hacking lcd displays manufacturer
Hackaday’s own [Arsenijs Picugins] has been rather busy hacking old laptops apart and learning what can and cannot be easily reused, and presents for the 2021 Hackaday Remoticon, a heavily meme-loaded presentation with some very practical advice.
What parts inside a dead laptop are worth keeping? Aside from removable items like RAM stick and hard drives, the most obvious first target is the LCD panel. These are surprisingly easy to use, with driver boards available on the usual marketplaces, so long as you make sure to check the exact model number of your panel is supported.
they are typically much lower resolution than you may be used to on laptop computers, but the net package LCD+microcontroller is much smaller and runs off batteries for much longer than the above approaches.
Have an LCD flat screen monitor, but don"t have DVI output on your laptop or desktop computer? That"s no problem, because nowadays most LCD flat panel monitors come equipped with both DVI and VGA inputs. If not, you simply need to purchase a VGA to DVI adapter, which are prett...more
Maximize the display capabilities of your LCD computer monitor! Set up your contrast just how you want it by using test patterns, adjust the backlight, adjust the color display for over- or under- saturated colors, and then play with your monitor presets.
For many young people, their computer is the most expensive and cherished thing that they own. If you want to pull a prank of them, why not hit them where it hurts? This video presents a novel idea for a computer prank: loading an image of a cracked LCD screen full-screen on t...more
Stuck pixels can be a little annoying. They get jammed and you wind up with a slightly discoloured computer screen image. In this tutorial, learn how to fix a stuck pixel on an LCD Monitor, the easy way. Hands on technique: This method is done by placing a damp (not wet!) pap...more
In this clip, you"ll learn how to calibrate the color profile of an LCD display on a Microsoft Windows desktop or laptop computer. It"s an easy process and this video presents a complete guide. For more information, including a full demonstration and detailed, step-by-step ins...more
When you"re shooting a film, being able to see what you"re shooting well and adjust on the fly is crucial. With the tiny screen on most cheap cameras, this is kind of a crapshoot. This video will show you a cheap way to solve this problem: converting a car $50 car LCD screen i...more
The EOS 7D has an accurate level display, which you can activate on either the read LCD monitor or in the viewfinder. See how to work the electronic display on the Canon digital SLR camera. This is great for getting a steady shot wherever you need it. Electronic Level Display...more
Live View wit the EOS 7D camera from Canon, lets you compose and view your subjects with the LCD monitor as your viewfinder. This is great for a multiple of reasons. See how to use live view on this digital SLR camera. Live View Basics: • Composing and viewing on the LCD moni...more
This is a great tutorial for commercial photographers because it will show you the steps needed to replace a monitor display within an image. Basically, lcd computer screens when photographed, often dont show their screen image, and this tutorial will show you how to replace it!
Check out this step-by-step video tutorial on how to take the back off and take apart the new iPhone 3G (2nd generation). The directions here also include how to replace the LCD, touchscreen, battery, and motherboard in Apple"s iPhone 3G. It also includes any information that ...more
This video answers the question, how do you safely clean an LCD? Remember that LCD’s do not have glass so you have to be careful how much pressure you apply, as well as the kind of cloth you are using, or you can damage or scratch the screen. First, turn off the monitor, then...more
Computer eyestrain can hurt productivity, but it"s easy to prevent if you take a few precautions. You Will Need * A properly lit workspace * An LCD monitor * A copy stand * Computer glasses * An anti-glare screen or computer hood (optional) Step 1: Turn down the lights Close ...more
Is your computer"s LCD screen getting so dirty you can barely make out what you"re typing. Use a few household ingredients to keep a clear, sharp image on your LCD screen without clouding or scratching it. You Will Need: •Distilled water •Isopropyl alcohol •A spray bott...more
MAME/SNES/GENESIS/NES/+ Arcade style 2 player cabinet. Features USB and headphone port at bottom of screen All PC components behind monitor so bottom is free for storage (toybox for my kid) 19" LCD Monitor Hidden power switch on top of unit Network connected Software is modi...more
Adjust the convergence while your 3D camera is on a boom. Then watch on a Panasonic Bt-3DL2550 - 3D monitor to see if your convergence is correct. Panasonic introduced the new BT-3DL2550, a 25.5-inch 3D LCD production monitor with full 1920 x 1200 resolution. The BT-3DL2550 p...more
Life-giving internal organs! Usually, they"re a convenience. Not so when making a convincing see-through Portal costume, however. Happily, Ben Heck has a devised an LCD-based hack that will permit you to tunnel through your belly without discomfort. Interested in vanishing you...more
In this clip, learn how to access the cool menu screens on your iPod that you never knew existed. This video will walk you through how to get to your 3rd generation iPod"s cool colored LCD screen database. This hack is easy, doesn"t require codes or tools and won"t harm your d...more
A hack for your PDA. Use your PDA as a 13" LCD Wall Projector. Use Pocket PC, videoPod,PSP or others! Watch Youtube clips if you have wireless! Step by Step. Make in under 5 mins!
