Finished UXGA LED-lit Frankenpad Build, some thoughts

[twistero]

So I recently finished a Frankenpad build with the usual T61 motherboard in T60 15 inch body and a UXGA LED-backlit screen. It turned out reasonably well, although not as perfected as I would like. Here's a few pointers for people who may want to do the same.

The LCD

The part number of the Hydis UXGA LCD is HV150UX2-100.

The pinout order of the data interface is the same as other LCDs used in 15 inch T60s, but the connector is different. The existing 30-pin data connector on the LCD is a JAE FI-XB30SL-HF10, which must be replaced with a FI-XB30SRL-HF11 in order to mate with T60's LCD cable. (These two connectors are inversions of each other.) This connector may be salvaged from other LCD panels, or bought from the usual electronics distributors like Digikey or Mouser.
Originally I wanted to keep the LCD connector and instead modify the LCD cable, but JAE does not make a reversed connector for flex cables, so that's a no-go.

Since the connector is further down on the new panel, the LCD cable must be folded for the ThinkLight to reach the top of the screen.

The 14-pin backlight connector is a Hirose DF19L-14P-1H. The mating connector can be bought online as well, but they are designed for either flex cables or crimp contacts, and the tiny crimp contacts are useless without a crimper - they won't even fit into the plug housing when uncrimped. Of course, my plans for making a cable harness failed miserably, and I had to solder wires directly to the connector pins. Fortunately the LCD panel worked well afterwards.
The pinout of this connector is (from left to right):
1: VSS - ground
2-6: HVDD - power supply
7: Not connected
8: BL on - backlight enable
9: Vdim - PWM dimming control
10-14: VSS - ground

Solder wires from these pins to corresponding points on the inverter.

The CCFL driver chip on the inverter is a MPS MP1014. It shares the same pinout as MP1010B, whose datasheets are easier to find online. The required signals can be easily found by tracing from pins of this chip.
The chip has built-in safety features, and will shutdown if it detects an "open lamp" situation - i.e. when no CCFL is plugged in because we're using LED backlight. Therefore, it should not drain additional power after the mod. It would be cleaner to remove this chip and the transformer, but I didn't do so due to time constraints.

BTW, the two T60 inverters (one for XGA, one for SXGA+/UXGA/QXGA) use identical PCBs and almost identical parts, except the UXGA inverter has 2 fewer components. I think both are resistors, but am not certain.


Modem

Obviously, the MDC does not fit in a Frankenpad because the connector on the motherboard and screw bosses on the structure frame are in different places in T60/1.
The connector is an AMP 12-pin connector. I don't have exact part numbers, but the series has been out of production for so long it's impossible to buy new. The pins are 0.8mm pitch, relatively easy to work with if you have a fine-tipped soldering iron. Even though the connector has 12 pins, 2 are unconnected and 4 are shared ground, so only 7 connections are actually required.
I removed the connectors from both the motherboard and MDC and tried to solder wires directly between them, but I only have solid core wires that are thin enough, and they are too stiff for this purpose. They kept breaking off when I tried to bend them, and after repeated attempts destroyed the pads on the motherboard.

[TuuS]

Good work... thank you for sharing.

On the modem, I was considering removing the connector from the modem and connecting it with wires like a dongle, so you can reposition it, or even leave it freefloating in the general area as long as you keep it insulated. I think you may destroy the modem removing the connector, but I have several of them if you want a couple to experiment with, perhaps you can take two modems and make one working unit, that way no modifications would need to be done to the board.

[ajkula66]

Of course, my plans for making a cable harness failed miserably, and I had to solder wires directly to the connector pins. Fortunately the LCD panel worked well afterwards.

Hats off to you for an incredibly brave approach....

[twistero]

On the modem, I was considering removing the connector from the modem and connecting it with wires like a dongle, so you can reposition it, or even leave it freefloating in the general area as long as you keep it insulated.

I thought about that as well. The problem is that the connectors on the motherboard and modem are precisely height-matched, so if the wires add any height to the connector, or if there are any component in the way, the MDC will not be able to lay flat / screwed down. Also, there's still the problem of finding thin flexible wires for the purpose. If the wire is too stiff like the ones I used, the mere act of installing the card may snap wires off.

[Raceboy]

Nice work twistero, I'm in the progress of doing the same myself (bought a 14" T61p and ordered the UXGA LED panel, waiting for 15" T60).

