I saw an 'instructable' regarding replacing many inverters with a
generic unit. Try this search link:
<http://www.instructables.com/tag/?q=backlight+inverter&limit%3Atype%3Aid=on&type%3Aid=on&type%3Auser=on&type%3Acomment=on&type%3Agroup=on&type%3AforumTopic=on&sort=none>
Since then, inverters have come down in price. Do an eBay search for
your unit and you might find one cheaply enough to make repair uneconomical.
jak
In general, there are only a few things that fail on them - fuses which may
not look like any fuse you would immediately recognise, transistors (often
surface mount, but can be traditional thru' hole), transformers (some
available, but most not) and the occasional output capacitor. You can find
most of these things with a simple multimeter, but as Jak says, there are
many places selling backlight inverters for both TV and monitor
applications, so unless you are repairing an original just for the fun and
experience, it's often more cost effective to just replace the whole board.
Be careful when playing with them. Although not particularly dangerous, they
can give you a nasty little 'bite' when they are operating ... :-)
Arfa
As is often the case with Apple stuff, you can't just fit in a generic
replacement.
They have custom brightness signals and lamp-out feedback signals that
have to be just right.
And the repair manuals are mostly useless as they don't give any
useful details.
>are you sure it's the inverters? These Apple monitors have
>relatively studly inverters and they drive the tubes quite hard.
>More often the tubes have plain worn out.
Studly inverters tend to do that. :-)
- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.
> They have custom brightness signals and lamp-out feedback signals that
> have to be just right.
> And the repair manuals are mostly useless as they don't give any
> useful details.
Yep, and that's because the inverters are considered safety-critical
because of the high voltages. No Apple tech will try to 'repair' one,
just replace. Replacements aren't terribly expensive,
but only a certified program-subscribing Apple affiliate can
buy them from the Apple warehouse.
Either find an Apple-sanctioned repair shop, or ask Apple about
mail-in repair. If there's any chance the displays are under
warranty, asking Apple is a good idea, anyhow (they track
warranties by serial number, regardless of owner).
I found an LCD repair supply company (lcdparts.net) that makes a
redesigned inverter for at least one of these monitors--at about $130
a pop. THese would certainly be cheaper and less expensive to acquire
than an original Apple unit.
I've got a smaller project I'll attampt first: a Brookstone 7" digital
picture frame (no OEM info available, unfortunately) whose backlights
blink on and off about once per second. As far as I can tell the main
CPU module works well as it loads and displays the pics off a memory
card just fine.
On Fri, 05 Dec 2008 10:18:23 -0500, prc1 <prc1...@woh.CRAPrr.comCRAP>
wrote: