exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

Finally I got around to taking a pic. The Commodore (also got the manual) was rescued from an office clearout, the rest were from my grandad's house:

@Higgy some nice interesting VFD LED models there. You need a couple of Sinclair ones for the collection though.

Higgy wrote: 21 Jul 2022 22:26 Finally I got around to taking a pic. The Commodore (also got the manual) was rescued from an office clearout, the rest were from my grandad's house:


Calcs.jpg

Very nice :)

Here's my Casio and an Acer n35 I found at the bottom of a drawer last weekend. It's Windows based and has a GPS antenna built in.

Quick update on the display I ordered for this.

Current status is:


All I can do for now is wait and see what happens :(

Ok, so it seems the USPS tracking has just stopped after the 5th July, however according to Royal Mail track and trace, it was received on the 6th July and is in transit. I'll take that as a positive as I know tracking can just disappear in some cases.

To be fair, I ordered the part just over 3 weeks ago, and the AmForward guide suggested up to 6 weeks for delivery, so we are still inside that window, so I am hopeful now it has shown up on the Royal Mail tracking.

Well, I'll be jiggered:


The LCD has finally left the US, looking like it might have worked after all.

Well, shockingly, the display arrived in the UK yesterday and is now local to me. Just hope the postie can get down the road as they are surfacing it and the pavements this week!!

Hopefully it'll be here soon.

Well, it's finally here!!


Overall, it's taken pretty much exactly 5 weeks to arrive, so well within the 4-6 week window quoted.

The cost was just over double that for the display on its own, but it is here and I should now be able to revive the little Sharp :)

More to follow when I get my workbench clear of BBC B stuff.

If you can swallow the cost of using a forwarder, and are prepared to wait, then it was worth doing.

Well, I decided today was going to be the day that I did the screen replacement!!
Just as a reminder, the replacement LCD is available here: TRS-80 and PC1211 replacement screen

Thankfully the page also contains a video guide by the maker of the LCD, and I'd urge anybody watching to watch before you attempt to do the replacement.

I made one change to the process, in that I didn't have acetone to hand, so I opted to heat the metal display mounting rather than acetone soak it overnight. This resulted in a slightly quicker overall process (The whole thing took about an hour and a half from start to finish) and I was able to re-use the original display adhesive to retain the screen. This also meant I didn't have to wedge the screen at one end to keep it in place either, though you do need to take a good deal of care to align the screen properly before sticking it down..

Otherwise the disassembly/reassembly process was the same.

Here is the offending device:


First step is to remove the back cover, held on with just 4 screws:


Note that the 2 larger screws have small springs at the tips, this effectively connects the front and back covers electrically, so be sure not to bend or break them.

Once the back is off, you can remove the batteries and lift out the +tive and -tive terminals from their locations. Note that the +tive connector does need a bit more pull to remove, but is quite flimsy, so again, be careful not to bend or break.

Reassembly is essentially the reverse, just make sure the black bulge is lined up correctly in the frame, and be sure to apply pressure to the PCB to make sure the zebra strips are nicely compressed when you bend the tabs back.

For full reassembly, please do watch the video, it goes into much more detail than I have here.

Once done, you can then remove the 2 self tapping screws that hold the top part of the board sandwich in place, then remove the 10 screws that hold the lower board in place (1 holds the speaker in and is much longer) and the board can be lifted out.

Once out, open the board layers to around 90 degrees:


Be careful when opening up as the ribbon cable is quite stiff and you don't want to break it.

Once opened up, you will see 10 brass coloured tabs that go around the edge of the display. Each one needs to be bent upwards so the display will come away from the board, and I'd advise great care, as a slip could easily damage tracks on the PCB. Note that the zebra strips may well be quite sticky and you will need to exert some force break the stick and remove the display.

Once removed, carefully remove the zebra strips and place them in a dust free container until they are needed again:


Once the zebra strips are out, check the location of this black bulge:


And mark it on the bezel. The new display has the same bulge and you will use it for orientation later. There is also a small notch that is located at the top left of the display and will help ensure you assemble correctly.

At this point I diverted and used my heat gun to remove the old display by heating the metal frame and pushing on the old display (Not with my fingers, nobody likes singed fingers!) until the adhesive gave way and the display dropped out.

Before reassembly, there is a polarising filter stuck to the front part of the case. It's not needed for the new display, but the clear plastic screen and aluminium bezel are, so be sure to heep those in place.

Once reassembled, the last thing to do is set the contrast properly.

There is a trimmer pot, located on the top part of the PCB, but as you can see here, Sharp kindly filled it up with white gunk making further adjustment impossible:


However the maker of the LCDs has found that removing the pot wiper like this:


Gives perfect contrast on these new displays. Should you wish you could fit another pot, but for mine this worked just great, as you can see from this lovely display:


You might even say the display was 'Sharp'...

:dizzy:

:dualthumbup: :cheer: