lcd panel ribbon cable repair free sample

This instructable came about from a broken LCD control module out of a modern VW Camper Van. The LCD module is part of a control unit which was virtually unreadable and a replacement for a new unit was £400+. It really was a no lose option, either have a go at fixing it or end up buying a new unit.

The fault of the LCD was that it only displayed a couple lines of output on the LCD. The symptoms are caused by poor location of the LCD ribbon in manufacture and also the poor position of the whole module in the vehicle which exposes it to heat and is subject to vibration within the vehicle. This causes the ribbon to fail eventually and is a known common fault.

The ribbon in this display actually controls the Rows of the LCD matrix and the Columns were handled by a rubber standoff connection on the longest side of the LCD. There were no problems with the rubberized connection.

Some re-work on the LCD ribbon had already been tried with a little improvement but the poor registration of the ribbon pushed me to try a new attachment.

From the photos below you can see the LCD control unit and the state of the LCD ribbon before repair. You can just make out the offset placement and poor registration of the ribbon before repair.

Do not under estimate the patience required for this repair as some delicate and nimble work is required and i cannot stress how important it is to take your time and not rush.  You may only get one chance with this sort of repair.

The registrations of the LCD ribbon in this repair was difficult. It took me and my friend 20 minutes just to line up the ribbon for re-attachment. The ribbon in this case is sub 1mm pitch OR less than 25.4 thousands of an inch. You may want to try a simpler ribbon repair on an old LCD clock for example before jumping in head first with fine pitch.

Also the removal of the LCD ribbon is a delicate process as you do not want to tear what is a good ribbon or damage the carbon printed lines. Also the PCB must be respected to avoid introducing other faults and the the re-attachment may need an extra pair of hands.

You may also want to review the last step for results and lessons learned from this instructable before jumping in head first but i believe this will give a you a good insight to some important factors of LCD ribbons and possible success.

Other favorites of reworking the LCD connection that i have read here are the tinfoil on a heat gun. This has good temperature management but not so good in tight spaces. The solder iron with flat blade and tin foil is more precise but a 25 Watt iron can be too brutal on the ribbon.

1. Do you have enough spare ribbon to detach and re-attach? The more ribbon you have the more goes you may get but watch out for the mechanical caveat below.

2. Will you be mechanically constrained if you cut the ribbon. This is a tough one as some shortening of the ribbon may make it impossible to re-assemble the device!!

3. Is the Ribbon continuity visibly good, by that i mean the carbon connection lines are continuous and unbroken - Do check otherwise you may be wasting your time.

In the photos below you can see the available ribbon length was generous enough but do watch for mechanical constraints. In some cases you could find yourself not being able to lay down the LCD back down as it is too tight a radius to sit down.

The ribbon removal needs careful thought depending on your device. It would be difficult to write a complete panacea solution for every device so please use some careful judgement on your device.

You do not want to pull at the ribbon as you will most likely damage what you already have. In my instance it was best to cut the ribbon free as close to the PCB pads as possible.I used a scalpel to slice parallel to the PCB board to remove the ribbon. Do make a good job of this as you may need to preserve as much extra ribbon to re-attach the LCD module.

The LCD assembly was lifted off and put in safe place to avoid damage. The ribbon was then gently lifted and peeled back with tweezers to remove the bulk. You must not use force to remove the remainder ribbon especially if your PCB is off a cheap quality OR single sided cardboard type variety. The PCB pads can come off with the ribbon! If you have a double sided PCB of FR4

For either connection style  you need to remove any old glue from the ribbon and remaining carbon debris from the pads. I used isopropanol on a cotton wool bud. Do not flood the PCB with cleaning fluidas you may effect electro-mechanical elements in close proximity such as switches and other items on the PCB which are not sealed against cleaning!

From the photos you can see that ribbon was trimmed with a rounded scalpel blade.  The ribbon also had extra green tape which adhered to the original heel of the PCB pad connection. This gave extra mechanical stability for the ribbon but has to be peeled off to allow for re-connection. Later in this instructable i will mention about putting back extra mechanical stability for ribbon support.

If you have a fine pitch ribbon like i had this will cause you the most trouble. I needed an extra steady pair of hands to help and some patience before i got the the ribbon aligned. It took twenty minutes of nudging the PCB and ribbon to get a precise alignment. Our alignment was actually better than the original which was slightly skewed to one side.

The trick to get good alignment is to allow some the gold pad fingers toes of  the PCB to be visible just beyond the carbon lines of the ribbon. You then get the pads toes to line up with the carbon lines of the LCD ribbon.

Do not continue until you have excellent alignment of the black carbon lines of the ribbon to the PCB pads. The finer the pitch of the ribbon the better registration is required.