But, why the hassle with the modem? You really need it or something? I used dial-up last time in 1996 or 1997 iirc... I always remove it from my laptops to have fewer components and not consume power (even though it does very little to nothing when not in use).

[RealBlackStuff]

An alternative approach:
unsolder the modem connector from the mobo and connect the modem pad with the removed connector with wire long enough to place the modem wherever there is enough space.
You could try the wires from an old IDE or floppy cable, that's quite thin and flexible enough.

[twistero]

But, why the hassle with the modem? You really need it or something?

No, I don't see myself using the modem at all. But 1) I do want my computer to be "complete", and 2) having a RJ11 jack on the computer but no working modem bugs me a little bit.

You could try the wires from an old IDE or floppy cable, that's quite thin and flexible enough.

Thanks for the tip. I did try some ribbon cable I had, but solder does not stick to them at all, and the insulation shrinks away as soon as I bring the soldering iron near it.

[RealBlackStuff]

I use old ASUS IDE cable for my SATA-mods, solders very well. See link here: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 90#p678890

[Raceboy]

If I would do that kind of thing, I would unsolder modem connector from a dead board (should be plenty of dead nvidia boards) and unsolder a connector from a modem (plenty of those too) and make an extension cable. That way the board will be untouched and you can put the modem wherever you like.

I use ATA66 cable for SATA mods, very useful for other cables too requiring thin wires.

[Frobe70]

How is display quality and brightness compared to the original Flexview displays?
How did you source this LED-panel, and at what cost?

I am going to assemble an Frankenpad this before Christmas, but my 15" Boe Hydis HV150UX1-100 looks dim on the right hand part of the screen until the CCFL is warm enough.

Edit: I just found the answers to my questions here: http://theboardroom.info/led_mod.htm

[Morten]

Thanks Twisteroo for the LED mod description. I found what I guess must be your blog, which has pictures and I thought others might want the link to those:

https://sites.google.com/site/twisteroi ... -3-t60-t61

I'll be embarking on this myself soon, inspired by your description and great pictures.

I do have a question - what did you do with the thinklight? From what I understand, the connector on the HV150UX2-100 sits lower than the stock display, so the display flex needs to be folded, and when you do the thinklight leads on the flex are too short. I'm guessing you cut that flex and extended the probably very few leads with wires?

Also, it was not immediately obvious to me when you soldered the data connector, did you unfold the flex from the display somehow? I guess that would be safest, I just didn't see how to unfold it at my first brief inspection of the panel (and don't want to tear anything of break the dust seals unless necessary). I guess one could also insulate the panel by putting tinfoil under the flex while soldering, but I'd love to hear how you approached this.

[twistero]

Thanks Twisteroo for the LED mod description. I found what I guess must be your blog, which has pictures and I thought others might want the link to those:

https://sites.google.com/site/twisteroi ... -3-t60-t61

I'll be embarking on this myself soon, inspired by your description and great pictures.

That is indeed my site. Thanks for the kind words!

I do have a question - what did you do with the thinklight? From what I understand, the connector on the HV150UX2-100 sits lower than the stock display, so the display flex needs to be folded, and when you do the thinklight leads on the flex are too short. I'm guessing you cut that flex and extended the probably very few leads with wires?

You can kinda see it in the second-to-last picture on that page, that I folded the cable above where the ThinkLight splits off. Therefore, the ThinkLight does reach the top of the lid, and no modification to the cable is necessary. (I would probably melt right through the flex cable if I tried soldering to it.)

Also, it was not immediately obvious to me when you soldered the data connector, did you unfold the flex from the display somehow? I guess that would be safest, I just didn't see how to unfold it at my first brief inspection of the panel (and don't want to tear anything of break the dust seals unless necessary). I guess one could also insulate the panel by putting tinfoil under the flex while soldering, but I'd love to hear how you approached this.

When I did the soldering I lifted the PCB slightly and put a thin piece of wood under it, propping it up at a small angle. I think there's only tape holding the PCB down, but not completely sure.
However, I would certainly not "unfold" the PCB fully. The flex cables connecting the top of the PCB to the panel itself are extremely delicate, and flipping the PCB 180 degrees could very well break them.

