My Eiki Projector... Ebay 20$
My Samsung SyncMaster 570V TFT Half way through disassembly.
1. My TV to Vga box TVBOXTRA 30$
2. My Two Fans bought from Lumen Lab store.
3. Reflector.
4. Lens bought from Lumen Lab store.
<a name="components"></a><h3>LCD Monitor Components</h3>
<p>This Hitachi is a very clean unit, with the components nicely joined together by easy to use connectors (no the horrid soldered on thingies, but actual multiple use connectors that humans can detach). In the photo, the colored rectangles were added to simplify discussion.</p>
<p><strong>VGA to digital and LCD Control</strong>. On the upper right, in the blue square, is the most important piece of circuitry. This component accepts VGA input (15 pin connector at the bottom) and takes care of converting it to a signal the LCD can interpret. It is connected to the LCD panel via the two flat connectors on the right, which we'll come back to later. From top to bottom, on its left side, are connectors to:
<ul>
<li>The power supply input;</li>
<li>The inverter;</li>
<li>The user control panels.</li>
</ul>
</p>
<p><strong>Power supply input</strong>. In red, almost centered in the image, is the power supply input. The function of this little board is simply to hold the power jack. Though it has four wires, they are connected in pairs to the connect to the jacks ground and supply pins. Owing to our incompatible power supply, we just got rid of it and spliced the wires directly into the adapter's plus and ground.</p>
<p><strong>Inverter</strong>.<br />
The inverter, on the left in yellow, converts the DC power provided by the power supply to the <emph><font color="#ff0000">high voltage</font></emph> AC used by the backlight. The backlight consists of a pair of fluorescent tubes and a diffuser, which is just a semi-transparent piece of rigid plastic used to do just that: diffuse the fluorescents' light and let it spill through whichever crystals happen to be rotated in the LCD at any given moment. For our purposes, this component and the fluorescents are useless so you can chuck or sell them. Be careful though: there is a reason LCD power supplies are bulky and provide such high amperage--the power developed by these units can be downright dangerous, so disconnect them <emph>before</emph> applying power and be wary of where you stick those fat fingers.</p>
<p><strong>User control panel</strong>. These are the buttons, green at bottom, used to control the monitor and access menus and such. Our unit works without these even being attached and we've yet to need them, though it might be interesting to affix them to the outside of our installation when we get to that point in phase II.</p>
Thanx to Psychogenic Inc For the LCD Pics!
Ill Keep You Guys Posted
The first step for getting to the LCD screen was to remove all the components. The most delicate operation here was detaching the flat, ribbon cable type, connectors from the main circuit board. These are two series of parallel metallic tracks, sandwiched between transparent plastic sheets, the edges of which expose the wires on one side. To get them dislodged from the surface mount connectors (white rectangles in the image), you need to gently unlatch the very small black plastic locks on each connector by sliding a finger nail beneath and pulling up until you feel a click. If you break or remove these little latches, it won't be fun.
Having removed all the components, it was possible to extract the screen from its shell. As you can see, from the front there are (obviously) no components blocking the screen which is enclosed, to the left and bottom, by chips which control the actual rows and columns of pixels. The diffusion screen, immediately behind the black LCD panel, was sandwiched between the LCD and another PCB connected one one side to the VGA circuit board and to those pixel control chips on the other. Luckily, the two connectors on this board were flexible enough that it was possible to twist the smaller board to a 90 degree angle, thereby clearing the field of view for the LCD. Pictured below are the VGA PCB on the left, the LCD controller board standing vertically above the lower left side of the LCD panel.</p>
Having successfully removed the LCD from the monitor, it was time to make sure everything was still functional. Moving the entire assembly over to the living room and onto the OHP, it was a joy to see Neo flipping us the bird. In real life the LCD should not be laid down directly atop the projector as the 400 Watts give off a good deal of heat, regardless of the OHP's fan. Note: when placing the LCD, ensure that you see it as if you were looking at a regular monitor, with the light from the project stage shining through the rear when facing the projector directly (no need to flip it over or put it face down, the projector lens expects it this way).</p>