Lessons learnt tonite

Got a new LCD today.

After doing the power and ground connections I tested LCD. Backlight came on. Five seconds later, nothing.

Then I realized that I accidentally soldered the socket the wrong way around (lesson 1) and did not double check it.

I also realized how fragile LED's can be without a resistor (lesson 2).

Anyways, I managed to hack out the broken LED, and Dremelled a square shaped 'replacement' from a round LED.

I havent hooked it up yet to see if other damage was done. Need a beer and some sleep now :slight_smile:

heh, yep I am sure we have all had those moments, hope yours turns out OK

Yeah, some days ago I wanted to plug the audio-cable of my portable speakers into the MP3-player. Instead I stuck the speakers' DC-adapter into the audio-jack of the player... same form factor, same size, I wondered why the player behaved a bit irritating... fortunately the jack only had ground on the outside. Lesson learnt: Don't plug cables without even watching.

Lesson learnt: Don't plug cables without even watching.

The real lesson to learn is one of design - don't design your products so that power can (potentially) be plugged into signal, and vice-versa. Similarly, each connector that performs a particular function should be standardized to that function only; back in the day, DB-9 connectors were standard for a lot of functionality on a PC; CGA/EGA were female DB-9, while serial ports were male - then somebody got enterprising with M-M/F-F adapters - and sparks were born!

Dremelled a square shaped 'replacement' from a round LED.

With a gung ho attitude and ability, you will always find work as an engineer somewhere :slight_smile:

Good news is the LCD is functioning.

Bad news is that I probably needed to use a white LED instead of blue one. Small detail I will sort out tomorrow :slight_smile:

OK, new LED in, looks all dandy now. :slight_smile:

Unfortunately I could not get a nice high brightness white LED, as that should look even better.

All in all, given I could not find a single link on the interweb to explain how to do the replacement, I must say I am impressed with myself ::slight_smile:

Edit: I wonder how well an UV LED would work. I have some that are 410nm range, which I understand should be ok to look at indirectly. :-/

I could not find a single link on the interweb to explain how to do the replacement

Maybe you can be the first to make one :wink:

Why dont u try some RGB stuff? fancy new colors you might get.

Why dont u try some RGB stuff? fancy new colors you might get.

I did think about that.

Two problems though.

  1. I cant get RGB ones readily, will need to order some.
  2. When I used the blue LED, due to having a blue background, it didnt really work.

I'll try something if I can get my hands on one :slight_smile: