Repairing your old burnt out LCD

So I was doing a bit of research into these old screens in hopes of avoiding that MPCStuff purchase for as long as I can haha, and what I found actually blew my mind. A lot of you DIYers might already know this stuff but I never knew how good you can get an old burnt LCD looking.

I stumbled across some videos of guys restoring old GameBoys and stuff on Youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgVgu5Suw44
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYaFlshF7Qc&t=640s

I decided to see what I could do with my totally burnt MPC 2000 screen and it turned out so good.
The top layer of the LCD is a plastic polarizing filter which, at least in my case and some of these videos I've watched, is where nearly all of the discoloration problem seems to occur.

I peeled the filter off with a razor blade and after a lot of effort removing adhesive and of the burnt crystallized stuff I put it back together and it looks great. I didn't even use a new polarizing filter, just polished up the old one. Also, when I put the filter back in I put it upside down and instead of the orange/purple color they go it comes up a much lighter green/blue and the contrast is WAY better.

Not much help for any dead pixels or those lines but I was seriously amazed by how much of a difference it made.

I just thought I'd make a post since I hadn't really come across much online in terms of repairing your own screen. For any of you guys looking for ways to deal with the 2k screen dilemma I'd definitely recommend having a go at restoring the old one yourself before you go and spend all that money on a replacement.

Peace!

Wow good to know. Thanks for the info!

Pics or it didn’t happen. Lol

At the date of this post: The MPC 2000 is 22 year old and the MPC 2000XL is 19 year old. Stop being cheap and spend the $169.00 for a brand new LCD. Now, If you don't have the money, go outside, collect cans and bottles, recycle them, and use the money for a new screen.

hey that worked! thanks! I ordered a fresh polarized film but wiping of all the heated glue made it plenty legible for the time being.

Hey, first time posting. Just wanted to say thanks for the heads up on this. I picked up an MPC2000XL SE2 with a screen that had pretty bad burn. I referenced the videos you shared and decided to go the repair route to see if I could avoid the expense of replacing it entirely.

After pulling up one corner the rest of the old film came off with little effort. The hardest (i.e. labor intensive) part was cleaning the adhesive residue. You have to be pretty liberal with IPA and it takes a fair amount of scraping with a razor. At first I was scared to scrape too hard for fear of scratching the surface, but the glass is tough enough. Took me a good half hour or so to really get it clean, but I was taking my time to make sure I didn't slip and hurt myself or the ribbon connector.

Avoiding bubbles while laying down film like this can be a bit tricky. As one should apply a screen protector I peeled back a small portion of the backing from the adhesive side, started at one edge and used a small plastic squeegee to press on little by little, peeling more and more of the backing off as I slowly worked my way across. If you do this just make sure to leave the backing of the non-adhesive side on until you're finished to prevent scratching the surface during application.

Anyway, the screen looks good as new! This was the film I purchased from Amazon—there are a ton of polarized film sheets available, many of which would probably work just fine, I just went with the cheapest option:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BRWPP41P

Due to the smaller dimensions of the sheets I selected they would only be good to apply one way but luckily that way was the right orientation for this particular screen. I would suggest going with a larger sheet that can be rotated and trimmed to size if necessary.

Thanks again!

Just following up on my last post, you can see how the screen looked before and after as well as a few progress shots on my IG:

https://www.instagram.com/p/DPe1DymiT3p/
https://www.instagram.com/p/DPgpLhPjgrL/
https://www.instagram.com/p/DPgpV4GjoWR/
https://www.instagram.com/p/DPgpsoPjlDK/