The photos below show how i handled the PCB and LCD and clamped the ribbon in place. The LCD display is being held by a plastic clamp above the PCB assembly. The PCB below which has components both sides is laying on some foam (try polystyrene). This allowed me to nudge the PCB under the ribbon into position. The plastic ruler acts as a LCD ribbon clamp. When you have got the registration get a steady handed friend to hold the ruler as a ribbon clamp in place so you can then apply the heat to stick the ribbon back down.

You may want to skip forward to the next step to see the re-attached picture of the ribbon and to see how the alignment was achieved. You should see the gold PCB pad finger toes in line with the carbon of the ribbon

1. Do not apply so much heat you obliterate the ribbon. Yes it sounds stupid but i over cooked one side of my ribbon and got away with it. You may want to test on the bit you trimmed off elsewhere to get correct amount of heat.

2. Only tack the ribbon down my pressing the heated tip down vertically and stroking from the heel to the toe. That is to say in the same line that the carbon lines flows.

Again Do not apply heat to the ribbon in one broad stroke. Work from the heel of the ribbon to the toe Or work by dabbing. By dabbing I mean hitting one spot on the ribbon with the heated tip and then lifted vertically again cooling the tip with the wet sponge before each dab.

The second photo in this step is the actual ribbon re-attached. You can see that the left hand side of the ribbon has not worked out as well as the right. I had too much heat in the solder iron. This is how i ended up cooling the solder iron with the wet sponge before applying heat.

In our case the LCD ribbon was not only glued to the PCB pads but there was some additional tape at the heel of the ribbon to hold the ribbon in place. By holding at the heel the ribbon you get some good extra mechanical support.

I did not go further with more re-work as the VW LCD module was considered a good enough result and some other time pressures intervened. It was concluded that we could read the display well enough and operate items from the controller. It was also considered as one of those quit while your ahead things!

For some people this may not be good enough but i hope that some of the steps i have listed will get people going in the correct direction when considering this. I do believe with a little more time a 100% is achievable. I took two hours to dismantle and remove the ribbon, Most of this was thinking things through... and another two hours to re-register and re-attach ribbon.

The technique for LCD ribbon removal and re-attachment are achievable certainly on simpler ribbons and fine pitch ribbons with careful preparation and thought. I hope this instructable is comprehensive enough for people to get some good results.

The ribbon is know as a "Heat Seal Connection" OR "HSC". In the industry heat and pressure are used to make this type of connection. The material comes from a family of "Anisotropic Conductive Films" OR "ACF".

The material bonds at 180 DegreeC. Direct Ribbon connection is used for economy (i.e. no fancy connectors) and for the number of connections its offers in a small footprint which would not be possible through traditional connectors.

The other end of the ribbon that joins to the LCD is terminated on the glass on Indium tin oxide (ITO) which is one of the most widely used transparent conducting oxides.

If you want more information there are many different types of LCM assemby (LCD Display plus it driving chips) to look at but these are the main ones (increasing in density):

In manufacture of these modules a machine is used for assembly which would compress HSC to the LCD Or the PCB and then apply the correct amount of heat.

very nice and complicated work but...my question is, where can I find a ribbon cable like this? I have a keyboard Technics KN2000 with a display not working because the cable was disconnected from both the glass display and the circuit board. Thank You!

I am attempting to fix a TV with vertical lines in it. Actually it was showing a black screen. I cleaned the ribbon connections and now I get an image with some multicolored vertical lines. ( good progress) . When I looked at the ends of the cable some of them were "missing" the last 1 - 2 mm of gold plating? do you think the method you used of slicing the ribbon to even the pads up is a good method? Or is there a way of replating/tinning the missing portions?

These graphite ribbon cables appear to have a layer of clear tape on either side of the graphite paths. To expose a new area of graphite paths for reconnection should the original path be damaged, the tape on one side needs to be peeled back. In my case, when I attempted to peel back the tape some of the paths fragmented and went with the peeled back tape. I suspect that in the case at hand, the peel back was not necessary and heat was used to reattach the previously exposed paths.0

My flat ribbon seems to have a plastic covering on both sides but looks just like your pictures. Must I remove the plastic covering on the attachment side before applying heat to make the connection or does the plastic stay in place and somehow act as a glue when hot?0

Attached is a picture of a screen from a Brookstone clock. I think it may be an LCD. The black pads show where a ribbon cable was connected and I see not transmission paths from the pads into the screen. How does this work? Is it really an LCD?

