As mentioned in previous posts, the touchscreen and lcd monitor I’m using for the steampunk computer work fine, though the inverter powering the backlight had fried so the screen was black.

I have a new inverter ordered, though since it is coming from Hong Kong it may take some time to arrive. Possibly up to two weeks and I’m far too impatient to wait for that part before continuing the build! I may even convert it to an LED backlight if it takes too long, but for now I have a fix.

I wasn’t going to be using the laptop’s built in screen and was planning on removing it, so decided to use the laptop’s inverter to power the monitor’s CCFL backlight bulb. The monitor actually has two of these bulbs though the laptop’s inverter can only power one of them, so it wouldn’t be full brightness, but shoudl be bright enough to work with until I get the replacement.

So first thing I did was take the bezel off the laptop’s screen.

 

 

The inverter is normally at the bottom of the LCD screen under the bezel and easily accessible.

 

 

WARNING : The inverter produces HIGH VOLTAGE.  Try this at your own risk!  I take no responsibility for your actions.

I then simply unplugged the wires going to the CCFL bulb from the inverter and plugged in the bulb from the external monitor.  Then I powered up the computer and sure enough the bulb lit up.

Then I put the bulb back into the external monitor and sure enough I had a working screen!

 

This entry was posted on Friday, December 30th, 2011 at 7:36 pm and is filed under Steampunk Computer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.