Bodging a repair to a cracked Garmin

On our recent cycle tour in the Hebrides, we managed to drop our backup Garmin bike computer, an Edge 520 Plus, during a fast descent. It hit the deck quite hard, bounced then ended up in a watery ditch. We retrieved it, still functioning despite a badly shattered glass.

The underlying circuit board could be seen through the break, and the corner was abraded off where the device hit the tarmac. As far as I could see, the majority of the screen was still functioning, with a few dark areas at the top and bottom. Here's a photo of the damage.

In a way I wasn't too upset by this damage, after all this is a pretty old device long relegated to backup use. On the other hand, I like to repair things, and the Edge 520 Plus is still sold by Garmin at £199.99. I looked around and couldn't figure out if the screen would need replacing or just the glass. Most web sites seem to suggest the glass and screen come together, and at approximately £30 I didn't think the aged device merited the expense.

An additional issue was that replacing the glass and screen probably wouldn't leave me with a waterproof device given the damage to the upper right corner.

I decided to take a bodge fix approach. I sealed the broken and cracked parts of the glass with araldite, and also tried to ensure that the corner was also sealed. I used my Dremel to remove as much of the excess araldite as possible, then gave the now roughened araldite a couple of coats of polyurethane varnish that I had to hand.

The end result is not pretty, but I think it'll do the job. You can see some dark horizontal lines near the top and bottom of the screen, but really it's still usable I think. Time will tell!