Although I've had it for a while, I finally got around to stripping my panel. I plan to use it in the "17" LCD" vertical folded design shown in this thread (the third diagram):
http://www.lumenlab.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=1780

I got the unit on eBay back in May or June, and after testing found no stuck or dead pixels (lucky). Given the level of interest generated by Cruser's group buy over at DBG, I thought others might find my experience helpful in some way, so here goes...

A couple of points to note before starting:

- The "head" of the monitor can be freed from the pedestal by removing the two Torx screws in the vertical recesses between the LCD and pedestal.

- The signal cable protrudes from the back of this unit, making it awkward to lay on its back. I dealt with this by propping up the top edge on a loose roll of bubble wrap.

- The front of this LCD has a "hard coat" making it more resistant to damage. Nevertheless, you should be *extremely* careful not to poke or scratch it with anything hard, sharp or rough.

- Get some anti-static bags to place your components in after they are removed from the unit. (N.B. - These bags are only anti-static on the *inside*, so don't count on laying them on top as being "protected".) I used the bag from a motherboard to hold the LCD itself.

1) Before you start stripping, get an anti-static mat and ground it properly. Don't handle *any* of the internal components unless you have your wrist strap on!
Otherwise, your beautiful LCD may become an expensive paperweight...

Here's pics of the unit before stripping

Front & Back:

2) Remove the 3 phillips screws from the rear of the enclosure along the bottom edge.

3) Stand the LCD on its bottom edge with the bezel facing away from you.

4) Starting at one corner, place both thumbs on the side of the seam closest to you and grasp the lip of the front bezel with your index, middle and ring fingers. Gently but firmly press down with your thumbs and lift up with your fingers to disengage the first catch. (HINT: The first catch is ~1.25" from the edge.)

5) Move across the top of the unit, repeating this action until all 4 catches are disengaged. They are evenly spaced along the top.

6) Move to one of the edges and repeat to disengage the catches on the side, then repeat for the other side.

7) Lay the unit on its back (with the top edge away from you) and work the bottom edge loose by gently pressing the bottom edge of the bezel towards your body. When the bezel is free, lift it away and set it aside.

The unit should now look like this (note the foil tape around the edges of the LCD):

8) Peel back or cut the foil tape joining the LCD inner frame to the outer shield of the LCD enclosure. If you peel it, go slowly -- the tape tears very easily.

When complete, it should look like this:

9) Remove the 4 phillips screws from the corners of the inner LCD frame.

10) Carefully lift the inner LCD frame up from the *top* edge. Once the top of the inner LCD frame is clear of the outer frame, lift the inner LCD frame completely free of the outer frame, taking special care not to strain the cables connecting the boards on the back of the inner LCD frame to the back of the outer frame.

Pivot the inner LCD frame so that it is face-up and gently lay it down so that the top edge of the LCD inner frame is resting on the bottom edge of the LCD outer frame.

Here's a pic of the LCD inner frame lifted out of the outer frame:

11) Remove the 6 phillips screws holding the small metal plate in the center of the outer LCD frame and lift the plate free. This exposes a recess with a small PCB and four cables coming out.
- The thick cable is the digital signal cable from the computer.

The three thinner cables are:
- Front panel power switch and LED
- DC power to PCB's on rear of LCD inner frame.

12) Remove the 5 small phillips screws from the inside of the recess. (One of them is hiding under the three cables in the upper right portion of the recess in the image below.)

The recess looks like this:

13) Remove all remaining phillips screws in the outer frame.

14) Gently lift the top edge of the inner backplate free of the plastic back of the unit. This should provide you with clear access to the area where the cables pass through the back of the unit.

15) Pass the small PCB through the hole in the center of the backplate and lay it on the mat off to the side.

16) Gently slide the front panel power switch PCB free of the bottom edge of the plastic back and unwind the cable from the routing posts. Set it on the mat off to the side.

17) There is a removable plastic piece just beneath the signal cable where it passes through the plastic back of the unit. You will need to gently press it from the back along its top edge (there is a lip on the bottom edge). Once it is free, gently feed the signal cable through the opening and set the back panel aside. Repeat the feed-thru for the metal backplate and set it aside as well.

18) Take the LCD inner frame and turn it over so that the unit is face-down, making sure that *nothing* is under it but the mat.

It should look something like this:

Here are a series of close-ups of the various PCB's. I did this for documentation on which cables connect where, and in what orientation.

First the glue logic board (GLB) - 1 of 2 views:

Next view of glue logic board:

Next a view of the glue logic board connection to the timing controller (TCON) board (covered with a metal shield):

Next the DC power adapter interface PCB. The black connector is for a color calibration unit, which is not used in this application:

On to the power switch/LED PCB:

Next some close-ups of the FFC's connecting the LCD controller to the LCD.
Also an image of the LCD frame where the controller connects to it.
(Note the metal tab folded over the wide FFC. It is referenced a bit later.)

The narrow FFC is a standard 0.5mm pitch 20-pin connector.
The wide FFC is a 100-pin (!) connector - 50 pins on each side of the socket.

The good news is that you don't need to extend the FFC's. Just mount the timing controller and glue logic board perpendicular to the LCD frame. Think of the FFC's as a "hinge" and you move the boards away from the back of the LCD as if you were opening a door on that hinge.

In the LumenLab "Simple Projector" long-box design, what is normally the front of the LCD panel faces the lamp. I find the easiest way to visualize this is the panel is inverted -- rotated about its horizontal axis. With the SGI panel, the TCON and GLB boards are located on the top left rear of the LCD (as you face the screen normally). This means that when you rotate the screen about its horizontal axis, the boards are on the lower left of the panel as you face the lamp from the projection lens. This allows the boards to be mounted on the side of the projector enclosure without the need to extend the FFC's.

