Obtaining cheap easy EL foils

[Bibin]

So I replaced the screen in my Zire 21, and noticed that the replacement LCD is actually made for a Palm III, as it has an EL backlight complete with two extra wires. It is fully compatible with the Zire 21, just no backlight connections.

I easily peeled off the EL foil, and now I am left with a GameBoy-sized EL foil square and a Palm III LCD.

The Palm III LCD also has a digitizer (touch screen stuff), with four pins. This sounds interfacable! If anyone has any info on that I'd appreciate it.

Back to the point, though! If anyone knows how much AC voltage I should apply to this EL foil square to get it to light up, please tell me! I have a feeling the kinds of inverters intended for backlights are way too strong.

[vskid]

The Palm III LCD also has a digitizer (touch screen stuff), with four pins. This sounds interfacable! If anyone has any info on that I'd appreciate it.

Back to the point, though! If anyone knows how much AC voltage I should apply to this EL foil square to get it to light up, please tell me! I have a feeling the kinds of inverters intended for backlights are way too strong.

The touchscreen operates off of resistance. I believe there is a resistance for the x axis and the y axis, which differs depending on where you touch the screen. I've tried some experiments with a pocket pc touchscreen I have, but I couldn't find the right range setting on my multimeter to see what resistance range it could put out.

I have a Palm m105, the screen should be almost exactly the same (if not the same). I'll see if I can find out what its backlight takes.

[Bibin]

Yes, the four pins are X+, X-, Y+, and Y-. I'm wondering if I should interface this with the game port on the PC since that takes analog input, or just get DaC.

[Mario]

Try the joystick port. You can do some pretty cool stuff with it, cause it detects resistance. I have a link to a page about it somewhere, I'll see if I can find it.

EDIT: Check out this page: http://www.epanorama.net/documents/joys ... cuits.html

[vskid]

I checked my Palm, and the backlight voltage was 60v.

[jjhammerstein]

I checked my Palm, and the backlight voltage was 60v.

Um.
60v?

[Mario]

Yes, it uses an inverter.

No, the palm uses 60v worth of batteries! (BTW, that's 40 AAA's)

[jjhammerstein]

Yes, it uses an inverter.

No, the palm uses 60v worth of batteries! (BTW, that's 40 AAA's)

Brb, I gotta gut my car for this mod.

[Bibin]

So, 60v AC?

By the way, he means 60v AFTER The inverter. The inverter is fed like 4V DC probably; 6 at most.

[vskid]

So, 60v AC?

By the way, he means 60v AFTER The inverter. The inverter is fed like 4V DC probably; 6 at most.

Yep, measured right at the clip for the backlight ribbon while running the Palm off a 3v power supply.
But because your backlight might be slightly different, I'm not responsible if it doesn't work.

[Bibin]

Does anyone know where I might find an appropriate inverter? A fairly small one, if possible?

[vskid]

A Palm? I'll sell ya mine for cheap, then you get another piece of EL film, too.

[Bibin]

Is the inverter a seperate component, or part of the palm mainboard? If it's integrated I have no use for it; I just need the inverter, specifically one I can fit inside a GameBoy.