To hack a Wi-Fi network using Kali Linux, you need your wireless card to support monitor mode and packet injection. Not all wireless cards can do this, so I"ve rounded up this list of 2019"s best wireless network adapters for hacking on Kali Linux to get you started hacking bo...more
When hacking Wi-Fi networks, having the right wireless adapter is essential. But hunting online for one can be a frustrating experience. To see how the handful of Kali-compatible adapters on the market measure up, I ran a series of tests to benchmark and compare their range, s...more
It only takes a few commands to manipulate a MacBook"s secure HTTPS traffic and pluck login passwords out of the encrypted data. Let"s take Facebook and Gmail hacking to the next level by intercepting Safari and Google Chrome web traffic in real time. Both Facebook and Gmail ...more
Welcome back, my fledgling hackers! Hacking has a long and storied history in the U.S. and around the world. It did not begin yesterday, or even at the advent of the 21st century, but rather dates back at least 40 years. Of course, once the internet migrated to commercial use...more
This video will show you a few techniques for removing stuck pixels from an LCD screen. This is not a guaranteed fix. Please only use these as a last resort, as some of them can cause more damage to the LCD. Only attempt these if you are experienced and know what you are doing...more
I have owned quite the plethora of electronics in my life. A commonality between most of these devices" screens is frozen or dead pixels. This is probably the most annoying thing about buying new hardware—your LCD, or worse, LED display has one or more pixels that continues to...more
If you"ve noticed a tiny discolored spot on your computer screen that just doesn"t seem to go away, chances are you have a stuck pixel. With modern LCD and OLED screens, there are millions of incredibly small dots (pixels) that make up all of the contents of your display—and w...more
A few days ago the folks over at Hack-a-Day highlighted an article on Instructables that shows you how to hack an old LCD monitor and convert it into a privacy screen. Now the question is, could this be a viable solution for those who need more privacy on their tablets in public situations?
The idea is pretty simple. Basically, inside the LCD screen there is a layer of polarized film that enables us to see what is being generated on the screen. By removing that layer and installing it onto a pair of glasses, the screen always appears white to onlookers, while the person viewing the screen through the glasses can see the actual screen images.
No one knows for sure if tablet manufacturers would consider adding a physical privacy guard to their displays, but, at the very least, if you’re looking for a fun project and have an old LCD lying around, check out Instructables to make your own privacy screen.
Although competition among smartphone manufacturers has led to significant increases in the pixel density of commercial LCD panels in recent years, the displays on the market today don’t pack pixels densely enough for them to be invisible at very close range.
The Nvidia design exploits the fact that LCD panels use an array of tiny shutters that control the visibility of individual pixels. The researchers extracted the array of shutters from one LCD panel, and then placed them over those in another panel of the same design. The extra layer is positioned so that its pixels are just slightly offset from those of the panel below. The boundaries of the extra shutter layer divide up each pixel of the panel below into four smaller areas—these are the pixels of the new, cascaded display.
