Cheap replacement LCD Screen for MPC1000 from China

Sure happy to do it. Anyone want to pitch in so I can get a big screen to model from?

I will happy to pay for STL file when it will be done on cult3d page or something. But we will need probably also some manuals how to install everything inside for that version.

I tried to install a black after market LCD screen. Used the pinout we discussed. I got the screen to power on but the MPC 1000 wouldn't go through the boot procedure and the display was all lit up but no font or visible text. I tried to adjust the contrast to see if that was the problem.

I think i did a poor job soldering the headers and might just have to desolder it and start over. Maybe solder spilled over and is shorting two pins.

In the meantime i stuck the original display back in because I missed my MPC 1000 and got tired of it sitting on the work bench for weeks.

Can anyone weigh in on whether or not it’s necessary to create the idc ribbon cable yourself as @Slump suggests in his mod summary or would it be ok if I bought a premade 20x10 IDC male/female ribbon cable such as this:

https://www.mouser.ca/ProductDetail/Har ... zCRQ%3D%3D

I believe that ribbon cable would work super well. Could you update whether you ever took on the project? I’m looking to do this asap

mattworldp wrote:Can anyone weigh in on whether or not it’s necessary to create the idc ribbon cable yourself as @Slump suggests in his mod summary or would it be ok if I bought a premade 20x10 IDC male/female ribbon cable such as this:

https://www.mouser.ca/ProductDetail/Har ... zCRQ%3D%3D

Hello, I´m new to the world of MPCs and got my MPC 1000 in December.

I am not new to modding all kinds of stuff and also have the knowledge and tools required for 3D printing.

I am currently looking into do the screen swap mod.
I'll try it using those two components (i have more than enought spare wire for the pin bridging so no need to buy that).

Screen: (30 Euro with 12 day shipping)

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3291285 ... ry_from%3A

Cabel: (3 euro with shipping)

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005 ... EzXs1bax1X

The configuration I'll try will be:
30cm, 20p, type B

I´ll probably oreder today and keep you up to date. I am currently writing my bachelor thesis so it might take some time for me to get to assemble it. I would guess mid Feb.

About the bigger screen:
I do have a 3d modeling tool and printer but am actually not to keen un buying the bigger screen and jjosxl
I am currently living in Germany so if someone around would be up for an exeriment.(basically if someone would want to mod there MPC and provide me with the screen and parts so i could design and test it and send the finish produc back) I might conisder trying that.

Joan Dondelinger wrote:Hello, I´m new to the world of MPCs and got my MPC 1000 in December.

I am not new to modding all kinds of stuff and also have the knowledge and tools required for 3D printing.

I am currently looking into do the screen swap mod.
I'll try it using those two components (i have more than enought spare wire for the pin bridging so no need to buy that).

Screen: (30 Euro with 12 day shipping)

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/3291285 ... ry_from%3A

Cabel: (3 euro with shipping)

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005 ... EzXs1bax1X

The configuration I'll try will be:
30cm, 20p, type B

I´ll probably oreder today and keep you up to date. I am currently writing my bachelor thesis so it might take some time for me to get to assemble it. I would guess mid Feb.

About the bigger screen:
I do have a 3d modeling tool and printer but am actually not to keen un buying the bigger screen and jjosxl
I am currently living in Germany so if someone around would be up for an exeriment.(basically if someone would want to mod there MPC and provide me with the screen and parts so i could design and test it and send the finish produc back) I might conisder trying that.

Sadly the cable i ordered is the wrong one. It's the right layout but the space between the holes is wrong.. it's only 2mm and i would need 2.54mm .....

I ended up buiding my own wiring harness with some idc cables i had left from other projects. I wired every cable one by one to the screen and followed the instructions found here on this thread.

I can confirm that the screen i ordered works but it's slighty of center :/
You see the whole screen but the spacing on the left is way smaller than on the right...
I might and up "adjusting" the board the screen is on.

Well I hope this information helps someone

I think that the elbow pin connector i soldered on isn't letting the ribbon cable i have slide onto the pins deep enough to make connection, which is why i got the display to somewhat work but it was probably missing a row of pin connections on that cable.

I'm stuck trying to find a new cable and pin header combination that fits inside and works. I might keep the header i have now and make a custom cable out of arduino or buy the tools i require to make my own ribbon cables. If anyone can help in this department, provide parts or pictures of solutions you came up with, this would help me leap this hurdle. Thank you.

hey just an info. are all these chinese lcd bad in view angle? the original one is quite good in this, even if the green acid color is really bad and with years is even more acid
so any a/b with the "original" mpc stuff one?
tnx

The viewing angles are the same regardless of what Chinese one you get.

JUST BOUGHT ALL THE STUFF FROM ALIEXPRESS. WILL BE DOING THIS WHEN IT COMES IN.

Slump wrote:Woah, this thread is still alive! Yes everyone, this mod is easily doable with only beginner soldering skills. If you've never soldered before practice first by replacing the tact switches and jog wheel of the MPC 1000 because we both know they need to be replaced anyways. Also there is literally 0% chance of bricking your MPC 1000/2500 by doing this mod, although you may brick your "buydisplay" if you connect everything up wrong, but even then that chance is small because these displays are pretty resilient. And as previously stated in this thread, desoldering the old display cable is doable but muuuch harder than you think it will be and not worth the hassle when making a new cable is so incredibly cheap.

I'll try to summarize this mod:

What you will need:
BuyDisplay 240x64 in the color of your choice.

