Repair a Malfunctioning LCD

posted Jun 20th 2009 1:34pm by
filed under: misc hacks, repair hacks, tool hacks

heatgun

When most people encounter dead pixels on an LCD text display, they figure that the display is dead and they decide to scrap it. However when the LCD display on one of [Joe]‘s cordless phones started to show dead rows and columns of pixels, [Joe] decided that he could fix it. With only a pencil eraser, a hot air gun, and a screwdriver (for disassembly), [Joe] was able to fix his phone’s screen in just under 10 minutes. His process involves heating the glue holding the LCD’s ribbon cable to the phones PCB with a hot air gun and using a pencil eraser to reattach segments of the ribbon cable to the PCB. If anyone here has a problem similar to [Joe]‘s, be sure to check out his detailed how-to complete with step-by-step pictures.



23 Responses to Repair a Malfunctioning LCD

  • Ivan says:

    Hot-air-repair fails to often to do on your own stuf. Rather do this with the iron for ironing shirts. The blow-gun is likely to wreak havock in there.

  • sly says:

    @ivan

    this is why you need to be easy on the trigger so to speak. Patience and knowing when to ease up on the heat will make this a lot easier. plus it should be easy in the first place because the paste they use for flex cables like that melts way sooner than solder or many of the plastics. this is probably why these displays tend to have issues in the long run, due to the low melting point. all you really have to do is pay attention to what your doing and this shouldn’t be any harder than soldering two wires together.

  • gyro_john says:

    Joe:

    Thanks for the tip! Just this week I had this exact problem come up with a calculator. I’ll be trying this right away. But using my new Aoyue Hot Air Rework Station which I bought on the recommendation of Hackaday. :-)

  • Roon says:

    Good idea, I don’t think I would try it though, I’d probably cross over all the connections. :P

  • _n3o_ says:

    Just done it last week but i havn’t used an hot air gun, just added a small piece of paper to give a better pressure betwin the ribbon and the screen :s (but it work :D)

  • Sammy says:

    If only I had known that a few weeks ago.

    My MP3 is now in pieces in my shed…

  • Greg Jones aka übermeister says:

    I just use the tip of my soldering iron. A piece of paper or thin cardboard can help spread the heat and force.

  • PoorKid says:

    I have a laptop with screen lines, would you guys reckon placing the screen in an oven would fix it?

  • St.Jimmy says:

    @Gyro_John: Be careful with the aoyue, mine caught fire because I had the fan on low and the heat on 320.
    @poorkid: I doubt it. Laptop lcd’s are sealed in a plastic-y casing and hooked in with a solid jack. To even get to the ribbon cable would render the screen useless, at least on HP-compaqs. Try checking on ebay, chopshops usually have replacement lcds super-cheap.

  • Cri says:

    Great tip !

    I’ve just fixed 2 of my 3 cheap DECT phones that all suffered this problem.

    The third one still has characters missing, maybe I’ll try to heat it one more time later…

  • Louis II says:

    that is seriously awesome. thanks for the tips!

  • Hashim says:

    Thanks for the tip, I tried on my scientific calculator which was about to get dumped due to this LCD problem. Problem is not solved 100% but yes I would say 90% digits on screen are clearly visible now. Still calculator is useless but this trick works!

  • Janie says:

    Thanks for the tip! My calculator is working now!

  • uhmgawa says:

    While I can understand the inspiration here,
    this really isn’t the proper way to repair a
    heat seal connector.

    First the conductive anisotropic adhesive used
    is typically thermosetting rather than thermo-
    plastic. Meaning you will have limited to
    no success functionally re-plasticizing it via
    heat. Even if you do succeed to soften the
    adhesive of the defective connection you’ll
    also be doing so to the adjacent connections
    as well given the broad stroke of the heat
    gun being used.

    The principle by which anisotropic conductive
    heat seal adhesives function is to create an
    electrical connection between surfaces via
    microscopic conductive particles embedded in
    the adhesive base. These conductive particles
    are either fully metallic or metal plated
    glass/plastic forced into conduction between
    surfaces under tension established by heat
    set of the adhesive while the joint is held
    under pressure. This is usually accomplished
    during manufacture via a resilient hot bar
    fusing device which holds the entire joint
    under pressure until the adhesive has set.

