Repairing LCD Screens on Electronic Instruments

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phantomlady

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Can anyone shed any light on this subject please?
We have a boat load of Navman instruments with faded/non-working LCD screens. I believe it is possible to repair the screens by somehow replacing the elastomeric connectors (?)
We thought we would give it a try as it's much cheaper than replacing the whole lot.
Seen the video on you tube on how to actually do it but am having trouble sourcing the connectors.
Anyone any ideas? or actually done it themselves?
All help/pointers gratefully received :)
Thanks!
 
Seen the video and have some navman stuff in the loft. I found a supply in China who could do 5000 units......I think it is a case of going to a maplin store and having a look at LCD displays and physically trying to look inside to see if the parts are connected with an elastomeric connector. Guess might have to pay up to £20 for such an item. Either a DDM module, timer, an LCD for connectionto PICS and the such like. If you do find one can you post on here please as we don't have a Maplins in Jersey.......Good Luck.
 
Difficult on this! :(

I have repaired the LCD displays on a few pieces of kit over time and I found that it didn't always work for very long.

The actual screen is a pre made-up 2mm thick crystal block which is connected to the electronic board by a light brown(ish), fawn coloured 'rubber' strip running the length of one side, usually the longest side. This rubber is probably 1¼mm x 1¼mm and has conductive contacts within it that connects the crystal display to the printed circuit board (PCB) as it is compressed between the two.

All I can suggest is firstly make sure on stripping down you get the orientation of the rubber strip correct as this is very critical. Do not reverse it or re-mount it 90° turned as the display might never work again.

Cleaning can only be by using a cotton bud and very, very lightly swabbing with Iso Propo-Alcohol and then very carefully refitting making sure the alignment of rubber, PCB and crystal display are accurate. Not as easy as it might seem!

Best of luck, but if it doesn't work now, attempting a repair won't make it any worse. ;)
 
stav said:
Seen the video and have some navman stuff in the loft. I found a supply in China who could do 5000 units......I think it is a case of going to a maplin store and having a look at LCD displays and physically trying to look inside to see if the parts are connected with an elastomeric connector. Guess might have to pay up to £20 for such an item. Either a DDM module, timer, an LCD for connectionto PICS and the such like. If you do find one can you post on here please as we don't have a Maplins in Jersey.......Good Luck.
Click to expand...

Elastomeric connectors are also known by the generic name of Zebra connectors due to the stripes which are visible in some makes. :)

Might be good to use 'Mr Google' to track some down? :rolleyes:
 
Hi

I repaired a navman multi display using a connector from a screen from Maplin (Part No. N27AZ).

Easy to fit if you follow the youtube video. Just a bit of fiddling to get the connector in the right place for the screen to display correctly.

Rob
 
I have done this a few times. The zebra strips are usually easily replaced.
If it is the zebra strips usually individual segmets of the display are lost or faded, so an 8 can look like a 3 because the 2 left vertical strips are not making proper conection.
 
They've always been built with zebras. You may have a problem with the height dimension though. The zebras are a strip of silicon compound about 3 or 4 mm thick and varying in height from 2 or 3 mm to 5 or more. A very thin strip of graphite based compound is laid in vertical runs at very close centres longitudinally along the strip. By eye some makes look like a solid piece of graphite in the middle but in fact its a 'forest' of individual, redundant, graphite conductors ( hence the zebra trademark ). The point is that a substrate printed circuit board has pads laid out where connections are required to the lcd module. The glass/crystal module has matching transparent and very delicate conductors and the elastomeric zebra connector is a mechanical, clamped in place connection between the two.

I'll go dig out the box and drop you a pm.
 
Navman screen repair

I've repaired a Navman 3100 depth display recently following the YouTube video and with the help of Mountnessie/Rob. I used Maplin N28AZ because I thought it looked a bit bigger. The two elastomeric connectors from there are over 100mm long each while the display in the 3100 depth needs less than 30mm, and they are about 8mm high and fit the 3100 case without any need to cut them down, unlike the connector used in the video. To get an good uniform contact along the length of the newly installed connector you need to pad the sandwich with something so that the pressure of the casing helps - I used a length of soft foam about 8mm thick tucked below the glass.

I cleaned off the old glue (see video) with nail varnish remover on a cotton bud - cleaned up afterwards with a bit of meths. It didn't do any damage when used sparingly.

Needless to say I've got plenty of elastomeric connector left.
 
shipping to The Netherlands

Hi

I have the same issue with my multi 3100. I dismantled 2 digital displays, but both contained 6.5mm zebra connectors. And as you all wrote, a 8mm height connector is needed.
Unfortunately Maplin only ships within the UK. I am living in The Netherlands :-(

May be you want to help me out? By sending a display from Maplin, or maybe even someone has still a 8mm zebra connector left? Please contact me if you can help me out :-) I’d really appreciate it!

Kind regards,
Teun
Rijswijk
The Netherlands
 
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