LED Backlight Upgrade Kit Opinions

Collapse
X
 
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts
  • JamisonM
    Member
    • Jun 2010
    • 25

    #1

    LED Backlight Upgrade Kit Opinions

    I've got an Acer B243W monitor that I believe has CCFL lamps at the end of their lives. The monitor turns on fine and stays on as well, but the backlight turns off after a few seconds. Using a flashlight, I can still see that there is a image being displayed while connected to my laptop. Using budm's great idea, I've gotten some old CFL bubs to stay lit while the monitor is turned on instead of turning off after a few seconds. Now, I'm at a bit of a crossroads. I could order replacement lamps from CCFL Warehouse, but 4 lamps would be $40. Curious, I've searched for LED conversion kits for LCD monitors. It seems there are many sellers overseas that sell them for roughly half the price of new lamps. Instead of replacing the lamps with CCFLs, are the LED upgrade kits any good? Does anyone have any experience or opinions of them?
  • stj
    Great Sage 齊天大聖
    • Dec 2009
    • 30928
    • Albion

    #2
    Re: LED Backlight Upgrade Kit Opinions

    i'v fitted them,
    and said a bit about it, i like them a lot.

    they arent $19 though, that link was a robery - $10 more like!
    http://stores.ebay.com/lcd-led-parts
    this place has the kits AND cheap ccfl tubes.

    Comment

    • JamisonM
      Member
      • Jun 2010
      • 25

      #3
      Re: LED Backlight Upgrade Kit Opinions

      stj, do you have another monitor with ccfl to compare with? How's the brightness? Is the screen uniformly lit?

      Comment

      • stj
        Great Sage 齊天大聖
        • Dec 2009
        • 30928
        • Albion

        #4
        Re: LED Backlight Upgrade Kit Opinions

        i dont have any here - i'v done them for customers.

        first one i did was about 6 months ago, still going strong.
        the light is as bright and uniform as the ccfl.

        i will say this, if you have 3 tubes side-by-side then the brightness may not be as high.
        i'v not fitted a kit to one of those, i'm just assuming.

        the interesting thing about the led kits is they use MUCH less power than the tubes so the tv runs much cooler and uses less elecrticity.

        Comment

        • JamisonM
          Member
          • Jun 2010
          • 25

          #5
          Re: LED Backlight Upgrade Kit Opinions

          stj, that's one thing I like about them them. If I have to open the LCD panel, why not replace them with something that will run cooler and use less power while at the same time providing similar performance? That's what I'm hoping at least.

          Thing I don't like is I can't tell what kind of LEDs they're using or how hard they're driving them. My guess is they're the same LEDs found of the various flexible strips. Basically, 3528, 5050, 3014 or 5630. If they're running as cool as you say, then it can't be too hard. While they won't be as bright, they'll be more efficient and last longer.

          Another plus with these kits is that the hardest part will be taking apart the LCD panel. After that, It looks like I'll be four solder joints away from a working monitor. I guess I need to get one of these kits in hand to see how good they really are.

          Comment

          • stj
            Great Sage 齊天大聖
            • Dec 2009
            • 30928
            • Albion

            #6
            Re: LED Backlight Upgrade Kit Opinions

            the led's are very narrow - maybe 2mm.
            and they dont run hot to the touch.
            i ran one in my hand for about 30seconds to see how hot they got - it didnt!

            i will say this,
            study the panel closely before you do anyhing.
            some of them have a way to extract the metal strip with the tube(s) on it at the end without lifting the glass out or anything.
            just a few tiny screws and maybe lifting the edge of the outer metal frame.
            Last edited by stj; 04-07-2015, 01:05 PM.

            Comment

            • JamisonM
              Member
              • Jun 2010
              • 25

              #7
              Re: LED Backlight Upgrade Kit Opinions

              stj, one thing I forgot to ask was about the color of the LEDs. Did they lean heavily to the blue side or were they more of a neutral tint? I don't think it matter too greatly as I can adjust the colors with the monitors menu or the software installed with my video card.

              Comment

              • stj
                Great Sage 齊天大聖
                • Dec 2009
                • 30928
                • Albion

                #8
                Re: LED Backlight Upgrade Kit Opinions

                when i did the heat test it was more a case of FUCK - MY EYE'S!!!!


                but they are a cool white with a slight blue haze - same as the ccfl's
                btw, ccfl's change colour as they age, they slowly go more pink as they get darker.
                Last edited by stj; 04-07-2015, 09:52 PM.

