It does seem strange that your anti glare is flaking though... its almost like there is a brittle coating on top of it... Almost like its not a plastic sheet at all on these panels...

What are the pieces you removed like? Are they like a plastic sheet? Or am i wrong

difficult to say, it was thin and transparent. The corner that came up, if you ran your finger across it would feel sharp and stiff, not like if you did the same with a plastic bag.

I measured the channel to the top layer, it was about 0.25 0.3 . The layer i removed could have been 0.05mm thick but thats a guess. The other thing i can think about is that its re-enforcing glue around the sides that makes it brittle

After the 12 hours are up i wont try and lift the allready started piece. Ill try another corner to see if i can get a thinner layer than that. Just have to make sure that its soaked right to the edge

This shows how close i am to the corners and how saturated the towel is

I just thought if temperature has to do with the last soak, its about 19.2øc in the kitchen (winter here) about 66.56 Fahrenheit. It could make the water too cold to do what its supposed to do. I will put it in the bathroom and turn up the heater 73-74 ø Fahrenheit should be ok.

Brutuz, reading this thread is making me really nervous. It sounds like our panels might be using a different type of material for the AG. One thing I might have tried is applying a drop of stripper to the corner you've already started to pull up using a q-tip. Letting the stripper seep a little under the part where the AG has started to seperate from the panel and see if it has any affect on the adhesive holding on the AG.

Has anyone thought to try heating the panel up a little with a hair dryer?

Edited to say: On second thought, if your going to apply stripper to any part of the panel, then you'd probably be committed to using the stripper on the whole thing.

Hold up.....If anybody plans to test Stripper on any corner after a Rag attemt then I suggest that you wait for the panel to completely dry especially the PVA. From seeing others who tried Stripper after Ragging the PVA seems to be effected even more. Upon discovering the polar was ruined after both attempts they then rush to conclude it was Stripper that done them in because it was the last method used.

Mark: Could you give us your insights to this theory? Can you recall if you tested any Stripper on TAC after it was treated with the Rag Method for the 12 hour duration or longer and how did the PVA stand to such a test. I'm getting concern that it might be possible once the antiglare/TAC permeats with water that the PVA underneath might be slightly introduced and affected which makes it more vulnerable to Stripper if tried.
sim

I'm not sure, maybe you're aware of this, brutuz, but I would be sure that the water isn't getting onto the panel in the corner where you managed to peel up a little antiglare. I think you could end up with the grain effect if you let the bare PVA soak with water.

Its hard to tell whats going on JonJandran managed to remove his after 10 hours. Im hoping he has some pictures of it. Ive been soaking mine again for 7 hours in a warmer room now. The towel im using now is holding more water its closer to the edge than the last attempt with the paper boarder and towel. So i will have a look after 10 hours. I will try and lift a layer arounf the black matrix boarder enforced with tape. It could be that i have not got the correct layer, if the soak is working it should not be that hard to pop up the antiglare. I see what happens in 3 hours

Thanks ill check that

cut a small corner of what i pulled up at the side of the black border, its about the thickness or thinner than a plastic rubbish bag. I think its the antiglare. It seems the sides need to be cut with a thin razor blade about 1mm into the panel and the middle seems to be looser. Its been soaking 8 hours now so it will be interesting to see if the sides become easier after 12 hours.

Must say that this stuff is tough to be that thin, i guess its because its scratch resistant to a certain level.



Its thinner in real life than the picture below, maybe 0.02 - 0.05mm

Awesome closeup pictures there brutuz, I'm impressed.

Currently, it is strongly beleived the antiglare is fused to the TAC. Looking at the corner you pulled this piece up from do you see that portion of the panel as being reflective. If it is than this is already (strongly believe) is your PVA (polarizer) already showing.
sim

After 10 hours, its just the same. (soaked yesterday for 20 hours, just the same) nothing that peels up easy. Checked the panel again and its working fine which is good after all that soaking i put it though . (should wait 24 hours before testing)

Option 2, Paint stripper i'll give that some thought But if the antiglare is fused to the TAC then it cant be removed

Sorry I was at work.

The antiglare on my Sharp 15.4" was the same as my HPL1530 15" and the Sony PSone and my 5.5" LCD. About as thick as a sheet of paper.

The Wuxga panel did just like yours at first brutuz. It flaked off. I had to wedge the razor under the corner for about 1/2" - 3/4" before I started peeling it up or it would flake. But after getting around a 1" piece started it then peeled up a lot easier. Maybe these panels have a LOT more edge glue?

