Trying to repair broken ribbon connector

Gummo · Post by **Gummo** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 5:10 pm

I accidentally broke off the ribbon connector off the PSone screen. I, having little money, refuse to buy another one to replace this screen so I decieded to solder back on the pins to the board. Yes, yes, quite a task, but I managed to solder them back, I think. When I power up the screen it flashes from washed out black to white then to no picuture...and the backlight is still on and I can press the brightness and volume buttons and the litte bars will appear, but no picture plus no sound. I've tried hooking up both composite and rgb video sources, but to no avail. Maybe I don't have all the pins on the ribbon connector soldered to the board? Any suggestions? I'm gonna retry resoldering the pins in the meantime and see if thats the problem.

bioniclebert · Post by **bioniclebert** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 5:41 pm

sounds like a difficult task. If you cant really just look at it, make shure there aren't any shorts, or any wires going to the wrong traces, try to post a picture.

Gummo · Post by **Gummo** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 6:17 pm

When it first powers up

After it powers up

It displays the bars when I press the buttons

The most painful thing I have to reconnect

I'm assuming that maybe some of the pins arn't making a complete connection and that the pins for displaying the bars is soldered all the way.

BTW... does anyone know what the full names of the pins because I think to the right of the pin connector is a list like r_out, b_out, g_out (i know what those represent...its the other names that are tricky like STH) that correspond to the ribbon

bioniclebert · Post by **bioniclebert** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 6:18 pm

question:

What are you using to power the screen?

vb_master · Post by **vb_master** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 6:19 pm

Nice job, I would probably check the continuity of each pin.

Gummo · Post by **Gummo** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 6:22 pm

a 7.2v lithium ion battery with like 2000mAh rating...Ive used the battery before I broke off the pin connections and worked fine. I had a flashback2 hooked up to it and it worked fine...now I can't get any picture (or sound I believe).

bioniclebert · Post by **bioniclebert** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 6:27 pm

Gummo wrote:a 7.2v lithium ion battery with like 2000mAh rating...Ive used the battery before I broke off the pin connections and worked fine. I had a flashback2 hooked up to it and it worked fine...now I can't get any picture (or sound I believe).

well, first I'd check if your battery is any good (needs to recharge?)

the backlight going out reminds me all the bad power issues i've had.
Well most recently, the c64 DTV. the dang thing wouldnt work at all. but then, I realized that I had the keyboards wires mixed up, draining power from the data line or something... Anyway, first i'd just line up all of the wires you have soldered, and make shure they are all connected to the correct spots. If so, try powering it off of another soure. If it still gives you the problem, I'd rewire it as a last resort. It looks pretty difficult, but if you did it once, mabye you can do it again.

One thing to check for: those connections are tiny. make shure none of em' are touching. It was a pain for me to keep desoldering the cartrige ports on the snes and n64. If they are, don't get frustrated, as that is how I lost my SNES.

Gummo · Post by **Gummo** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 6:27 pm

I have checked the continuity of the pins and they all seem to be connected, however I'm very sure some pins aren't connected very well. its just as painfull to solder them as it is to check the continuity of the pins. Stupid small pins.

Turbo Tax 1.0 · Post by **Turbo Tax 1.0** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 6:49 pm

i dont think its the connector because if it displays bars than it should atleast display the system wired to it in the area of the bars. or thats what makes sense to me at least

Harshboy · Post by **Harshboy** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 7:22 pm

I remember...i had a problem like this, but it was because the ribbon cable was slipping out (I dropped my screen on the carpet, don't worry, it works because it's in my GCp

) Sorry that that happend........try to desolder everything, and resolder it on

Post by **marshallh** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 7:53 pm

It looks like your soldering job is just fine. If you get the green bars, then your connection is all well, and your problem is elsewhere, somewhere in the circuitry behind the chroma decoder chip. I would recommend looking for solder bits on the PCB and make sure you've got the composite video input wired correctly.

Gummo · Post by **Gummo** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 8:28 pm

Im pretty sure I fried something somewheres because I just checked all the ribbon pin connections for continuity and everyone was fine and did some more resodering....but still nothing. I tried jumping the fuses too and nothing. I chekced the composite hook ups and they are all like they should be and tried hooking up my snes using rgb and it didnt work.

Gummo · Post by **Gummo** » Tue Apr 18, 2006 9:54 am

I dont know why, but I got it working again. I bought another PSone screen off ebay and I used the lcd of the new one I just bought and used the power supply that came with it and it worked. I then swapped the lcd with the old one and it worked too! I guess it was a problem with either the power supply or the AV connection (or both). Anyways, now I have another screen to make another portable! Atleast I didn't waste all that time resoldering all those pins back to the motherboard for nothing...

EDIT: actually, I think I can only get RGB to work because I couldnt get a composite signal to work on the screen from my atari flashback2, but i could get a PSone system to work because its using the RGB signal and not the composite. I know the flashback2 is working cus i tested it on another lcd screen and it worked.

XFactor · Post by **XFactor** » Tue Apr 18, 2006 6:39 pm

This is the exact same problem i am having. However, i didn't rip off the socket plug.

I will post some pictures later to show my issue. I seriously have had enough of this screen as i've been trying to get it to work for 2 weeks.