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[P] Looking into the job-lot of LCDs

A project log for TrueTent TempLab [gd0143]

Improving my work/life balance by building the office every time I want to "go into the office", ideally with artificial daylight.

kelvinakelvinA 03/19/2023 at 23:140 Comments

I grabbed the first 8 screens in the job lot, put them in my backpack and ran over to the labs my university happens to have to see if I can actually get some artificial lighting while I wait for this inline fan RMA (it's almost been 3 weeks now... If I'd known, I'd've probably sent back the entire kit and reordered)

I decided to focus on the dented one, since I'd rather use the one that looks the most damaged for my First Attempt In Learning.

Hah! How convinient! Unlike some of the commentors, the panels have 2 backlight wires right here. Let's see the resistance. Wait... 2 mega-ohms?

So then I was watching one or two teardown videos and thought "Just wrip off the band-aid and get it over with" and instead started seeing what I should dissassemble first. 

That is... until I leaned a bit closer to the screen and saw this sticker:

Alt Text: Fluorescent lamp in LCD panel contains a small amount of mercury. Please follow local ordinances or regulations for disposal.

[insert truck reversing sound effect]

I check my stash and all eight of them aren't LEDs either! So I ran back home and see exactly what's in here.

You know those 8 panels I checked to make sure they were LED backlit? They're like THE ONLY ones. For a 12KG package, probably 11kg isn't even usable.

I even had a feeling of "perhaps you should ask the seller to just send the 8 and not the rest, or perhaps a new job lot where all the LED screens are bundled together".

Now I've got to figure out how to responsibly make most of the job lot not my responsibility (i.e. safe disposal or return-to-sender), which again might have been avoided / mitigated if I wasn't as hasty as I was. Shame that nothing has gone all that smoothly at all with any of the 3 main purchases.

Moving on, I got back to the lab with those (slimy for some reason) screens and peeled off the tape on one to reveal the motherboard:


I forgot to take a picture of the other half of the board.

Well the 40-pin header (on the other half of the board) was also ground, and I was just aimlessly poking pins until I noticed that there was a square with the letter A in it, and on an empty area of the board there was another fenced off area with "A" and a bunch of names, including LED_EN. It looks like that empty area is a map for the A area, which is too dense to put the markings there.

In the near future I hope to solder some wire to test this LCD out and see if I need to get rid of all 25 screens.

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