Upgrading iBook Clamshell Display?

[Pilgrim33]

Back again--after replacing the caps on the logic board and replacing the HD with an SSD, I went ahead and replaced the backlight with the LCD and it worked great! I decided that I didn't want to cut the wires for the connector coming from the iBook, so I made a small connector board with a header for the iBook connector and one for the LCD cable connector.



It's a little sketchy because of my shaky hands and poor soldering skills, but it worked, thankfully. Note that I had to relocate the pin connectors on the LCD connector so that everything connected to the correct wires coming from the iBook. This connector board was secured in place where the old inverter board was located, along with the LCD inverter board that was modified according to the great mod by @AEChadwick.



Because of the mention of the chance of the LCD strip moving out of place, I used the original brass holder and placed the LCD strip at the top of it and secured it with a little dab of hot glue on each end (one end is shown below).



Then I put it back together and now it is a bright, happy iBook!



Thanks to everyone who has posted here, making this upgrade something I was willing to try. I would never have been able to do this without this forum discussion.

 

[davidg5678]

@Pilgrim33 Nice job! Do you have a part number or source for the connectors you used? If I do this mod again, I'd also prefer it to be nondestructive.

 

[Pilgrim33]

Yes--here are the digikey part numbers/pages

Small connector (iBook cable):
Small connector header

Larger connector (LCD backlight):
Large connector header

And here is a link to the LCD backlight that I purchased from eBay:
LCD Backlight

 

[lazd]

the brightness goes smooth up and down, with no jumps or regressions, just up-down brighter-darker.

i manhandled the boards vigorously (wire, start iBook, good, shutdown, mount board, start iBook, good, shutdown) and never encountered any twitchiness.

So I've tried 2 more times to replicate the mod, and instead of the smooth brightness I got on the first one I modified, I'm getting the jumpy brightness change where it's either too bright or too dim, and the brightness settings in between are unpredictable. I wonder if it only works on specific boards, or maybe I missed something?

 

[davidg5678]

So I've tried 2 more times to replicate the mod, and instead of the smooth brightness I got on the first one I modified, I'm getting the jumpy brightness change where it's either too bright or too dim, and the brightness settings in between are unpredictable. I wonder if it only works on specific boards, or maybe I missed something?

Can you provide some high resolution pictures of the new style driver boards you are using (unmodified)? I can try and reverse engineer them to see if there's any substantial difference.

 

[lazd]

Can you provide some high resolution pictures of the new style driver boards you are using (unmodified)? I can try and reverse engineer them to see if there's any substantial difference.

Here’s what I’m working with. Let me know what you think!