Clock fades to black?

[hillbilly]

Pics post below... (thanks Jamie).

[MTL_4runner]

It took a little while to load those pics and they are big so I'll attach them in smaller form here.

[MTL_4runner]

More pics.

[MTL_4runner]

Ok, I had a quick peek at the photos and unfortunately the LCD is toast and you can see the area that was damaged circled in red. I haven't seen many LCDs like that totally encased in glass (including the backlight) and that makes repair almost impossible. It makes sense to do that for an automotive application though because the auto market was one of the toughest testing environments I saw for any LCDs (like +140F, -50F, 98% humidity, etc) so encasing everything in glass would help with that. I suspect that a component for the backlight may have blown, but there is no way to replace it without getting a completely new LCD module and resoldering it in.

I would be curious what was under the top glass though (in the burned area) if you could remove it and snap a pic.

[hillbilly]

Geez.... picky, picky. :P I'll dissect it tonight. (Come to think of it, I may not be able to get to my hosting site after I leave work.)

Odd thing is, it'll still work if you smack it hard enough, albeit momentarily. Sorta sounds like my wife... (Hope she doesn't see this over my shoulder... )

[97t4rnr]

Replaced mine twice. Dealer electronics specialist said it was a diode. Confirmed this with an electronics specialist at work.

[hillbilly]

Here's a couple shots with the glass top removed (wasn't easy without destroying the whole thing):

[img width=800 height=600]http://www.personal.psu.edu/skr8/host/clock/dashclock14.JPG[/img]
[img width=800 height=600]http://www.personal.psu.edu/skr8/host/clock/dashclock9.JPG[/img]
[img width=800 height=600]http://www.personal.psu.edu/skr8/host/clock/dashclock11.JPG[/img]

[MTL_4runner]

Wow, yeah you can see where it just vaporized the contact in that area like an old fashioned blown fuse. It is quite possible that it came from a blown diode, but the bottom line is that there is no way to fix the clocks when they fail in that manner. Thanks for posting those pics though!