Was your panel new or used?

The stuff is not the consistency of a plastic bag under any circumstance. It is more like a thin credit card type plastic. But it is quite flexible. It will crack if bent a lot but keeping it in one flexible sheet should be possible. heat will obviously help, but unfourtunately too much heat may increase the chances of dissolving the polarization PVA as well, so just keep it at room temperature.

I don't know what to say. On the one hand it looks like you are gettin some clean pull ups, on the other it won't continue without cracking. Wether this is because the stuff is really brittle due to its additional hard coat (3H) or because the glue is still holding too much is hard to say. You could give it an exceedingly long time and then see if tape reinforcement holds it all together while not requireing any more force. The good news is that even if all goes horrible for some reason, a really comperable replacement polarizer has fallen into our laps.

I will say this: The only other panels that we have seen that gave people a hard time also had anti-glare that cracked too easily but did seperate from the panel. We never did establish if the reason why that anti-glare could seperate was because it had seen water, or if it always is a bit peel-able. Hope that makes sence. With my panel, for instance, there is no way I could get flakes like that without water taking some effect.

I see no reason to not soak for a really long time. Again, we have no proof that there is such a thing as an oversoak.

30hrs of soaking... wow. wow.

Doing this to a WUXGA panel WOW! lol - I can't believe it! but I must say, thank you for taking the initiative, I can learn from your experience.

EDIT: Does anyone know what "type" of plastic the anti-glare is, and does anyone know what "type" of glue bonds it? Knowing that will allow us to make the proper decision in finding a suitable solvent.

Mark and the others have already been through this. Thats where the rag soaking came from. I forget the name of the antiglare material but it is water permeable. The adhesive that glues it is water soluble (in most cases) and is generally the safest thing to apply to the polarizer. Though it is not harmless. It will damage the polarizer if given enough time.

brutuz: Thats what your trying to remove here. The TAC that has the antiglare on it. Both layers <antiglare and TAC> removed thereby exposing the PVA (polarizer). Rag Method permeats these 2 layers dissolving the adhesive then they are removed in 1 sheet while Stripper melts both layers which is then scooped off.
sim

The anti-glare should be fused to the TAC. The only procedures we have are to pull the TAC up and thus take the anti-glare with it. The PVA is the topmost exposed layer when you are done, and that layer must remain. PVA actually performs the polarization.

mikau: PVA is not so much permeable to Stripper *given a period of time*. Check SonicWonder's permeation chart at the INDEX. The structure of some of these chemical gloves are made of PVA to handle the use of harsh chemicals. In this case PVA gloves can reasonably withstand Methylene Chloride which is the main ingredient of Stripper.

BTW, I'm not trying to insinuate any best method here but just want to clarify some things.
sim

Mikau was saying that water will permeate given a period of time. I cannot disagree. But Sonic soaked for nearly a week in the overexposure test and nothing bad happened with water or stripper.

Thanks jonjandran, thats good information. I guess ill give it another try

Thanks Mark, I can say that the water method is safe, my panel has soaked 12 hours and 20 hours, I have plugged in the controller and gone over the whole panel inch by inch and there is no damage at all not even grain.

The next plan is to soak a full 24 hours, i need to be sure that no PVA is going to snag on the antiglare/TAC layer, my panel is the same as jonjandran's so it should come off. It would have been great if he had taken pictures of the panel at the different stages of removal. This time i will use some of those shaving razorblades, this should be much better than a sharp knife. I will put some tape around an edge and then go around that edge with the razorblade but i wont cut into the matrix becuase i know will scratch the PVA, i will try and lift it, if it lifts then i will cut around the edge further. I know some of you are thinking just pull on the damn thing but one look at how fine this matix is will make you think different. I am astonished really on how they make these panels, its not nano technology but its not far off that.

EDIT : The panel has dried for 12 hours, and i have started the soak again. The test corners are not exposed to the soak

A credit card is around 0.8mm the edge that i mentioned to you is only 0.25 - 0.3mm (see picture below)
The layer that seemed to give way the easiest is in between the 0.25 and 0.3mm layer, so the antiglare/tac
on this panel is thinner 0.05 - 0.1mm maybe becuase its a thinner panel than normal LCD's becuase its a
laptop screen.??

I'm only trying to describe the type of plastic that is used (Triacetyl Cellulose), not the thickness. The best I can come up with is if you made a credit card that thin, this is what it would be like.

edit I see no reason to stop and go. I thought it was soaking this whole time.

