Climate / Clock Lcd Replacement

[marvs]

Hi all,

I have recently replaced the blacked out LCD in my climate control unit, and struggled to find an LCD for a right hand drive car. I did eventually find a supplier in the States, so I thought I'd share the details in case anyone else is looking for one. (I've confirmed that he's happy for me to give out his details).

The guy's name is Hai Ho (not kidding!)

His email address is ls400lcd@verizon.net

He's also on eBay in the USA. His user ID is mercuryrunner, but he hasn't always got RHD displays on eBay. Check here

He charged $50 for the RHD LCD. This also includes 6 or 7 of the little bulbs that illuminate the unit, so that you can replace these at the same time.

Regarding shipping, this is what he offered me:

US Post Office charge me $45 to ship internationally. I use the Express Mail method because it is the only way to have proof of delivery. Paypal required me to have proof of item being deliver for any such claim of lost or stolen mail.

I can send the package using US First Class Mail. It cost about $12. However, I am not responsible for any lost mail and you will not file any claim for the item of not being deliver.

I went with the $12 shipping option, which also seems to include tracking within the USA and delivery confirmation in the UK.

I received my LCD within a week. It was well packed, and works perfectly so far.

The seller can provide fitting instructions. I used the tuturial on lexls.com, although I found it hard to desolder the existing pins, so I used a sharp set of wire cutters and just snipped the old pins off, then soldered the new pins on top. Be careful if you do it this way though, as I accidentally pulled off a solder pad when one of the pins didn't cut properly.

I'd say it's definitely possible for an amateur solderer to swap the LCD (I'd barely soldered anything before this). Just be careful and take your time. It doesn't even need a particularly steady hand - I was pretty nervous when I started, so was shaking a bit!

However, you might prefer to get someone else to do it. Try a TV repair shop (if they still exist??), or a fellow LOC member can probably help out.

Hope this helps someone out.

[hihihi]

That really is good practical advice. Well done Steve (marvs).

It would have helped me out with my previous 92LS. However, I would have needed someone else's soldering skills. Note to self: must learn how to solder. :)

[steve2006]

I did mine shortly after buying the car and bought from the same guy and 6 years later still working fine.

I also cut the pins off the old display but then heated each pad until the solder melted and flicked off the remains of the connectors. Then used to solder braid to clean up the pads, aligned the new display and then resoldered all the connections to the PCB.

Having said that there haven't been many days in my working life when I haven't had a soldering iron in my hand, it was a pair of GHDs today that needed a resistor replacing!

[Rupert Dubreaux]

Thanks for putting this up Steve (marvs) .

GHDs ? Steve .

[steve2006]

Thanks for putting this up Steve (marvs) .

GHDs ? Steve .

GHDs the expensive for what they are hair straighteners, one of my wife's friends asked if I could take a look at them for her so I did for a few beer tokens and my hair looks so much better now :)

[Rupert Dubreaux]

Thanks for clearing that up for me Steve. I know that scenario only to well ,once people know that you work with electrikery you become a magician who can fix anything with wires attached.

[marvs]

I did mine shortly after buying the car and bought from the same guy and 6 years later still working fine.

That's great to know Steve, thanks. I'm glad I took a punt with this seller now. He was a very helpful guy, and it seems like the LCDs are good quality too.

[ambermarine]

Hi marvs

I used this guy about five years ago when I replaced the lcd in my mark1 .the problems I had were different to just a soldering excercise .The american Lhd version he supplied at the time had to be converted to RHD via another pcb soldered between the circuits on the module and the pcb that holds the lcd solder points it had to soldered on the edge so the unit fitted back together in its housing.It was a test of patience and inginuity as he had no notion how to acheive the end result.I ended up having to split internet cable wires cut them to an exact non inteference size then solder them to both pcbs and solder the lcd to the main pcb.It then turned out the circuit was all to ***** on the intermediary board and the display was algeberic.I spent the next three days and nights emailing him back and forth until we resolved the problem ,this entailed putting the unit reassembled back into the car and photographing the display then stripping it down 30 times resoldering the wires after he had analysed the pics and instructing me were they had to be resoldered,including the 44 soldering points on the main board there were another 20 on the conversion board done three or four times till we got it working ,I can solder a prick onto a midge after that learning curve.The international 7 hour time gap didnt help as he had to get up and start looking at my pics then work out what was needed.In the end we sorted it out and the only blip was a tail missing of the 2 digit he sent me a fix for that but after 48 hours and numerous late nights I left that one to remind me of the task.To be fair he did stick with it and I got a great sense of achievement when I finnally fixed it, well 99.9%.

He did say that he was building a new better board and would send me one when it was done ,but that car as gone now and the Mark 4 is totally different.Pics are the finished display without the last digit that as no tail on and the intermediary board which you can see is minute.

[Adam Evans]

Maybe you could talk to him about the Mk 4 and how to solder in a video aux so you could watch tv on it ???

[marvs]

I think the extra PCB may be due to it being a 90-92 car. When I was asking about the RHD LCDs he did mention that there was an intermediate PCB for the earlier models, but my 93 (luckily) didn't need one.

[ambermarine]

Thats correct the 92 onwards had a division in the lcd .