Anyone have any experience hacking phone LCDs? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / projects

author: apelly
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 19, 2014, 02:44:56 pm
content: Cell phone LCDs seem to be a dime a dozen from China, so I'd like to stick some in some projects.Mike has some interesting stuff for the ipod nano, as I'm sure you've seen.Andy Brown over athttp://andybrown.me.uk/wk/has done some very cool things with Nokia and Ericsson screens.Have any of you guys tinkered with these things?Any thoughts?Got any links you could share?

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 19, 2014, 07:36:43 pm
content: Mike has some more info on the Nokia LCDs too:http://www.electricstuff.co.uk/noklcd.htmlI worked for a while on reverse-engineering cheap Chinese MP3/4 players which used very similar LCDs, and wrote a cross-reference of common controller types here:http://wiki.s1mp3.org/LCMControllersThe "retina" resolution screens that are popular these days are almost all MIPI, however.

author: PICmonster
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 20, 2014, 11:14:48 am
content: Hi ThereI have had a little experience of driving LCDs, this tool below I found very useful indeed. I my experience the LCD display are fundamentally all the same, to control how a shape is created based on vertical or horizontal scans to locate your pixel and then turn it on or off, this tool allow to to easily switch between different scanning moethods to find the right scanning method if it is not known, this tool also generates 'C' arrays required for displaying different fonts. Thee is a lot more to this.http://bitfontcreator-pro.findmysoft.com/

author: Psi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 20, 2014, 11:22:04 am
content: There's also info on sparkfuns website for driving some of the old nokia lcds and their clones.They used to have info on the color 128x128 lcds but seem to have stopped selling those.https://www.sparkfun.com/products/retired/569

author: dannyf
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 20, 2014, 11:32:45 am
content: Some nokia screens are widely used.

author: apelly
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: March 20, 2014, 08:57:41 pm
content: Thanks guys. I was thinking about newer 3 or 4 inch screens. I saw an auction recently for cheap iphone screens, where the outer glass has been broken. I'm not sure if the price would be low enough to make the hassle of cleaning them worthwhile though.I'm also wondering if I should approach a couple of cell phone repair companies and see If I can pick up a few busted phones to fool around with. Don't know. Maybe that would be a waste of time; maybe they're still worth more than an ebay screen. Hell, I don't even know where tofinda cell phone repair company.Anyway, thanks again for the useful links. I'll keep you posted.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2014, 01:44:22 am
content: Quote from: apelly on March 20, 2014, 08:57:41 pmThose are MIPI (see Mike's nano screen videos.)

author: Falcon69
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2014, 02:28:21 am
content: Quote from: apelly on March 20, 2014, 08:57:41 pmBe careful. Some of those screens will not come apart without damage to the LCD themselves.I recently tried to fix my nephews cracked screen on his Galaxy S4 Active. Well, they sell the digitizer screens (the glass) no problem. So I bought one, then proceeded to take his apart. Well, the damn thing was taped all to crap with that sticky tape crap all over and glued from the factory. I tried to be as careful as I could and demolished the LCD in the process trying to separate the screen from the LCD and the back phone assembly.So, okay, no problem, I'll just order a new LCD. WRONG! I couldn't even find an LCD to buy, why? because it's nearly impossible (for my level of skill, and probably most everyone's) to separate the LCD and the Digitizer Screen from the Rear phone assembly. Noone on eBay, or anywhere else I could find sold the LCD separate. You have to buy the whole rear phone assembly at a cost of about $150-230. I still fixed his phone after buying the assembly, and saved him about $100 in labor cost, but still sucks. That digitizer screen was only 40 bucks.So just be careful, some phones you may not be able to get the LCD out in one piece.