Mark, thanks for all the help. Sry I missunderstood you with the credit card . I stopped the soak, that was a mistake. Its been soaking for 10 hours now I will try it tommorow after 24 hours

I will hold my breath. Actually, that is a pretty long time to hold my breath.

well after 24 hours of soaking i could not get the antiglare of this panel. I put some tape on the corners and went around the black border with a razor blade, the antiglare came up like it did last time, I had to use a little force to get it up but further down the border a piece of PVA came up too and I am glad it was a piece along the border. At that point I stopped, I did not want to go any further. I did not want to take the risk that the PVA would come up in the matrix. Since there was no difference with the 12 hour soak and the 24 hour soak I don’t see why longer soaking than 24 hours will help. Rag soak works but not very well with this panel.

I have some paint stripper in gel form that I will try in on a small area of the border. The stripper is not the type mentioned on the forum., but this is what it says on the bottle. Paint Stripper, used for most types of paint, wood, metal, stone, concrete. Not recommended for plastic painted surfaces. ingredients are: fat dissolving, N-metylpyrrolidon. I hope anyone could verify if this is ok

Another issue I have is that I cant get hold of denatured alcohol here, they require you to fill out forms and apply for it , Its strict here in Norway. The only thing i can get is 60% drinking alcohol, burp will that do?, its also difficult to get methanol spirit here on the black market after some people were selling truck loads of illegal bottles of methanol mixed with home made spirit which is lethal. They ended up in jail.

Brutuz... you rock!

How you can be this patient astounds me! I'm a newbie to this forum, soon to be building my own PJ and ran across this thread. It gives me shudders! BRRrrrrrrr!

I know you'll be sucessful! Stay with it!

Ross

Well i think its important to share information of results, the real guys who rock are on the main thread 'LL projector lumens theory', you should check it out. SIMUL8R has an excellent summary with links to the various methods including his paint stripping method.

I guess if it all goes wrong i have the option to put one of those new polarizer's on the panel. The metal frame on this panel would hold it down nicely. lets hope it does not come down to that. What I am putting this panel through makes me glad i did not pay full price for it. But she's still holding on

Ok.....(gringes) so, your gonna try a strip....first you take off your shirt and then....oops, wrong manual...

brutuz: the makings of the Stripper preferred is mainly methylene chloride (MC). I wouldn't try that brand you have especially on your panel. Probably if your going to experiment on some pieces of antiglare/polarizer perhaps but not in this case. So your from Norway, hope you can find some Stripper that has the highest MC. If you can't find denatured alchy then probably rubbing alchy.

I gringed because your now attempting Stripper after 24 hrs of ragging. Well, we'll just havta see what happens here. Don't forget to sand before you add the Stripper and be careful on those corners you already pulled up the a/g & TAC, wouldn't want to mar your polar. But first lets see what you find out with just a test to a fresh corner you planned on trying.
sim

[/quote]


brutus man your camera owns!
I can even see the pixels on the corner of the LCD panel!!!

good luck BTW

hi there,
this is my first post in this section. I'm in the same situation as brutuz. I soacked my panel for 10 hours (it's still soacking) but from brutuz's great pictures I can easily say that I have the same kind of AG filter.
I used a sharp knife to lift a cornet but it's too brittle and cracks up very easily. I don't think I'm lifting the PVA as the layer I'm trying to pull of is really thin. I'd say 0.05 - 0.1 mm

I also tried to chew it ( ) to see if there were two layers but I wouldn't say so.

That being said, I'd like to try the Stripper Way (the very nasty way ) too!!

I'm gonna try this experiment on a fresh corner , but first I need to get what SIMUL8R suggested....and I don't really know if it's easy to find it here in italy

I feel like I'm raping this panel

EDIT: As I guessed I checked a couple of big stores here in florence and both of them didn't have 220 grain sandpaper nor CM. The worst thing is that they don't have any idea where I could get this stuff!! they say 220 grain sandpaper is only for jewelery.......I really don't know about that, but sounds wierd to me....

Hi There,

Are you trying to remove the antiglare on a WUXGA panel? I’m going to finish building my PJ and see what the results are like, depending on the results of the picture quality i might take another attempt to remove the antiglare again.