-Do not get the 2x11 pin header soldered onto your display from the factory because you want an IDC connector not a pin header on the display.
-Technically this mod will work with a 240x128 BuyDisplay as well, but it won't come with a fancy casing like the 240x128 screen you can get off mpcstuff

https://www.buydisplay.com/240x64-ra696 ... hic-module

20 Position IDC "ribbon/flat" cable
-You will need a minimum of 10 inches of cable to do this mod, thus it's worth the extra expense to get a longer ribbon cable just in case you **** up. Buy at least 15-25 inches of cable.
-2.54 pitch cable, 28AWG with a minimum of 20 pins is all that matters. If a cheaper option has more than 20 pins you can always peel off the extra pins from the cable. It doesn't matter if you get either the rainbow colored cable or grey cable with the red line at the bottom.

Here's a cheap 20 inch cable from a quick amazon search that you will need to cut the ends off of (well at least one end, i'm not sure if the female socket will fit on the bottom of the MPC 1000 so i'm just going to assume that we're using a ribbon cable with no sockets)
https://www.amazon.com/BLS-2-54mm-20-Pi ... 714&sr=8-5

Connectors
IDC 2x10 20 Pin IDC Male Plug Connector 2.54mm pitch
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FD ... UTF8&psc=1

IDC 2x10 20 Pin IDC Female Socket Connector 2.54mm pitch
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DV ... UTF8&psc=1

-These suggested amazon links are merely for reference purposes. I'm not saying you should buy from these links or that they are the best deals. They are literally just the first thing I found while looking for the connectors and cables to write up this post and are intended to merely give you an idea of what the cables and connectors look like
-With that said, I highly highly suggest you buy extra connectors just in case you **** up. Just like with buying extra cable, it's better to have more than not enough when working on an electronics project. I personally bought a pack of 10 connectors for both the male and female ends and while making my cable I broke three connectors just trying to crimp them onto the wire. Crimping by hand/pliers is a simple process, but more difficult than you would think! Buy extra just in case!

Tools
You will also need a soldering iron (obviously), black electrical tape, wire stripper and a multimeter to check your connections if you're not confident with soldering. You will also need some small wire to cut into three parts to jump the pins. You can recycle this wire from broken electronics you have lying around or you can buy some basic 22 AWG wire or something. It doesn't really matter the AWG size just as long as it's not too big to fit.

First things first is to make the cable.

1. Cut roughly 10 inches of IDC cable.
2. Get the male connector and crimp it on left end of the cable. The orientation of the male connector is the same no matter which way you turn it so it doesn't matter how you crimp it. For continuity with the old cable keep the red stripe at the bottom.
3. Crimp the female socket on the right end. Make sure the arrow on the female connector is facing the outside of the cable and that the male and female connectors are both facing downwards Pic related. The arrow is on the bottom part of the connector facing the outside of the cable.


--Tips on crimping--
As you'll see crimping is harder than it looks. I suggest you start by pushing down on the top part of the crimp in order to make an indent. Then take off the top part or header or whatever and get a small flathead screwdriver and push in on the cable from the outside ends and then the middle section between the pins. Keep cycling between using the detachable header part and using a screwdriver until it clicks into place and is locked.

--For the curious--
Yes, your observations are correct. The male pin connector has the pins inverted. Pin 2 is connected to Wire 1, Pin 1 is connected to Wire 2 and etc. It's suppose to be like that, don't worry about it. Pic related, this orientation of the male pin connector is correct even if it's counter-intuitive.


Soldering
1. Use the electrical tape and make sure the male connector is flush against the BuyDisplay PCB. Then just solder all the pins. Easier said than done for a beginner, but very doable. Don't worry about putting too much heat on the PCB, it can take wayy more heat than you think. These things are not as fragile as you would imagine.



2. Now solder a small wire from pin 9 to pin 20. It's important to do this wire connection first because soldering it last will make it harder to solder due to less room.
3. Then solder Pin 21 to Pin 3
4. Then Solder Pin 22 to Pin 2
*remember to tin your wires first, it makes the job much easier


Now you're done. Just flip over the MPC and test it out by plugging in the screen. Make sure the arrow on the female connector matches with Pin 1 on the MPC 1000 PCB



*It's worth noting that a lot of light leaks from the sides of the screen. Use the black electrical tape to tape over the sides that leak light.

Will this LCD Display also work with the MPC 2500?

It wasn't necessary to quote that much to ask that question.

And yeah it's the same screen.

To add a bit to this thread, it should be noted that the clearance between the connector pins and the top of the casing is extremely small. There is maybe about 10mm of space and the old LCD even has foam on the outer edges to prevent damage to the screen because a closed casing is pressing down on it.

Having a lot of random bits and bobs around my work bench, I figured I could fashion some other connector that would be easier to swap in/out. There really aren't many connectors that can make the clearance. Soldering male pin connectors directly to the board and just connecting the ribbon directly doesn't work. The connector sits too high. Because of this, when the panel is fully closed and screwed down, it's putting a lot of centralized pressure directly on the LCD pins (not great ever really).

So TLDR, there are very few workarounds to making your own ribbon connector as shown here, since that sort of connection has very low clearance. With the male idc ribbon connector being about 8mm in height, and directly connecting a ribbon to pins being closer to 12mm.


Side note: The newer screen is about 2mm shorter from board to top of bezel, so foam may also be worth considering.