remove the cover and investigate without invalidating any waranty? I'm reasonably confident that if it's something simple I'd be able to put it right - I've had practice repairing phones / iMacs etc before but I generally only tinker with things that are out of warranty for obvious reasons.

 

[sebt3]

well this is "normal"

the iner part of the screen lid was designed to fit exactly... before the painting process kicks-in. So the pain thinkness account a lot in this bending.

Opening the screen lid is a receipice for failed pandora. You'll need to know exactly what you're doing because putting things back in place will be tricky (at least if you want the screen to be still working). Before opening the pandora, trhink if you realy need to fix that. Then get a talk with ED (irc is a nice place for that) he will tell you what he is willing to cover and what he wont cover warranty wide. He will also provide advice on what to be carefull while putting that LCD ribon into place.

EDIT: did not see the left trigger problem at first. fixing that could be easier that the top part. Definatly doable if you've opened iphone to fix them