How To Open a Sealed PineTime

[The3DmaN]

How to un-seal a sealed PineTime (Do at your own risk and only if all other options of recovery have been explored. This will void any warranty you have I am sure). I am not responsible for any damage to your PineTime if you do this and neither is Pine64. Please also note: this will destroy any water resistance/waterproof rating obviously.

Required tools: Wide tip flat-head screwdriver (mine was 7mm wide at the tip), Heat Gun (A hair drier may work but take longer. It may also help to prevent overheating), Plastic pry tool or guitar pick

1: Take off the watch bands

2: Lay the PineTime face down on a heat resistant surface that wont scratch your screen. I used a thick wood surface.

3: Use a heat gun to evenly heat all the sides. **Be very careful not to over heat. The back is plastic and will melt or warp if it gets to hot. You could also damage the screen and/or internal components. Also be careful not to burn yourself.**

4: Once the sides are heated (I heated mine to the point where I could just barely still hold it without burning my hand) insert the wide flat-head into the corner of the band slot and twist the screwdriver slowly to the right if you started on the left corner or to the left if you started on the right corner. If the corner does not begin to lift, apply a little more heat or possibly a little more twisting pressure (not too much). Take your time and do this on all 4 corners, then use a guitar pick to finish breaking the black rubber seal all the way around.

Extra info: For anyone that wants to re-seal a PineTime, I was made aware that the factory sealent was B-6000 which is a rubbery sealent/glue. You can also use E-6000 which is almost the same and can be found easily on Amazon. Whatever you do, DO NOT use superglue or other non-rubber adhesives.

[danielt]

Good write up. Thanks!

[mfashby]

Thanks for the tip about re-sealing. I bought the devkit, and now there is a working bootloader I feel (relatively) safe to experiment without needing the serial debugger, and I don't want to accidentally dunk it while it's not waterproof

[talpa]

Thanks indeed, 130C on the hot air gun and rapid movement on a silicone mat, and now my extra pine time has become a dev kit (they were out of stock)
Only minor scuffs on the metal and plastic where I used the screw driver to pry the watch open...
In hindsight maybe a custom 3D printed "screwdriver" in a not too hard plastic (or padding of the screwdriver) could have prevented this.

Anyway thanks again

[dmlls]

That was helpful, thanks! I managed with a hair drier just fine. Also, I only slightly opened one of the corners with the screwdriver and then worked my way from there with the guitar pick. Good to reduce the number of scuffs on the metal and plastic ;)

[arbituh]

Hello All,

PineTime newbie here. When I attempted to open my sealed PineTime, I ended up warping the plastic instead   
   
   
   
   
   

Even though the phone looks damaged, I still want to open up the watch. 



During my attempts, I was never able to open up the watch (to the point where I ended up warping the plastic).
 Does anyone have any comments/suggestions so that I can finally open this dang thing