    By reheating such a broad area there is risk
    of relaxing unintended adjacent conductors as
    well causing them to fail. While the above
    technique may well succeed in some limited
    scenarios, it can as easily do more damage than
    good. Particularly given the low mass of the
    flex cable and the unregulated output of the
    heat gun.

    The typically recommended technique to repair a
    defective heat seal connection is to heat the
    joint and remove the entire flex conductor,
    solvent remove the remaining adhesive on the
    mating glass/flex surfaces, apply a new film
    of anisotropic adhesive, *accurately* realign
    the surfaces, tack them in place temporarily
    (a modest temp soldering iron will do here) and
    re-weld the joint with the above hot bar
    mechanism.

    That said, if the household hot bar fuser isn’t
    available I’d recommend trying more localized
    heat + pressure to repair the failed connection.
    I’d avoid the use of hot air altogether as it
    is difficult to control where the heat is being
    applied in this case. Rather I’d place a small
    metallic object such as a bare metal thumbtack
    head-down over the suspect joint ideally
    separated from the flex cable by a scrap of
    paper. Heat the exposed underside of the tack
    with moderate heat from a soldering pencil and
    keep the tack moving and pressed against the
    flex. Initially the adhesive thermosets is the
    150*C ballpark so you don’t want to exceed this
    by too much otherwise the risk of degrading (or
    outright melting) of the flex cable exists.
    Once the tack is up to temperature I’d remove
    the heat and keep the tack in pressure and motion
    over the joint. You can grasp the stem with a
    pair of tweezers to do so. I’d recommending
    starting off conservatively in terms of heat
    and retry with increased temperature if the
    initial attempts fail to reestablish the joint.

    • chuck says:

      I have an idea – ho about first using a spring clamp ,grabbing both sides of the display connection thus exerting bonding pressure on teh conductive joint. Next use tin foil to mask off the areas you do not wish to get really hot. Finally, use teh heat gun lightly over the exposed tape. It seems that teh joint s would get hot and under clamp pressure they would re-bond. Once it all cools down, remove the clamp. Test. Move on

      Thoughts?

  • gurirka says:

    hey great suggestion. can you recommend where can I find this: conductive anisotropic adhesive ??

  • Beata says:

    I’ve been trying to find out how to fix my calculator LCD! This worked like a charm! THANK YOU!!

    I was prepared to spend the 50$ on a new financial calculator so I just tried this with a hair drier =D.

    THANKS AGAIN!!

  • bobcat says:

    i fixed two lcd displays today using a temperature controlled soldering station set to 350 deg. F with a 1/16″ chisel tip. just went along both connector rows constantly burnishing in an oval pattern. worked perfectly.

  • Okram says:

    Thanks for the trick! I just tried it on my cordless phone display and it worked like a charm. I just wrapped the tip of my cheap soldering iron in aluminium foil to help spread the heat + cool it down.
    It took 3 tries to have the display fixed.
    I found out one should slide the hot tip back and forth quite fast at first and slow down progressively to avoid melting everything…

  • tiko says:

    Have somewhat similar problem (or is it different altogether?) with (battery operated)LCD display used on a Cross-Trainer. Screen initially displays then goes blank after a few seconds. Any tips on cause & fix, please? Still works functionally – can hear graded acoustic beeps signifying levels of difficulty, etc. As I know machine well, am ‘blind’ programming it at present.

  • Per Jensen says:

    When the LCD digits are visible, but fades away slowly, it’s because they are applied with a DC voltage, not an AC voltage, which they need. You should check for bad solder joints or a short on some of the timing components (a resistor or capacitor) which times the AC-signal applied to the LCD glass.

  • Tony1Gunalan says:

    I found a faulty Diode with marking as follows.
    31D0 06 4E. I can find any data on this diode. What other diode can replace it? Please help.

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