Cascaded displays can also offer an increased frame rate, which means moving images appear smoother. Setting the panels to refresh out of sync with one another causes someone using the display to see new frames at twice the rate each individual panel is updating.
One reason the Rift has been so well received is that it offers a wide field of view compared to previous headsets, at a relatively low cost. However, even the Rift’s 100-degree field of view imposes a kind of tunnel vision on people wearing it, because the human visual field is close to 180 degrees. Displays with greater pixel density could make it possible to cram more pixels into a headset so that when spread across a wide field of view by lenses—as in the design of Oculus Rift—they remain relatively densely packed.
*The second was also ungooglable, and featured a Mitsubishi (same as the chemical company and car manufacturer) logo. Most of the large number of traces went to the screen"s ribbon cable, though a few went to each of the other chips. I assume this is the screen controller which encodes characters, as the screen is a graphical black LCD in the largest area.
LCD means liquid crystal display. Basically, any displays can be used with Arduino, including alphanumeric character LCD display, monochrome graphic LCD display, color TFT LCD display, IPS LCD display. It can also be used for non LCD displays like: PMOLED display, AMOLED display, E-ink (E-paper) displays. Orient Display developed easy interface (SPI, I2C) displays which can be easily used with Arduino.
LCD displays were first used for watches and calculators. Now, LCD display technology dominants the display world, it can be found in wearables, smart homes, mobile phones, TVs, laptops, monitors, kiosks, aircraft cockpit, digital cameras, lab instrument, power grid etc.
LCD itself can emit light itself. It has to utilize outside light sources. LCD display module normally includes LCD glass (or LCD panel), LCD driving circuitry ( can be COG, COB or TAB) and a backlight.
A LCD display 16*2 is actually a basic and simple to use LCD module. It includes LCD glass, COB (Chip on PCB Board) LCD control board, backlight, zebra to connect LCD glass and control board and a bezel to hold everything together. 16×2 LCD display can display 16 characters per line and there are two lines. Each character has 5×7 dot matrix pixels and the cursor underneath. All 16×2 LCD display originally used standard Hitachi HD44780 driver. Of course the legendary HD44780 controller had EOL long time ago. All the 16×2 LCD displays use HD44780 compatible LCD controllers. Some of them are drop replacement, some of them need to modify the initialization code a little.
A 16×2 LCD has two registers like data register and command register. The RS (register select) is mainly used to change from one register to another. When the register set is ‘0’, then it is known as command register. Similarly, when the register set is ‘1’, then it is known as data register.
Data Register: The main function of the data register is to store the information which is to be exhibited on the LCD screen. Here, the ASCII value of the character is the information which is to be exhibited on the screen of LCD. Whenever we send the information to LCD, it transmits to the data register, and then the process will be starting there. When register set =1, then the data register will be selected.
The LiquidCrystal() function sets the pins the Arduino uses to connect to the LCD. You can use any of the Arduino’s digital pins to control the LCD. Just put the Arduino pin numbers inside the parentheses in this order:
This function sets the dimensions of the LCD. It needs to be placed before any other LiquidCrystal function in the void setup() section of the program. The number of rows and number of columns are specified as lcd.begin(columns, rows). For a 16×2 LCD, you would use lcd.begin(16, 2), and for a 20×4 LCD you would use lcd.begin(20, 4).
This function clears any text or data already displayed on the LCD. If you use lcd.clear() with lcd.print() and the delay() function in the void loop() section, you can make a simple blinking text program.
Similar, but more useful than lcd.home() is lcd.setCursor(). This function places the cursor (and any printed text) at any position on the screen. It can be used in the void setup() or void loop() section of your program.
