The place to share knowledge about upgrades, mods, customisations and all other cool DIY projects for MPCs and other music equipment.
By _Stilo_ Sun Jan 27, 2008 9:26 pm
Ok folks, I just want to put out some information on how to replace the backlight EL foil in an S950, since I made some pictures anyway, and there's questions about that popping up every once in a while. I hope somebody will find it useful.

It should be pretty easy to do if you don't have two left hands and know how to use a soldering iron. However, I take no responsibility if you break something or aren't successful. This is just meant as a guideline on how to do it.

Alright let's go...first you have to open the front panel to get access. For that you need to unscrew the cover (and the rack ears if you have).
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Then you get access to the screws for the front panel. Make sure you don't lose the three washers you see in the pic. There's three more of the same screws on the bottom. Pull off the Rec/Monitor/Output level knobs as well.
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There it is. This is a shot of how my display looked like before the replacement. Pretty weak.
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Now you can get hold of the display. I recommend taking it off so you can handle it better.
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Here you see the two power leads connecting to the foil. Better remember which one's connected where, although I think it isn't even necessary as the foil is driven by AC (somebody correct me on this if wrong). Unsolder them from the foil.
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If you're lucky, you can now simply pull out the old foil, slip in the new one, and solder the leads back on and put it all together again.

Most of the time however the foil might be stuck to the PCB board of the display with some glue or stuff, and you have no way of pulling it out. One possibility is then to simply slide the new foil on top of the old one and connect the new one to the power leads. Just pay attention that no connection to the old foil remains, only the new one has to be connected to the power!


I however went a little further and wanted to document that here as well.
PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK FROM HERE!
If you still want to get the old foil out, you need to take the whole display apart carefully. First you need to pry the 12 metal clamps open that hold the display to the PCB.
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Then you can carefully take it apart and remove the foil. Make sure you don't loose the rubber attached to the display. The actual display is kinda sensitive, it might produce random black patches when the contacts are touched, but they usually disappear on their own after a short while, so don't worry. I rested the display on two of the knobs from the front panel so the contacts (in the rubber) are floating free.
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Now reassemble it all again in reverse order with the new foil, solder on the power leads, put it all back together and enjoy:
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As you can see this is a blue foil, it's one I bought from midi-rakete.de. Any suggestions or questions are welcome. Have a nice day :D
Last edited by _Stilo_ on Sat Mar 20, 2010 11:08 am, edited 2 times in total.

By csmealer Sun Jan 27, 2008 10:00 pm
You did a great job with those pics and instructions Stilo. There have been a lot of questions about this lately so I'm sure this will help a lot of folks. You should check with Lampdog and see if he's cool with you putting this in the 60 Bible sticky so it's easy for people to find in the future.

By distantb Mon Jan 28, 2008 2:53 am
who in the states sell backlight EL foils?

By Deta!L Mon Jan 28, 2008 3:14 am
don't take the display apart, with a thin putty type knife you can get the adhesive off the factory EL and just pull it out, you'll never get the display letters dark like it was from the factory
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By 950skweezyotitties Mon Jan 28, 2008 4:47 am
Deta!L wrote:you'll never get the display letters dark like it was from the factory


i second that. ive had to throw away displays after doing this due to the noticable difference. it is a **** that the backlight is glued in there. a knife is def the way to go. dont be scared to shimmy it around. by these pictures you can see where and connections are that you would have to be concerned about damaging.
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By djobserv Mon Jan 28, 2008 5:03 am
man i wish my s1000 was that bright :(

thanks for the info
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By 950skweezyotitties Mon Jan 28, 2008 5:12 am
Image

s11... peep the card reader flossin to the top right... buh leeeev i keep them backlights crispy
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By distortedtekno Mon Jan 28, 2008 5:55 am
good post.
i remember when i replaced the backlight on my s950. the instructions stated not to bother taking the display apart. but slide the new foil in front of the old one. however, i'm wondering if that only made my display appear less brighter than others i keep seing pictured here in the forums.
i still gotta do some repairs on my outputs when i can figure out how to properly troubleshoot it. so when i get around to that, i'll also remove the old foil that's still in the display to see if it helps make it more bright and blue as it should be.
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By distortedtekno Mon Jan 28, 2008 6:02 am
distantb wrote:who in the states sell backlight EL foils?

check ebay. that's where i bought mine. i forget who the seller was. but i remember 2 different sellers having them at the time (2 years ago). so i bought one for the s950 and one from the other seller for my s2800 i used to own. both sellers were easy to deal with. i'll see if i can find them through my feedback comments and post them up if they got them in stock.
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By distortedtekno Mon Jan 28, 2008 6:18 am
distortedtekno wrote:one seller that i ordered from is still on ebay and has an auction up.
just make sure to specify which sampler you need a foil for, since he carries many for different gear.
http://cgi.ebay.com/LCD-BACKLIGHT-Korg-Kurzweil-Akai-Roland-Emu-Yamaha-more_W0QQitemZ270205917470QQihZ017QQcategoryZ38089QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem


TELESIS USED GEAR AND BACKLIGHTS
P.O. BOX 19015
ANAHEIM HILLS, CA 92817
Phone - (714) 998-3001
e-mail: [email protected]

By master-ceo Mon Jan 28, 2008 2:04 pm
Helluva post. I want to buy one just to take it apart and fix something. -"Hits craigslist with a vengance"! :lol:

By _Stilo_ Mon Jan 28, 2008 6:43 pm
950skweezyotitties wrote:
Deta!L wrote:you'll never get the display letters dark like it was from the factory


i second that. ive had to throw away displays after doing this due to the noticable difference. it is a **** that the backlight is glued in there. a knife is def the way to go. dont be scared to shimmy it around. by these pictures you can see where and connections are that you would have to be concerned about damaging.

Yes, it's definitely risky taking it apart, but I didn't notice any damage done to the display. At least the increased brightness more then makes up for any decrease in contrast. And trust me, I tried the knife thing and it was glued tight as hell. I didn't want to risk damaging the PCB, as I didn't exactly know what's underneath there either. I thought about just putting it in front of the old one as well, but...I like clean solutions :D

And yes, I could post it in the 60 bible no doubt, just thought there would be other people around as well interested in it, who don't check the 60 forum.

Thanks for the comments.

By csmealer Mon Jan 28, 2008 7:33 pm
Yeah, didn't have problems w/ contrast on my 60 when I took off the cover either. I just had to reseat it a second time b/c it wasn't applying enough pressure onto the LCD. Not sure of the differences between the 60 and 950 display though, so this might not apply to the 950.
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By djobserv Tue Jan 29, 2008 4:10 am
950skweezyotitties wrote:Image

s11... peep the card reader flossin to the top right... buh leeeev i keep them backlights crispy


JEALOUS!!!!!!!! first for the s1100 as i hear the a/d d/a's are improved and the processing speed is quicker!! and then for the beautiful blue backlight ! and then that card reader, what the frick!

damn

im assuming that the process described is similar to the 950?!