I stripped the panel further an saw those brightness enhancement films on the back that Mark was on about they are reflective and look like an aluminum plate, very impressive technology any brightness improvements is welcome

Grit is a standard. Sandpaper is just sand glued to paper . Don't worry about it. That is, as long as it doesn't feel like it will cut too deep, don't worry about it. It actually surprises me that you can't get Jasco or some equivalent stripper there.

Make sure you let your panels dry out really good before going for stripper. And keep that duration down.

I'm thinking you guys need to dig up some PEEK polish or equivalent. How high a grit do they have in those jewelry papers?

Brutuz: Admirable patience . I think you pretty much proved that this is a no go with certain hard coats. It's too risky to try sanding and then soaking, so I agree: it's time to pack it in and consider your other options. Keep your eye out for really good metal polishes (like PEEK), or safe paint strippers. Hopefully missing that corner section is not going to bug you too much.

At this resolution i could minimize a movie and watch it in the corner where the antiglare is missing , it wont bug me, its too small to notice ,99% of movies have those black borders. I enjoyed the challenge it was fun

Florence? Wow, been there and Venice. Lots of culture to digest. Seriously, no Stripper with MC or fine grit sandpaper. How did Micheal Angelo ever get his work done...hehehe. Hope your luck changes cause I'd like everyone to see the difference in projection. Maybe I should start a business and mail these things to you all out there...hmmmmm.

mc based stripper is hard to find in some countries as it is reserved for "professional" use only
for example, you are unlikely to find any on french shelves in diy stores, but if you ask a shop attendant...

fyi , this diy macro lens was on slashdot i believe a few weeks back..
http://www.photocritic.org/2005/macro-phot...hy-on-a-budget/

make a macro lens out of a pringles can ..could get some really nice close ups with a lens like that

I just got in ANOTHER Sharp WUXGA panel. And this one is different from the previous Sharp Wuxga.

On the first one you could see the antiglare layer. It was very easy to see where the antiglare layer started, where it was laying on top of the polar. But on this one there is no edge where the antiglare starts.

This is a new one for me. Of the 7 Lcd's I have stripped ALL of them have had an antiglare edge. I could see where it started and it was very easy to slide a razor under the edge.

But this panel is just like yours Brutuz. The exact same as in the macro pic. I have had to try to wedge the razor where I THINK the antiglare should start. And all it does is flake off.

I'm beginning to think that some of these panels have a spray on antiglare laver, or a polar that had the antiglare already on it.

It's been soaking 10 hours and nothing. Might have to go with the "Stripper" method.

Well after 16 hours it came off.

But it came off in sections and it was VERY hard to peel off. And it left glue marks that won't come off no matter what I do. But thankfully the marks don't project.

I must say that I don't recommend stripping the antiglare on the Sharp WUXGA panel.

You know I'm wondering if there might be any difference in the way AG is implemented on panels that are intended to be used in laptops. Laptops encounter a great deal of abuse throughout their lifetime and have to be able to operate in greater extremes of hot and cold climes than do desktop monitors. It might be worth while to take note of the experiences that others with laptop displays have in trying to remove the AG. Just a thought.

Just another update.

I wanted a little better contrast and brightness, so I decided to peel up the silver reflective material on the backside of the Sharp Lcd.

I peeled a small 1/2" section just to make sure it wasn't a polarizer. Then back in the projector I tested it. I could still see the projection perfectly and it looked a little better.

So I peeled the entire reflective material off. You don't even have to soak it in water. Just peel it off with even pressure. It comes off leaving hardly any residue. A wet rag cleans it right up.

I put it back in the projector and man what a difference. Even my kids walked in and said "WOW dad what did you do !" It's much brighter with better contrast and colors. Well worth it in my opinion.

That is the reflective polarizer I have been talking about. If levereaged properly it can make things brighter, but with current designs it will cut around 15% of your light.

Hey Mark. Do you think there is a Tac layer underneath the antireflective layer ?

The antireflective layer peeled up without a water soak . Some I'm wondering if there is a Tac layer there also that I could water soak off ?

Any guess ?

Nevermind I answered my own question.

Yes there is a Tac layer underneath the Antireflective layer. And it comes off in a 2-3 hour water soak using the rag method.

What the heck is a TAC layer?

It's another protective layer they add to the LCD . On the antiglare side, it is bonded to the antiglare, so you remove it with the antigare. On the other side it is another layer that is under the antireflective material. You have to water soak it to get it off.

This is a cross section of a polarizer without antiglare on the TAC. In the case of antiglared polarizer, antiglare is somehow fused to the top TAC.
sim