[Morten]

Thanks again Twistero - I successfully completed the mod this weekend. AMAZING display, every bit as bright as other forum members have raved about, super crisp and virtually no backlight leakage. The downside here is my AFFS-modded X201 now looks dim in comparison, and it's backlight leakage makes me cringe even more than it used to.

I basically followed the instructions above for the display mod, using a data connector I removed from an old display. Twistero's pictures on his blog were great, the only thing not immediately clear was which of the solder points on the inverterboard were Enable and Brightness control. I snapped a couple of photos myself, and labeled the one of the inverterboard for the benefit of anyone embarking on this in the future. If your inverterboard looks different, then googling the MPS chip datasheet as Twistero suggested is a good option.

http://s137.photobucket.com/user/morten ... t=3&page=1

If you have decent soldering skills, this is really not a big deal. If anything, desoldering a data connector from an old display without damaging it is the most challenging part, so if you are not used to hot air soldering then purchasing a fresh connector may be better for you, and the rest can be done with a needle-point soldering iron. The tabs at the ends will need to be unfolded with pliers, and you should solder these down and test plugging and unplugging the cable before you solder the small data pins, this will ensure the connector is sturdy and you won't be pulling on the small datapin solderjoints when you plug and unplug the cable.

The only snag I encountered was with folding the display cable. I had purchased a new cable because I wanted one with the bluetooth module socket on it, and I had neglected to test it before folding it for this mod. After I had folded it, it did not work (no image, no backlight). I'm assuming it was indeed a working cable and the reason is I creased it too tightly and broke one of the extremely thin traces inside. Reflecting on this, the cable is creased tight in other places, but the traces in those areas are way wider and probably much more sturdy. The next cable worked a charm (and I was even able to move the bluetooth socket from the new dead cable over with a bit of hot-air magic). To minimize the risk of breaking the cable, I recommend peeling the woven fabric-like backing tape back before trying to fold the cable. If the tape is left in place, it will exert more pull on the traces when you fold it in one of the two directions. Once the tape has been peeled back, you'll want to plug the cable into the display, lay it flat and draw a line across the cable, extending out onto the display back. Then draw another parallel line offset by 10 to 11mm. Use these lines as a guage for how much the cable needs to be shortened with the fold. Like twistero said above, and his photos show, fold it just between the thinklight branch off and the connector. Be gentle with folding it - ensure you don't crease it but instead bend it with a small radius and do know it really doesn't need to be all the way flat. After you have the fold, reapply the woven backing tape back over the area. Voila, done.

[emeraldgirl08]

@Morten. If you could post some pics of your finished work I'm sure the forum would appreciate it

[Tasurinchi]

I'm with emeraldgirl, pics please

I'd definitely love to see how dim the X201 AFFS screen will look in comparison. I also have one of those and it's incredibly brilliant...

[lordvalumart]

I've also recently fitted the HV150UX2-100 to my T60/T61 Frankenpad, and thanks are due to TuuS for the panel, twistero for his extremely comprehensive instructions, and Morten for clarifying the BL on/off and dimming lines. And yes, the panel is indeed extremely bright and evenly illuminated, and very sharp. I do a lot of photo editing, and this panel is nearly as good as the 20" Dell 2007FP which I usually use.

I missed the boat with RealBlackStuff's mod service, so I was left having to make my own arrangements. Fortunately, one of my work colleagues owed me a favour and was able to remove the data connector and replace it with the required part. He didn't need any hot air: just snipped the pins off the old connector and removed them one-by-one then soldered the replacement, which I bought new instead of salvaging from an old panel. My own soldering skills were just about up to doing the flying leads from the inverter.

It's also worth saying that I investigated getting the soldering done commercially, and I did manage to find a guy who ran a small electonics repair business who was willing to do the job. His price of £75-100 was a bit much for me, but for someone who would be otherwise unable to do the mod then perhaps it would be worth it.

One word of caution though: mind you don't crush the flying leads from the inverter against the edge of the panel during installation. I wasn't careful enough and after a day or two of use the edge of the panel penetrated the insulation of the power and ground leads and blew the F1 fuse on the inverter, which protects the VBL20 line from the motherboard (VBL20 is also protected by the F7 fuse on the motherboard itself, but fortunately this was undamaged). Luckily I had a spare inverter and, although it was the XGA variant (42T0077) instead of the UXGA variant (42T0079), it seems to work fine. I guess in either case the new panel draws considerably less power than the inverter is specced for.

