Obtaining Used LCD Parts?

davebarz asks: "With LCDs having already passed several generations and become affordable for the average user, one would think the biggest question would be which LCD to buy. But what about for geeks with no budget and no desk space... for instance, college kids? As friends' LCD monitors stop working due to particular components such as inverters or backlights, it's hard to resist trying to take their panel off their hands and try to fix it for oneself. There's nothing difficult about changing backlights or inverters, but after getting just such a monitor from a girlfriend, I've found that it's nearly impossible to find parts. The actual LCD panel works fine, so why throw out a $400 monitor when all it needs is a $30 power inverter? So, my question is, to where should one go to find out exactly what part one needs and then buy a suitable replacement? Specifically, I'm in the market for an inverter for a Gateway FPD1730. The inverter appears to be an Ambit model, but they're no help since they're exclusively OEM. Can Slashdot provide me with any help?"

Comments

become an OEM

[brontus3927]

File the neccessary paperwork with your state/province/country to become a LCD OEM. Then contact the company and order the part.

Re:become an OEM

[balamw]

Of course once you have become an OEM you'll need to figure out what to do with the 1000 part minimum order you just got ;-)

I hope you were trying to be funny, since most OEM suppliers would not sell a part developed for a specific OEM to anyone else, at least that's how it works in my business.

B

Re:become an OEM

[andy753421]

That's where a dremel... err.. creativity, comes in.

Re:become an OEM

[stoolpigeon]

That just happened to me replacing an inverter in a laptop. The new inverter was a touch wider than the old one. If I screwed it down, it wouldn't fit under the bezel. But everything was really tight in there, so I hooked it up, set it in place and just put the bezel back in.

If it had been much bigger though, I would have had to find a different part.

2 places...

[ryrw]

I do this all the time and my primary suppliers are eBay and lcdpart.com One thing to watch out for which has ruined a couple screens for me is the thin ribbon connectors whill break off if bent too many times. If those break off, you're completely screwed. So don't bend them more then you absolutely have to.

EarthLCD or Froogle

[BrianRaker]

EarthLCD. http://www.earthlcd.com.

One-stop LCD buying shop.

If that doesn't work, enter in the LCD panel part number into Froogle. Usually it can be found, just depends on how much you want to spend.

Check EIO

[dewc]

Might want to check out www.eio.com too. They deal with some spare parts and offer diagrams and the likes. Might get lucky.

1000 min or 5 "sample" parts...

[PaulBu]

Most of electronic component companies would be quite happy to send you a "sample" (or two) if you project an impression of someone who is designing "the next greatest gadget I can not tell you about right now" and you are evaluation their components for the "gadget". Sometimes if their real product are chips they would sell you an evaluation board. Well, for those you'd have to pay, but I suspect that what they charge for these boards is still below what it would cost you to assemble one (even assuming that college kids work for their girlfriends for free BUT tend to burn a part or two in the process of hand-soldering the board ;-) ).

Paul B.

Part numbers

[fm6]

Any time you're looking for a really obscure item, the first thing you should do is enter the part number of in Google. Not Froogle, because the supplier might not be there, and you can always click over. Assuming that Google doesn't go, "Hey, that looks like a part number, he probably wants me to submit it to Froogle as well."

The more obscure your search string, the more helpful Google is.

Bliss

[stoolpigeon]

Last week my dad called me and said his laptop screen went out. I don't usually mess with hardware so I told him to take it to Best Buy and have them look at it.

He took it in - they said the LCD was bad and it would be about $600 to replace. He called me and I told him not to do it and I'd look into it.

I figured I could get a new LCD for less than that. I googled and came across http://www.screentekinc.com/

I called them and the salesman told me it was probably not the LCD and that I should check the inverter first. He told me one place to get parts was Bliss Computers

I didn't have the laptop on hand, didn't have part numbers, so I checked e-bay and found an inverter there for $40 (including shipping). Another LCD site had instructions on removing the bezel.

I took my time since I'd never done this before and so it took twice as long as it should have. In 10 minutes I had fixed it.

Google

[stoolpigeon]

After my post above- I tried another route. I googled 'Gateway FPD1730'. That got me a hit with a list that had two part numbers - LG708G and LG708K (the second for the TFT model I think). I googled on LG708G and got the ambit part number 6633TZA013A. I googled on that- along with AMBIT and that got me two links that sell the part:
lcdpart.com (which has already been mentioned)
moniserv.com looks like it is the same price from them.

I checked ebay real quick but didn't see anything-- but I really didn't look too hard.

Re:Google

[Stevyn]

I think we've just hit on a new data type: Linked Google List

Best!

[shadowbearer]

This is one of the best ask slashdot's ever. Thanks for all the info everyone. I have several dead LCDs sitting around and haven't managed to find the time to research the parts and narrow down what searches work.

You just saved me a huge amount of time. Maybe someday now I'll have a desk that's not 75% covered by monitors!

Cheers!
SB

LCD Part dot com

[BenTheDewpendent]

http://lcdpart.com/

They sell backlights, inverts, and such for many monitors. I'm getting a 19inch LCD for about 60bucks because of them. I'm just paying for the backlighting replacement.