Are the paths in this ribbon cable covered on both sides as mine is and can you adhere the ribbon without removing any covering by applying heat? And what do I do on the LCD side where there appears to be no pads on the LCD but the ribbon cable was apparently applied in this manner?0

I have two items to add, kapton tape and sil-pads used to isolate heat-sinks from semiconductor devices. With kapton tape it brings the means to secure the ribbon to the board, place the tape over the whole connection area, and kapton resists heat very well, ( try and melt it with your soldering iron). This means an average soldering iron turned down will allow heat to be applied to each joint. With experience a rework can be done in a few minutes. The bond can also be renewed on the LCD glass as well, kapton also works here. Sil-pads allow heat to be passed to the joint with some pressure applied at the same time. The sil-pad can be dragged up and down all the ribbon connections allowing uniform heating. Once the bond is resurrected the sil-pad is discarded. http://goo.gl/mpZNkm0

It"s pretty cheap and easier to solder, then you just have to clamp the cable into the connector. Maybe you are interested in reworking that to get all lines back.

Sorry, the connector on the link doesn"t match the board design... you must search for FFC, FPC connectors with the number of vias of your cable and look for the real dimensions on the datasheet.

I just thought the same way, adding aLCD flat connector... then you can swap chinese or VDO oem screens. Seems the VDO LCD(as for Audi A3-Vw golf/jetta4) have 50 pins and the ribbons is 48mm width. Then you have to look to modify the metal bracket to avoid pressure on ribbon.

i would not rule out a connector fix totally but its nice if you can fix for zero cost if possible. Also you then have to manage the mechanical constraints as well as choosing a suitable connector. Usually only the semi flexi PCB circuits ribbons go into connectors not the carbon screen printed sort so may not be so desirable.0

I simply lifted the clear tape off from the top of the ribbon, then slowly stroked the ribbon contacts in turn a couple of times with the hot glue gun tip. Not hot enough to cause any damage.

In the photo i am only using a soldering iron covered in tin foil to heat the plastic ribbon. There is no solder used in this setup. The tin foil is there only to provide a better surface to apply heat to the ribbon (does not stick to the ribbon!!).

Actual Electrical connectivity is provided by carbon lines which are printed in the ribbon. The carbon lines only make contact via the adhesion of the ribbon.

The solder iron method technique is actually too hot and so i dip the solder iron in a sponge to cool it down before pressing down on the ribbon. If you have a temperature controlled soldering iron it would be much better.

i have an alarm clock which doesn"t have a ribbon, but instead some sort of rubbery contact strip against which the display should be pressed. You can find pics of it on google images for "lcd rubber contact strip", it seems to be called a zebra rubber. Any idea on how to glue/solder the display to that rubbery contact strip?More CommentsPost Comment

Dead LCD pixels, fading LCD pixel on the instrument cluster are quite bad looking parts of a good car’s interior, so it is understandable that you may want to get it fixed. Replacement of the complete unit is quite expensive, that is why we try to encourage people to get it fixed by a professional on half price, or do the ribbon cable replacement at home on tenth price. As we sell quality flexible ribbon cables, bulbs / lamps only for DIY repair. This very common pixel failure is known on several units, like dashboard instrument cluster (speedometer), MID, and radio units, OBC (on board computer), and SID, and happen to several CAR manufacturers that use Siemens VDO electronics such as BMW 3 5 7 series, Audi A3 A4 A6 A8, VW, Seat, Mercedes C and E class, SAAB & Rover - you will find several different models on our site.

Beautiful work. However, my modern LCD flat screen TV set uses the "No-Fuss Ribbon Cable Connectors" and I think they are fairly common in this application.

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If the picture responds to input but displays a messy image, such as jumbled multicolored squares, the AV (audio visual) board may be damaged. This is usually a rectangular circuit board located near the audio and visual cables. Replace obviously damaged parts using a soldering iron, or order a replacement board and carefully install it to the same screws and ribbon cables.

Check input cables for damage, or try other cables of the same type. If necessary, inspect the circuit board they are attached to and re-solder damaged connections.

Typical lcd connector board have different features, including connector shells, pins and sockets, socket retainers, and seals. They also have different features, and they may be used for various applications. First, there are keyed connectors. They are only supposed to connect when they"re in the right position. This protects the pins from harm and prevents users from putting them in the wrong sockets. The other type of electrical connector is the locked connector. This one has a locking mechanism that prevents connections from shifting when shocked. The other type of lcd connector board is the hermetically sealed connector. This connector is designed to work underwater but up to a specific depth. Water-resistant connectors are also another type. These help in protecting electrical connections against water damage.

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A ribbon cable (also known as multi-wire planar cable) is a cable with many conducting wires running parallel to each other on the same flat plane. As a result, the cable is wide and flat. Its name comes from its resemblance to a piece of ribbon.