                Comment

                • JamisonM
                  Member
                  • Jun 2010
                  • 25

                  #9
                  Re: LED Backlight Upgrade Kit Opinions

                  I guess I'll bite the bullet and see how these are. Maybe I'll even do a bit of a review of them.

                  Comment

                  • stj
                    Great Sage 齊天大聖
                    • Dec 2009
                    • 30928
                    • Albion

                    #10
                    Re: LED Backlight Upgrade Kit Opinions

                    just dont look at them if you power them up!

                    Comment

                    • JamisonM
                      Member
                      • Jun 2010
                      • 25

                      #11
                      Re: LED Backlight Upgrade Kit Opinions

                      Originally posted by stj
                      just dont look at them if you power them up!
                      Heh, too late. They arrived in just under two weeks. They aren't an XP-G, but they are still quite bright.

                      I tested them with a old computer PSU that I converted to a bench supply. I wasn't sure how to wire the two yellow wires, so I experimented with the 3.3 and 5v rails. Once I got the wiring right, I was quite pleased with both their brightness and color temperature.

                      By my eyes, they're closer to white than blue, easily. Oddly, the 3.3 works to turn them on and to what I would consider maximum brightness. The 5v turns them on as well, but you can look directly at the super low brightness die on each of the LEDs. Neat!

                      Taking apart the display, while not hard, was frightening. The double sided tape I ordered for this was also ever slightly too wide. These strips are 4mm and my tape was 5mm. The exposed edges of the tape wanted to stick to the sides of the channel the CCFLs were originally in. After a little fiddling, I got them in.

                      Once I finally got them in and the panel back together, I planned how I was going to solder the cables to the monitor's power supply. Since there was a plug on each end of the cable sent to me, I cut one off and then stripped/tinned the ends. All in all, I'm quite pleased with this conversion.

                      I've got three things left to do however. I need to trying cleaning the two sheets of plastic under the LCD itself. One side of the screen looks great while the other leans towards the yellowish side. The seller I got these from recommended that in the description.

                      The other thing I need to do is desolder the ena wire. I soldered it directly to the 5v rail on the monitor's power supply. When I press the power button on the front of the monitor, the backlight stays on. When I get time, I'll solder it to the on/off pin. I'm hoping that'll fix that.

                      Lastly, I need to get myself some proper mounting tape. I've got the driver insulated with 3 layers of electric tape and a a single long piece of double sided tape as long as the driver. While it's on my mind, I need to get some kapton tape too.

                      All in all, I think these are really good IMHO. If you've got an older monitor with a CCFL backlight that refuses to stay on and want to save it, give these kits a serious consideration.

                      Thanks alot for your help stj. Maybe I'll post images my second go around since I've got another one of these monitor with the same issue?

                      Comment

                      • stj
                        Great Sage 齊天大聖
                        • Dec 2009
                        • 30928
                        • Albion

                        #12
                        Re: LED Backlight Upgrade Kit Opinions

                        glad you like them.

                        about the tape, i fit the tape on the strips and then trim the sides wih a razor before fitting.
                        mounting the invertor i use double-sided foam tape.

                        can you post a good foto of the invertor?
                        they changed it since i last used one - it's smaller now.

                        btw, it may sound funny, but we may have to use these to "upgrade" led tv's given the number of failing led tv's now!
                        Last edited by stj; 04-25-2015, 02:05 AM.

                        Comment

                        • JamisonM
                          Member
                          • Jun 2010
                          • 25

                          #13
                          Re: LED Backlight Upgrade Kit Opinions

                          Originally posted by stj
                          glad you like them.

                          about the tape, i fit the tape on the strips and then trim the sides wih a razor before fitting.
                          mounting the invertor i use double-sided foam tape.

                          can you post a good foto of the invertor?
                          they changed it since i last used one - it's smaller now.

                          btw, it may sound funny, but we may have to use these to "upgrade" led tv's given the number of failing led tv's now!
                          Next go around, I'll put them to the scalpel. Should be fairly easy if I line the other side up well. I'll just have to follow the side of the PCB. I've got some some clear scotch mounting tape around here somewhere. Overkill for sure, but falling off isn't something I expect it to do with that stuff. Here are some pictures you requested.