The cursor position is defined with lcd.setCursor(column, row). The column and row coordinates start from zero (0-15 and 0-1 respectively). For example, using lcd.setCursor(2, 1) in the void setup() section of the “hello, world!” program above prints “hello, world!” to the lower line and shifts it to the right two spaces:
This function creates a block style cursor that blinks on and off at approximately 500 milliseconds per cycle. Use it in the void loop() section. The function lcd.noBlink() disables the blinking block cursor.
This function turns on any text or cursors that have been printed to the LCD screen. The function lcd.noDisplay() turns off any text or cursors printed to the LCD, without clearing it from the LCD’s memory.
This function takes anything printed to the LCD and moves it to the left. It should be used in the void loop() section with a delay command following it. The function will move the text 40 spaces to the left before it loops back to the first character. This code moves the “hello, world!” text to the left, at a rate of one second per character.
lcd.noAutoscroll() turns the lcd.autoscroll() function off. Use this function before or after lcd.autoscroll() in the void loop() section to create sequences of scrolling text or animations.
This function sets the direction that text is printed to the screen. The default mode is from left to right using the command lcd.leftToRight(), but you may find some cases where it’s useful to output text in the reverse direction.
This command allows you to create your own custom characters. Each character of a 16×2 LCD has a 5 pixel width and an 8 pixel height. Up to 8 different custom characters can be defined in a single program. To design your own characters, you’ll need to make a binary matrix of your custom character from an LCD character generator or map it yourself. This code creates a degree symbol (°).
The detailed LCD tutorial can be found in the article. ARDUINO LCD SET UP AND PROGRAMMING GUIDE or to check https://github.com/arduino-libraries/LiquidCrystal
The first step in the hack is to select a compatible LCD that’s also conveniently available. For various reasons related to how the flat panel display market works, LCDs are difficult to purchase in their raw form. Fortunately, Mouser Electronics has a fair selection of LCD modules available and in-stock, although the price is no where near wholesale. I found that the Microtips MTF-TV57NP721-AV was a good match; you can buy these directly from Mouser for $150.80 by ordering part number 668-MTF-TV57NP721-AV. This LCD module uses a compatible signal format, has an LED backlight that works with a slightly modified chumby backlight driver, and also features a 4-wire resistive touchscreen, which is exactly the technology used by the stock chumby device. While the datasheet for this display is not available for convenient download, the datasheet itself is not marked proprietary or confidential, so I was able to secure a copy with a phone call to the local Microtips sales representative.
The next step is to build an adapter board between the chumby and the LCD. The adapter board is necessary because the flat-flex connector used by the Microtips LCD has a different size and pinout from the existing chumby LCD connector. The design of the board doesn’t require many components, as it is just rewiring the signals between two connector formats, but getting the design right does require attention to detail. It’s particularly important to make sure you get the location of the connectors right, so as to minimize the stress on the flex cables, and you need to be aware of the pinout inversion that happens between the two sides of a flex cable mating to the same type of connector: pin 1 goes to pin 50, and vice versa. Here is a link to the schematic for the adapter board, and a link to the gerbers.
Since you won’t need the old LCD anymore, loosen the two long Philips screws on the wifi riser assembly and liberate the core from the LCD/bezel assembly by detaching the two flat flex cables that connect to the core board. Save the wifi riser assembly, screws, standoffs and cables. Also leave all the thermal pads in place; they will hold on their own if you do not peel them off of the circuit boards.
