Luke122
04-22-2008, 06:12 PM
Hey kids,
Luke here with another notebook project. (As always with me, pics will follow shortly)
Today's subject is a CF-28 toughbook, which has seen a long, hard life. The CCFL is turning pink, and flickering, so it's time for a replacement. The more I think about it though, the more I think that this is the perfect candidate for a LED retrofit. Less power needed, less heat generated, and definitely tougher.
(pic1)
I started by disassembling the CF-28 LCD housing, and having a good look at the internals.
(pic2)
This LCD housing also has the option for a retractable antenna mast.. so I thought, "Why not add WIFI to this beast while it's apart?"
(pic3)
I got an Emachines m5310 (dont quote me on that.. memory = fail) that was cooked a while back, and warranty was up. I stripped what I could from it, and kept the rest of the parts for the possibility of reselling later on.
Among the parts was a perfectly good LCD (going on ebay sooner or later), and a Broadcom Mini-pci wifi card. I stripped out the antenna too when I pulled the LCD from the Emachine.
(pic4)
After removing the bottom plate, then the battery, then some tape, I found a ram slot.
(pic5)
After removing the hdd, and then some more tape, I found the Mini-PCI slot. YAY! Wait.. it's got something in it.. Dial up modem.
(pic6)
*trash*
(pic7)
Wifi card installed.. now to route the antenna wires up to the LCD.
(pic8)
Ok, now that it's done, I'll continue with the backlight project.
(pic9)
After stripping out the LCD completely, I proceeded to pull apart the housing on it, and remove the ccfl. Mmm.. toasted.
(pic10)
After a bit of probing with the multimeter, I found a 15v lead that was feeding the ccfl... I'll use that source for powering the LED's.
Now, I have 16 ultrabright (15,000mcd) white LED's on hand, so I hope that they are enough for this monitor.. I'm starting to have doubts though.. anyways..
16 LED's @ 3.2v, 30mA from a 15v source = 220 ohm resistors in series with 4 LEDs each.
(pic11)
I decided to mount 10 LED's across the bottom, and 6 down the side. Since they are series/parallel the wiring is a bit tricky, but shouldnt be too hard to keep it all neat.
(pic12)
Hmm.. how to keep the LED's all level, and firing in at the correct angle to give even light dispersion and no bright/dark spots...
(pic13)
So this is where I am now in this process. I'm thinking about using some sort of trim to hold all the LED's in place, but I'm not sure on how to go about this yet.
"Why not just hot glue them all in place?"
I want to be able to undo this mod if it turns out that they arent bright enough.. a new backlight for this laptop isnt very common, but they are out there, and they arent toooooo pricey (certainly more than 16 LEDs, 4 resistors, and a couple hours of slavery) though.
Thoughts?
Luke here with another notebook project. (As always with me, pics will follow shortly)
Today's subject is a CF-28 toughbook, which has seen a long, hard life. The CCFL is turning pink, and flickering, so it's time for a replacement. The more I think about it though, the more I think that this is the perfect candidate for a LED retrofit. Less power needed, less heat generated, and definitely tougher.
(pic1)
I started by disassembling the CF-28 LCD housing, and having a good look at the internals.
(pic2)
This LCD housing also has the option for a retractable antenna mast.. so I thought, "Why not add WIFI to this beast while it's apart?"
(pic3)
I got an Emachines m5310 (dont quote me on that.. memory = fail) that was cooked a while back, and warranty was up. I stripped what I could from it, and kept the rest of the parts for the possibility of reselling later on.
Among the parts was a perfectly good LCD (going on ebay sooner or later), and a Broadcom Mini-pci wifi card. I stripped out the antenna too when I pulled the LCD from the Emachine.
(pic4)
After removing the bottom plate, then the battery, then some tape, I found a ram slot.
(pic5)
After removing the hdd, and then some more tape, I found the Mini-PCI slot. YAY! Wait.. it's got something in it.. Dial up modem.
(pic6)
*trash*
(pic7)
Wifi card installed.. now to route the antenna wires up to the LCD.
(pic8)
Ok, now that it's done, I'll continue with the backlight project.
(pic9)
After stripping out the LCD completely, I proceeded to pull apart the housing on it, and remove the ccfl. Mmm.. toasted.
(pic10)
After a bit of probing with the multimeter, I found a 15v lead that was feeding the ccfl... I'll use that source for powering the LED's.
Now, I have 16 ultrabright (15,000mcd) white LED's on hand, so I hope that they are enough for this monitor.. I'm starting to have doubts though.. anyways..
16 LED's @ 3.2v, 30mA from a 15v source = 220 ohm resistors in series with 4 LEDs each.
(pic11)
I decided to mount 10 LED's across the bottom, and 6 down the side. Since they are series/parallel the wiring is a bit tricky, but shouldnt be too hard to keep it all neat.
(pic12)
Hmm.. how to keep the LED's all level, and firing in at the correct angle to give even light dispersion and no bright/dark spots...
(pic13)
So this is where I am now in this process. I'm thinking about using some sort of trim to hold all the LED's in place, but I'm not sure on how to go about this yet.
"Why not just hot glue them all in place?"
I want to be able to undo this mod if it turns out that they arent bright enough.. a new backlight for this laptop isnt very common, but they are out there, and they arent toooooo pricey (certainly more than 16 LEDs, 4 resistors, and a couple hours of slavery) though.
Thoughts?