                          Comment

                          • stj
                            Great Sage 齊天大聖
                            • Dec 2009
                            • 30928
                            • Albion

                            #14
                            Re: LED Backlight Upgrade Kit Opinions

                            nice.

                            i found this btw - interesting read.
                            https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/th...pleboost.shtml

                            Comment

                            • terry
                              Senior Member
                              • Oct 2007
                              • 91
                              • Milton Keynes, Bucks

                              #15
                              Re: LED Backlight Upgrade Kit Opinions

                              I have use lots of these LED Backlight Upgrade Kit. on 24" and 22" monitors the picture is very good, a little bit whiter than LCD backlights. The only problems I had with them is the brightness control work the wrong way round. If you put 5v power on the brightness control backlight are dim, 0v backlight full brightness.

                              Comment

                              • stj
                                Great Sage 齊天大聖
                                • Dec 2009
                                • 30928
                                • Albion

                                #16
                                Re: LED Backlight Upgrade Kit Opinions

                                dim input will always be a problem because there is no standard.
                                some tv's use varying voltage, others use PWM and as you noticed the direction is not always the same either.

                                this iink may help a bit for some people though.
                                https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/th...led-kits.shtml

                                Comment

                                Related Topics

                                Collapse

                                • momaka
                                  HannStar Hanns-G HC194d LCD monitor repair
                                  by momaka
                                  Normally, I never post repairs this quick after I do them, because… I am usually very slow. But today, I’m making an exception here. Why? No idea. Perhaps only because the repair details are still “fresh” in my head… which is ironic, given this is a 16 year old monitor that hardly anyone will care about today. It is new to me, though. I picked it up last November from someone on my local Craigslist. It wasn’t very close to where I live, but was close to a family friend that I had to go visit anyways. So after watching the posting on Craigslist for a few weeks and seeing it getting...
                                  03-15-2023, 10:17 PM
                                • DanPoka
                                  Guide me through repairing a Dell p2210f LCD ccfl backlight monitor
                                  by DanPoka
                                  I bought this p2210f dell monitor to fix. Schematic is the same as p2210.
                                  Behaviour is that monitors comes on but then backlight switches off almost instantly. If I look with flashlight I can still find the "No signal message". So definitely a backlight issue. Trying to advance the issue I proved that the protection circuit is switching off the backlight by shorting out C3 and resistor to disable the INL chip then re enable by removing the short.
                                  This is where it gets interesting. When I disassembled the monitor to solder leads on c3 capacitor I noticed the backlight flickered...
                                  02-15-2025, 05:05 AM
                                • ant3202
                                  HP 27es - LED monitor - Monitor Flashing On - Off
                                  by ant3202
                                  Hi Everyone

                                  Lately I am experiencing the deja-vu incident on one of the led monitor like this.
                                  https://www.badcaps.net/forum/troubl...lashing-on-off

                                  The monitor is HP 27es LED Monitor
                                  https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Deskto...e/td-p/6804692

                                  The monitor will randomly blackout and display no signal and will recover again.
                                  Sometimes need to power and off again to restore the display but...
                                  03-20-2025, 07:30 PM
                                • Rick_1234
                                  LG 23MP55HQ LED Monitor turns off after a few seconds or flickers.
                                  by Rick_1234
                                  Good evening, gentlemen.

                                  I have a problem with my monitor. It turns off after a few seconds or flickers. Shining a flashlight on the screen doesn't show any image, so I guess it's not the "2 seconds to dark" I read in the forum.

                                  To turn it back on, I have to press the power button twice. Then after a few seconds it turns off again or flickers. See video.
                                  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1L6S...ew?usp=sharing


                                  Things I tried

                                  - Bought a new AC adapter thinking that was the problem but the problem...
                                  06-22-2024, 04:44 PM
                                • mikey5791
                                  Help on Samsung Syncmaster T220 dead ccfl lamp
                                  by mikey5791
                                  Hi,

                                  This monitor previously is my main working monitor which i have been using for 8~9 years. Yesterday, when i switched on my pc from fresh to power on, the monitor is just black no display. I started dismantle to look inside the monitor power board but nothing looks suspicious or burnt. So i took my external ccfl inverter to try to power the monitor ccfl lamps which consisted of 2 lamps on upper part and 2 lamps on the lower part.

                                  Found out the upper ccfl lamp which is supposed to connect to cn304 on the power board did not light up. Then i installed a used working...
                                  10-18-2020, 03:17 AM
                                • Loading...
                                • No more items.
                                Working...