Ok, so I'm stripping this lcd. It's a Gateway FPD1520. Everything was goin good, had the finish line in sight. There is one spot that the lcd is holding on to this circuit panel on the back that I can't seem to see how to separate. Any help?















Basically, I need to separate the red side from the blue side.

Can't you slip the metal backing off without disconnecting either of those cables?

I had one like this the red boxed one just pulls out (like push in and pull out really simple) the other one to the left is a standard FFC disconnect this one I think by flipping the tab and pulling out

I was able to use this in my build just carefully bending it out of the light path

hey, thanks alot for the responses, this is my first strip and I'm nervous about taking anything off I'm not suppose to (that is one hell of a sentence). Anyway I got the back(light) off after disconnecting the bigger cable, I wasn't able to slide the back off before because of the black plastic piece that my fingers are touching in pics 3-4. sdubb - in your build did you bend the highlighted piece in this pic?



It is flexible but not like the other cables - it's stiffer. I'm guessing it would probably be OK if I only bent it once and not at too extreme an angle. BTW - I had to disconnect a few other FFCs and didn't realize that there is no real plug on the end of them - just a piece that kinda clamps the tape into the socket - is there anything special about hooking them back up or pretty much just line em up and stick the plastic 'clamping piece' back in to hold it?

Congrats on the removal.

You might be able to re-use most of the plastic/metal frame that the LCD came in with some minor modifications. That way your LCD will be better protected.

I'm pretty sure re-attaching the FFCs are just a matter of lining them up and clamping them down - see this post for an illustration.

If you're worried about damaging the FFCs, you might want to consider applying some Silicone (Type II) to the FFCs or maybe use some clear packing tape.

I guess bend is the wrong wording............ slightly curve the shorter wider and stiffer flat flex cable I NEVER TOTALLY BENT THE CABLE YOU HAVE SHOWN.

ok, um, SH*T. So I got the thing stripped and went to work hookin everything back up. Those FFCs are a huge pain for my big fingers, none the less, I hooked up everything. Everything, as in all the connections there are. I hooked up the backlight too and set the lcd back on top of it for testing purposes. I plugged it in and hooked up a computer - it came on! yay! But then nothing really happened the backlight was on and I could barely see vague lines on the screen. Over the next few seconds the lines became darker but were still only random lines. I got scared and unplugged it. I sat and stared for a minute and hooked it back up and turned it back on. I snapped a quick picture and then the same thing happened, it seemed to happen faster this time. The pic doesn't really show the lines but take a look...



Did I just royally screw something up? Or is it just a connection I should check? Son-of-a-crap, somebody let me know if I should cry now.

What kind of video source are you plugging into the LCD controller? HTPC? DVD Player?

I'm using a dvi to vga connector to plug in to my mac book pro's slot to hook up multiple monitors. I actually forgot to test this specific set up on this monitor before taking it apart. I did however hook this lcd panel to my desktop's vga and it displayed fine.

When it was hooked to the laptop the panel should have been displaying the background of the laptop.


..........?

You need to re-seat ALL the ffc connectors.

Most likely one of them is not making good contact.

Ok, thanks again for the help guys, I re-checked my ffcs and turns out the bigger one was not making the connection. So.. it's workin!





I unhooked the backlight and set the lcd back in the plastic frame. I then screwed a temporary chipboard 'shelf' onto the frame to hold the guts. I put this whole thing on my overhead projector and tried it out. It actually worked. The picture is backwards b/c I need to turn the lcd over and I still have a circuit board sitting over part of the screen, but IT WORKS. Woo Hoo!





The overhead setup is a little ghetto compared to some of the more recent projects on these forums, but it's really easy and with the projector about 8' from the wall I'm getting a picture about 3.5'x5' (that's a light switch to the far left for scale). While I was takin pics I didn't leave the overhead on for more than about a minute at a time, for fear of burning the screen. At the moment I have it propped up about an inch off the glass, will that be enough to prevent yellowing? I also had questions about removing layers from the screen - such as an antiglare. Is it right that the reason to do this is to get a clearer/brighter picture? I wasn't really sure what the point was.

Alrighty boys and girls, got an update for ya. I'm officially claiming this projector a success. I did the easiest set up possible (almost) and I think it went very well for a first timer. Since last time I flipped the lcd over and mounted the guts out of the way. I mounted them to a piece of chip board that is held at a right angle to the screen's frame by a piece of angle-iron-ish metal that I cut from a spare piece of the screen casing.














a little Jay and Silent Bob to test it out

I just wanted to say thanks to everybody that helped me out with the info. When I thought I screwed stuff up your answers helped me out.

Congrats on your success-ish-ness-ism-tion-itude!