I accidentally broke the LCD screen of my Pandora


Hmmm... What backlight?
Generally all LCD screens have either a CCFL or a white LED backlight lamp to illuminate the screen.


So does Hitting FN + I(Brightness up)  turn up the brightness of the backlight? (May need to log in for it to work)
 
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FN+I does nothing.

Yeah, I can see just enough to make out what's going on on the screen (eg. login, XFCE desktop, etc).

In fact, I can press the brightness button on the XFCE taskbar? toolbar?, but that says the brightness is maxed.

Oh so in layman's terms, the backlight is the general brightness of the screen?
 
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No, the backlight creates the light coming from the screen.  Without a backlight it's just reflecting incident light.  I was wondering if when you said it was just visible you meant the latter.
 
So... there's a light that the screen actually produces and the backlight makes it brighter/visible?
 
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No. An LCD only acts as a color filter, using light polarization. There's probably a wikipedia article on it.

The only thing that lights up the screen if the backlight is dead, is light from the front.
 
Yeah, I read the wikipedia article about backlights.

From what I understood from the article... so without a backlight I can still see what's being displayed, but it's really difficult. (Which is my problem right now.)
 
That's right. One good way to test whether you've got a weak backlight or a basicly busted backlight would be to look at the screen at night with the lights off. It the backlight is producing any light it'll be easily visible in such circumstances. Otherwise, the screen will be basically blank.
 
Okay, then your backlight is definitely producing light then, just not enough to be visible in lit surroundings.


Judging by your previous fix for it, it sounds like some component on the motherboard is loose. Unfortunatley I'm not familiar enough with the backlight electronics to tell you what component it is, but I'd look at that bunch of components around the right hand side of and below the LCD cable, left of the R trigger switch.
 
Oh okay.

Thank you!
I'll check the components once I get rid of the stripped screw.
 
My sister's boyfriend told me that his friend saw a capacitor on it that broke loose which he tried several options in order to fix it but its not fixable.
 
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It actually is fixable if it or he didn't rip the solderpads off the board. And it is a coil, not a capacitor ;)
 
Then it will be more complicated... You would have to get access to the leads that went to the pads, then you need to solder some small wires in or solder dead bug style by gluing the component down upside down and solder wires from the traces to the component.


If this is the case though, I would send it to ED to see if he can still fix it before you break even more...


Edit: If the traces actually come from another layer than the top one you are basically out of luck... But I don't know that.
 
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Well, I finally drilled out the stripped screws (long story...) and I think I found the offending parts.

I didn't have the same problem as this thread: http://boards.openpandora.org/topic/15882-screen-broke/?hl=%2Bdim+%2Bscreen

but here's the piece that I suspect is the problem:

IMG_0345.JPG


(The one that says 682D)

I was going to solder it on anyway, but as in this picture from another angle, do I solder both lines on? How exactly does the component stick to the board?

IMG_0346.JPG


And lastly, as I was drilling out the screw, apparently the screw was being screwed in instead and so the screw went straight down and I didn't notice until it hit the screen cover. Here's how it ended up:

IMG_0347.JPG


Is that location harmful to the monitor in any way (I can't figure out how to get it out) and do I need to order another screen frame, or is it okay to leave it as is?

I don't see any difference to the lighting as before.
 
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Those inductors are soldered to the board like any other component on the board - that is metal in the component is soldered to metal on the board. That sort of component is a little tricky to solder by hand as the majority of the contacts are underneath the body of the component. When they're initially installed they're placed on top of a layer of solder paste on top of the contacts on the board, then the whole thing is stuck in a reflow oven to cook it and cause the solder paste to melt to liquid solder.


To do them by hand I'd melt a bit of solder onto the board contact then squish the component down onto it. Both sides need to be connected for it to work, like any sort of two-leaded component.


I'm slightly surprised anything works with that disconnected, as I think it's was part of the voltage regulation circuitry, although I suppose an inductor there is probably just suppressing high frequency noise, which should be pretty minimal when running from battery anyway.


Regarding the hole in your lid, there is nothing there on the right side iirc. If you'd gone into the left side you'd have hit the wifi board, but I think you've missed the speaker on the right so you're okay. It's up to you whether you're happy with the look of it of course.
 
Oh okay.

Thank you!

I'll try soldering it once I get a bit of time.

Is it okay for the solder to kind of leak out from underneath the component as long as it doesn't touch any other contacts?

I thought I saw something that looked metallic in the center on the bottom of that component...

I think I'll just leave that hole as a memorial to my drill operation :)
 
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