Incidentally, AlexeyTolstyh also damaged his inverter and ended up routing the backlight power from the 5v USB header on the motherboard: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... &start=300. I'm not sure I'd agree that this is a good idea. According to the datasheet for the HV150UX2 the backlight requires slightly over 4W, at a minimum voltage of 7V. So using the USB 5v source presents two problems:
- You'll be drawing more current than the USB specification allows (500mA).
- Even though the backlight still works, it will be running at greater than its maximum rated current, which I'd guess might reduce its lifespan.

[lab]

I made a similar cable harness as in the photos from RealBlackStuff(?), soldering one of these harnesses is easier I think than replacing the connector on the LCD-panel. Time consuming work for someone like me who has never soldered before but manageable and it has worked without any problems for almost a year now.

The panel is bright enough for my needs, almost to bright for work in dark rooms and for a while I switched back to a CCFL panel but then again back to the HV150UX2. The inverter only has seven steps of brightness, and I think the panel brightness could be turned down more.

The image quality of the ccfl-Hydis is perhaps a tiny bit better, or at least different with the LED giving a bit "plastic" white colour. Both are excellent in viewing angels, the LED perfectly uniform lit, very bright and nicely sharp. The colours are ok, nothing special and panels like 8740w dreamcolor have much better colour.

[Morten]

Like Lab, I also have noticed the less saturated colors when I put it next to my other laptops to make the brightness comparison that was requested a while back. But overall, my impression is more in line with lordvalumart's commnets - I find it to be almost as pleasing to work with as my Sony IPS UXGA desktop display (might be the same panel as lordvalumart's Dell 2007).

Here is a photo of my HV150UX2
http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q223 ... c52484.jpg

From left to right: X201 with Hydis AFFS CCFL Display, T601 Frankie with HV150UX2-100, T60 with 'new old stock' LG-Phillips SXGA+

The photo exaturates the desaturation because the HV150 is so bright it burns out the colors in this cellphone-snapshot. Sorry about that. When viewed live, the saturation difference is smaller than it appears in the photo, small enough that I honestly hadn't noticed until comparing side-by-side.

I have calibrated mine with a colorimeter (a DTP-94), and would not have a problem using it for photoshop work if I needed to (but when I can, I prefer to use my Sony IPS desktop UXGA monitor). I also used the colorimeter to check the luminance of the two 4:3 displays over a range of brightness settings to get a numerical measure of the differences. Note that the Frankie with the T61 mainboard has 16 levels, where as the T60 system only has 8 (both use same inverter, the difference in number of levels is in the mainboard not the inverter).

T601 Frankenpad with AFFS LED UXGA HV150UX2-100
Monaco EZ-Color with DTP-94 Measures
Brightness Color Temp (K) Luminance (cd/m2)
15 6100 241
12 6060 200
8 5980 154
4 5960 108
0 5950 26
Resulting profile on brightness setting 12 = Black 0.28 / White 173.7 cd/m (target white point 6500K)

T60 15" 4:3 Flexview IPS SXGA+ LG Philips LP150E05(A2)(K1) (IBM P/N 13N7077, FRU 13N7078) - NEW OLD STOCK
Monaco EZ-Color with DTP-94 Measures
Brightness Color Temp (K) Luminance (cd/m2)
7 (max) 5900 165
5 5900 84
3 5880 45
0 5870 16
Resulting profile on brightness setting 7 = Black 0.27 / White 128.0 cd/m (target white point 6500K)

So, numerically it is 46% brighter at max setting. For me, it definitely is too bright to work with in most lighting conditions, so I chose to profile mine at level 12 and use that level for any color sensitive work. In a completely dark room, I'll use it on level 2 to 8. That said, having that extra brightness available is still great for those times of the day when the sun peeks in the window etc.

Uncorrected color temperature on these are close, but I assume the CCFL lit one will wear into a warmer tone with time like my son's identical one has done. I prefer mine calibrated to 6500k, so the closer the un-corrected color to that, the better. You will notice the slightly warmer CCFL lit SXGA+ display has lost 22% of it's brightness in the calibration procedure, while the LED lit, cooler HX150UX2-100 only lost 13%.

[lab]

Hi Morten, is it possible for you to export and post your calibrated colour profile for the HV150UX2 display? I've struggled to get it right but with no real success. Especially the colours in the red part of the spectrum are not accurate.