Ribbon cables are usually seen for internal peripherals in computers, such as hard drives, CD drives and floppy drives. On some older computer systems (such as the BBC Micro and Apple II series) they were used for external connections as well. The ribbon-like shape interferes with computer cooling by disrupting airflow within the case and also makes the cables awkward to handle, especially when there are a lot of them; as a result, round cables have almost entirely replaced ribbon cables for external connections and are increasingly being used internally as well.

The ribbon cable was invented in 1956 by Cicoil Corporation, a company based in Chatsworth, California. The company"s engineers figured out how to use a new material, silicone rubber, to "mold" a flat cable containing multiple conductors of the same size. Since the cable looked like a flat ribbon or duct tape, it was named a ribbon cable. The ribbon cable allowed companies like IBM and Sperry/Univac to replace bulky, stiff round cables with sleek, flexible ribbon cables.

The early ribbon cables were used in the mainframe computer industry, on card readers, card punching machines, and tape machines. Subsequently, ribbon cables were manufactured by a number of different companies, including 3M. Methods and materials were developed to simplify and reduce the cost of ribbon cables, by standardizing the design and spacing of the wires, and the thickness of the insulation, so that they could be easily terminated through the use of insulation displacement connectors (IDC). The simplicity of the cables, their low profile (compared to contemporary alternatives), and low cost due to standardization, meant ribbon cables were long used in computers, printers, and many electronic devices.

To reduce the risk of reversed connections one edge of the cable is usually marked with a red stripe. By convention the edge with the stripe is connected to pin 1 on the connector. This method of identification is fine for cables that just consist of two or more IDC connectors with every connector connecting to every wire, but is somewhat less helpful when individual wires or small groups of wires must be terminated separately.

To make it easier to identify individual conductors in a cable; ribbon-cable manufacturers introduced rainbow ribbon cable, which uses a repeating pattern of colors borrowed from the standard resistor color code (Brown is pin 1 or pin 11 or pin 21, etc. Red is pin 2 or pin 12 or pin 22, etc.). It is sometimes known affectionately to its users as "hippie cable" due to its distinct appearance.

Ribbon cables are usually specified by two numbers: the spacing or pitch of the conductors, and the number of conductors or ways. A spacing of 0.05 inch (1.27 mm) is the most usual, allowing for a two-row connector with a pin spacing of 0.1 inch (2.54 mm). These types are used for many types of equipment, in particular for interconnections within an enclosure. For personal computers, this size was used in floppy-disk-drive cables and older or custom Parallel ATA cables.

These include 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 14, 15, 16, 18, 20, 24, 25, 26, 34, 37, 40, 50, 60, 64 and 80. Sometimes a larger width is used & stripped back to what is needed e.g. a 26way IDC cable can have one wire easily removed to give a 25way (before adding the connectors). The wire is usually stranded copper wire, usually either 0.32, 0.20, or 0.13 mm2 (22, 24, or 26 AWG).

Finer and coarser pitch cables are also available. For instance, the high-speed ATA interface cable used for computer hard disk interfaces ULTRA-ATA has 0.025-inch (0.64-mm) pitch. Finer pitches, as small as 0.3 mm, are found in portable electronic equipment, such as laptops; however, portable electronic equipment usually uses flexible flat cables (FFC).

The main point of ribbon cables is to allow mass termination to specially designed IDC connectors in which the ribbon cable is forced onto a row of sharp forked contacts. (The phrase "IDC connector" is widely used, even though it is redundant—an example of RAS syndrome.) Most commonly termination is done at both ends of the cable, although sometimes (for example, when making a lead that needs to change wiring between the two connectors) only one end will be IDC terminated, with the other end being terminated in a regular crimp or solder-bucket connection. Although it is sometimes possible to dismantle and re-use IDC connectors, they are not designed to allow this to be done easily.

BT224 connector – also defined by BS9525-F0023, DIN41651, MIL-C-83503 standards; these are the type used on ATA cables and are often simply called "IDC connectors". They mate with either a purpose-made plug or a two-row grid of header pins with 0.1 inch (2.54 mm) spacing.

When electronics hobbyists are working on their computers or digital musical keyboards to "mod" (modify) or "hack" them, they sometimes have to solder ribbon cables. Soldering ribbon cables can present a challenge to a hobbyist who has not been trained as an electronics technician. In some cases, hobbyists strip off the wire with a fine razor, and then separate the wires before soldering them. Some hobbyists use fine sandpaper to wear away the plastic insulation from the wires. The sanding also primes the copper tracks. Then when the "tinned" soldering iron is touched onto the bare wire, the solder is guided into the track.