EDIT: 2004-11-06 - Added some more detail about the FFC's and orientation of the panel in the projector.

The 20-conductor, 0.5mm pitch FFC:

OK, back to the stripping operation:

19) Remove the plastic shield from the CCFT power supply. It is a 3-section shield with the middle section on top and the other two tucked under the sides.

20) After the shield is off, disconnect the 2 white connectors at each end of the board and the lead from the glue logic board (at the glue logic board end). Then remove the screws holding it to the board and set the board aside with the shield wrapped around it.

21) Remove the screws holding the the metal shield over the timing controller (TCON) board and lift it off.

22) *Carefully* bend the metal tab covering the wide FFC cable connecting the TCON board to the LCD so that it is parallel with the side of the LCD frame. Then *gently* unplug the wide FFC cable by prying up each side of the connector.

23) *VERY CAREFULLY* release the narrow FFC cable from the TCON board by gently lifting up the tabs of the black lever at an angle. N.B. - This is a very delicate connector!!

24) You should now be able to move all of the remaining PCB's off of the back of the LCD together. Carefully set the LCD aside for the moment.

[EDIT: 2004-11-06 - Changed references to the "LCD controller" to "timing controller" (TCON board)".]

It should look something like this:

25) Now disconnect the leads from the digital signal cable to the glue logic board and the TCON board. (These are the ones at the top of all the pics with the large ferrite cores on them.)

26) Disconnect the other lead from the glue logic board to the TCON board (at the TCON board end). This way, most of the connectors stay attached to the glue logic board.

27) Place the glue logic board (w/attached power switch and DC-in PCB's) and the TCON board and metal shield in anti-static bags and set them aside in a safe place.

** CAUTION ** ** CAUTION ** ** CAUTION **

The next several steps will complete the access to the "raw" LCD panel. You should proceed *very* slowly and take great care not to force anything! The LCD panel is less than 1/8" thick and is EXTREMELY fragile. If it is twisted, flexed, or nicked with a tool, it can crack very easily...

>> You have been warned. <<

28) Now move the LCD back to the mat and place it face-down.

29) Gently bend the four metal tabs in recesses along the top rear edge of the LCD frame so that they are parallel to the edge of the frame.

30) Turn the LCD frame over so that the display side is up. Carefully lift the top part of the frame away from the bottom part*. Be careful to keep the LCD face-up, as the "raw" panel can tip out once the top frame is removed.

*You may need to release catches on each side of the frame. You can do this by using a small flat-bladed screwdriver to gently pry the outer frame away from the inner one on each side.

31) Once the top part of the frame is removed, you should see the "raw" LCD sitting on top of a white plastic frame:

Another shot of the LCD in the frame:

An edge-on view (this is a good way to break it, kids...)

I cut out the back of the LCD inner frame with a Dremel and am smoothing off the edges with a file. Stay tuned for a couple of more screen shots.

did you get that from cruser??? and how much did it cost ya?

No, I got it off eBay before Cruser came up with the group buy. Don't remember the exact price, but it was under $300. I had to purchase the EP-1600SW adapter separately for ~$250.

The nice thing about Cruser's buy is that the outer shell of the monitor is already absent, and the EP-1600SW adapter is bundled. See Cruser's threads over at DBG for more info on what's in the bundle.

A couple of more shots showing what I did to the LCD inner frame.

First the front and back pieces after dremeling out the back panel (top):

Now both pieces assembled (sans LCD):

Now the frame with the LCD inside. Note that the frame is not a uniform dimension on all sides. This necessitates careful mounting to insure that the center of the LCD aligns with the center of the lamp, fresnels and projection lens. See more below on my approach to this.

And a rear view of the assembly. You can see the white plastic frame that the LCD sits in around the border of the hole in the back panel.

Here is the piece of plexiglass that I am using to mount the LCD. The recess being cut out is the same size as the recess in the LCD frame. The panel will be attached to the plex using 4 small bolts through the 4 holes in the LCD frame.

I later cut down the height of this piece after deciding to reduce the depth of my enclosure from 18" to 14". After cutting out the opening and filing the edges smooth, I removed the paper and spray-painted both sides matte black.

I can't thank you enough for the effort you put into this stripping of the SGI since I received my SGI from Cruser already stripped. No instructions accompanied the components and I was intending to write to Cruser to say: "that's fine, but how are the various components assembled together when installed in the pj. I don't know whether you intend to proceed that far with your coverage, if you do I will wait till you complete the project. Again, I'd like to express my sincerest appreciation for the work you have done and the contribution you have made. Well done, nice job, and very informative.

Thanks for the kind words. I am putting the projector-specific details in my PLOG. Check it out.

buckyball,

does the glass come away from the lcd or is it a 'part-of' that shouldnt be touched.

many thanks
Will

Not sure which "glass" you're referring to - can you please elaborate?

im about to bid on a 1600sw on ebay with crack in what looks like glass, protecting the lcd.
heres a pic. can this be removed without affecting the rest of it ?

hey q wark,
i wouldn't bid on it because that looks like a crack in the LCD panel. When handleing the LCD those black spots will get bigger so i would not recommend bidding on it.

As the other poster said -- the glass IS the LCD, so if it's cracked, you don't want it.

many thanks. i just missed it, looks like a good thing.
cheers

Please explain how to ground properly. I have a wrist band so far but no ground mat.

The strap (and mat, if you have one) need to be attached to an electrical ground (bottom prong of a 3-prong connector in the US), or an unpainted metal surface of a device attached to such a ground. Consult a friend knowledgeable about ESD safety for more info.