You will need to do some minor rework to the core circuit board of the chumby in order to beef up the backlight driver to work with the more power-hungry backlight of the larger LCD. The original chumby backlight is a 10.2 volt, 40 mA 3-LED backlight. The backlight inside the Microtips LCD is also a 10.2 volt backlight, but it requires 200 mA. Fortunately, the boost converter used to drive the chumby’s backlight has a current switch capable of handling that magnitude of current—the TPS65101 has a 2.3A switch in it. However, some of the external circuitry has to be upgraded. In particular, the catch diode D502 has a forward current rating of 0.5A. While the LCD only draws 200 mA, it is a boost converter so the amount of current going through the catch diode is going to be a bit bigger than the ratio of the output voltage to the input voltage times the average current. Therefore, D502 has to get an upgrade to a footprint-compatible but higher current version, such as the 1A-rated MBRX130TP by Micro Commercial, or the 1.5A-rated RB070M-30TR by Rohm. Finally, in order to actually increase the amount of current pumped into the LCD, the current sense resistor in the feedback network of the boost regulator has to be modified. R524 programs the backlight current in the “on” state of the backlight, though the following relationship: I = 1.146V / R524. Its stock value of 57.6 ohms yields a current near 20 mA; replacing this with a 5.6 ohm resistor will yield a current just over 200 mA.
Now that you’ve got all the bits and pieces, it’s time to put it all together. It’s good practice to mount the pieces so that they aren’t “floating”; the flat flex cables are fragile, and they will easily strain and break if you move the unit around too much. If you have access to a laser cutter, you can build the LCD mount using the designs presented below.
Next, cut a second protective bezel using 1/16” clear acrylic using the reverse bezel pattern. This pattern also has alignment markers on it, which are important for making sure the LCD’s active area is centered in the opening of the bezel. There is no need to treat the reverse bezel with paint because it is simply a protective layer to protect the painted front bezel from chipping and scratching.
A set of gaskets are applied to the outside of the LCD along the silvery circuitry area of the touchscreen panel in order to improve the touchscreen’s robustness against heat warpage of the acrylic that can cause the bezel to inadvertently touch down onto the screen. The gasket material in this case is Poron, but you may also use a couple layers of thin-cut pieces of masking tape to create a small offset between the bezel edge and the display.
Before screwing the backplate in place, attach the 33-pin flat flex cable (that you previously made by cutting down the 36-pin cable), and connect the other side to the adapter board; at this time, also connect the 4-pin touchpanel cable and the 50-pin cable for the LCD signals to the motherboard. Then, fold the adapter board assembly over and screw it in place using 4x M2x6mm socket cap screws.
You’re almost done! Flip the LCD assembly into the bezel, using the alignment pattern on the bezel as a guide, and glue the four LCD mounting corners in place, paying attention to ensure that the holes on the mounting corners line up with the holes on the back plate (you can accidentally put a mounting corner on upside down and have the holes end up on the wrong edge of the LCD). Standard super glue works well for this application. Allow the glue to dry for at least a half hour before proceeding.
The kernel contains the code that initializes the video frame buffer’s size, so the timing needs to be programmed into these registers by modifying the kernel source. Here is a patchfile that you can apply to the 1.5.0 kernel (build 565) that performs the appropriate initializations. The patch modifies one of the clock registers inside the MX21 to increase the frequency of the clock feeding the LCD controller, and it also modifies the LCD controller registers itself. It also patches code that handles copying the initial logo screen from a staging area in RAM to its final location. It’s more involved to get the bootloader to behave properly and show a more elegant startup screen; here is a link to the modified bootloader source. This code replicates the QVGA bitmaps stored in the bootloader four times over inside the VGA frame buffer for the chumby, and it handles some other corner cases during the hand-off between the bootloader and the kernel at higher resolutions as well.
Finally, reboot while holding down the touchscreen so that you enter the “Special Options” mode. When the selection screen comes up, you should be able to log in via the serial console and execute the command “update.sh USB”, which will overwrite the bootloader and the primary kernel with the code patches mentioned above. For safety reasons, the backup partitions’ kernel is not modified by the dongle, so you always have a safe partition to return to for re-flashing a broken chumby. The graphics on the screen will look funny in this mode, but it’s not harmful for the LCD.
In entering a non-prosecution agreement, Uber admitted that its personnel failed to report the November 2016 hacking to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, even though the agency had been investigating the ride-sharing company"s data security.
The San Francisco-based company is also cooperating with the prosecution of a former security chief, Joseph Sullivan, over his alleged role in concealing the hacking.