From a digital point of view, ribbon cable was an ideal way to connect two devices. However, from an analog point of view, these cables are problematic. Around 1980, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) discovered that ribbon cables were highly efficient antennas, broadcasting essentially random signals, or Electromagnetic interference, across a wide band of the electromagnetic spectrum.case of a computer or peripheral device, but any ribbon cable connecting two boxes together had to be grounded. This rule led to solutions such as ribbon cables covered by a copper-braid shield, which made it impossible to see or separate the individual connectors. On the Apple II, these cables passed through the holes on the back of the computer that were grounded to the power supply. Eventually, ribbon connectors were replaced, for inter-connect purposes, by a wide profusion of custom-designed round cables with molded connectors.

For a ribbon cable using 26AWG wire, 0.050" spacing and common PVC insulation the resultant impedance for any two adjacent wires within the cable is 110 to 130 ohms.

Hunter Cable Assembly Ltd. "Ribbon-and-Flat-Cable-Assemblies-whitepaper.pdf" (PDF). white paper. Hunter Cable Assembly. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-03.

Are you talking about the one that connects from the backlight (The backlight is the whole black behind that sits behind the display and under the metal shield plate) to the LCD ribbon cable?

or are you talking about the ribbon cable from either the LCD or the digitizer? There are 3 cables coming from the display, 1 for front camera assembly, 1 for Digitizer (touch screen) and 1 for LCD (display).

iPhone and Android mobile phone flex extender cables were introduced to the market back in 2012 by China. Many repair technicians and mobile phone repair stores are using these, while other don’t even know such a product exists or understand why they’re used. The concept is pretty simple. We’ll explain why flex extender cables should be used in every repair setting as well as the benefits they provide.

As the name suggest, flex extended cables simply extend the length from the phone’s logic board to the LCD screen assembly. On the surface, these flex extensions are not required to get a repair done. However, they can help shave time off certain repair tasks and prevent costly parts consumption that can add up over time.

These cables are currently made for iPhone and Android OS “flagship” models such as the iPhone 4, 4s , 5, 5s, 5c as well as S3, S4 and Note II models.

Every repair technician should use them when they receive LCD assemblies from vendors. In this setting, they are mainly used to test the digitizer and LCD.

Connector Failure – Without using a flex extended cable, you’ll be burning through logic boards faster than needed. If you use an iPhone LCD screen tester device, you’ll burn through more replacement chips than necessary as well. Logic board manufacturers did not design the board or the LCD flex connections to withstand dozens or hundreds of connections. You can expect the main board to fail after just a few hundred connects. Mileage will vary based on technicians sensitivity to connecting and reconnecting the flex ribbon.

Logic Board Exposure  – In addition, using an extended flex cable will allow you to keep your logic board closed when testing LCD screens, reducing the chances of logic board failure.

Testing Flexibility – Technicians will benefit from the extra room the cable provides when testing screens and greatly reduce the chances of tearing the flex ribbon.

Usually the high quality ones will last about twice as long as the cheaper ones, take less time per LCD/digitizer test and reduce the chances of logic board and/or LCD damage to the main connectors.

Ask your LCD parts supplier if they can provide them directly and include them in your LCD order. If not necessary, it doesn’t make sense to pay for shipping from overseas.

Accidental Damage is any damage due to an unintentional act that is not the direct result of a manufacturing defect or failure. Accidental damage is not covered under the standard warranty of the product. Such damage is often the result of a drop or an impact on the LCD screen or any other part of the product which may render the device non-functional. Such types of damage are only covered under an Accidental Damage service offering which is an optional add-on to the basic warranty of the product. Accidental Damage must not be confused with an occasional dead or stuck pixel on the LCD panel. For more information about dead or stuck pixels, see the Dell Display Pixel Guidelines.

NOTE: Other damages may be considered customer induced if determined by Dell Technical Support, an on-site field engineer, or at the mail-in repair center.

The LCD glass on the display is manufactured to rigorous specifications and standards and will not typically crack or break on its own under normal use. In general, cracked, or broken glass is considered accidental damage and is not covered under the standard warranty.

Spots typically occur due to an external force hitting the screen causing damage to the LCD panel"s backlight assembly. While the top layer did not crack or break, the underlying area was compressed and damaged causing this effect.

If your Dell laptop LCD panel has any accidental damage but the laptop is not covered by the Accidental Damage service offering, contact Dell Technical Support for repair options.

Dell monitors cannot be repaired by an on-site field engineer or at the mail-in repair center. If you notice any damage to the monitor, you must purchase a new monitor.