SL/R230: R230 Instrument Panel LCD DIY
#1
Super Member
Thread Starter
R230 Instrument Panel LCD DIY
I find it helpful to see how others have done DIY projects, so here is my contribution to the forum.
I replaced my faded SL55 LCD panels with donor LCD's from a wrecked SL500. The LCD's are not available new to my knowledge, so used parts are the only way to go. In this case, the used LCD panels were only marginally better, so I am still searching for bright LCD's.
I replaced my faded SL55 LCD panels with donor LCD's from a wrecked SL500. The LCD's are not available new to my knowledge, so used parts are the only way to go. In this case, the used LCD panels were only marginally better, so I am still searching for bright LCD's.
The following 3 users liked this post by kbob999:
The following users liked this post:
kbob999 (01-10-2017)
#3
Junior Member
What an awesome guide! I have been able to find a new LCD display that has the same number stamped on the copper portion in white (92 290 237) however, the description states that it is for a 2003 to 2006 model year. Also, the other number stamped on the black portion shows 3722-90 and mine is 6526-90. Do these numbers have to match exactly?
#4
Super Member
Thread Starter
What an awesome guide! I have been able to find a new LCD display that has the same number stamped on the copper portion in white (92 290 237) however, the description states that it is for a 2003 to 2006 model year. Also, the other number stamped on the black portion shows 3722-90 and mine is 6526-90. Do these numbers have to match exactly?
If the cluster has these LCD's, you should be able to swap them to your existing cluster.
Here is a China source on eBay that looks similar, but different. Not advertising or suggesting these, just pointing out the style of the LCD panel.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Mercedes-R2...ZRw6:rk:1:pf:0
#5
Junior Member
2007 SL550 LED display
I have ordered this item. The number shown on the top (92 290 237 in the copper portion) is the exact number that is on my unit. The other number (3722-90 shown in the black) portion is different from my number 6526-90. I will post the results as soon as I receive and install the item. Thank you for all of you help and recommendations.
#6
Junior Member
Last speedo question.
After replacing the LCD display on my speedometer, how do I ensure that I have replaced the display needles (temp, speedo,tach, and fuel) correctly ?
#7
Super Member
Thread Starter
gedsl,
If you follow my DIY, I would recommend NOT removing the needles, but simply sliding the LCD behind the face of the instruments. Much easier.
The DIY explains how to replace the needles if you go that route, but it is more difficult and prone to errors.
If you follow my DIY, I would recommend NOT removing the needles, but simply sliding the LCD behind the face of the instruments. Much easier.
The DIY explains how to replace the needles if you go that route, but it is more difficult and prone to errors.
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#9
Super Member
Thread Starter
gedsl - Let us know how the China LCD panels work out. I'm sure others (and myself) will be interested in the image quality and life span of the panels.
#13
Junior Member
#14
Senior Member
Thank you gedsl. Any estimate of amount of time or miles the car has been driven since the install?
Really appreciate the prompt response.
Gary Knox
Really appreciate the prompt response.
Gary Knox
#15
Member
Any US source for LCD display?
I know this is mostly an old thread, but my car has the pink shrimp and I want to fix it. Is there any US source for these displays (besides used)?
#16
Super Member
Thread Starter
#17
Hi all, and a special 'thank you' to KBob for the wonderful tutorial. I purchased a nice-looking 2005 SL500 with a broken top for a very low price about a year ago. Having sorted the top (schlepping the pump to the US for rebuilding there) and replaced some of the degraded high pressure suspension lines, it is now a very nice driving car, albeit with a 'service brakes' white error warning, and these very ugly LCD panels:
I had thought initially that there was just dust on the panels--and when I got the panels out (thanks to KBob's tutorial), here is what they looked like:
Pretty awful, right? Well, I spent a few days looking for reasonably priced spares and all I could find was 150 USD plus, or a spare whole cluster for about the same. I even tried looking up all the various part numbers I could find on this thread and elsewhere for these little panels. They really should cost only a few dollars each. They are nothing special as far as I could tell.
The high price of the spares really annoyed me. I kept looking at these panels and thinking about it, and googling. And after closely looking at photos I found that the problems were all in the upper plastic layer of the panels--what turns out to be a layer of polarizing material. This lead me to refresh my recollection on how LCD panels work and that it was, in fact, possible to remove and replace this layer. It turns out these problems were pretty common a few years ago in a wide variety of LCD products. Here's a video of a guy repairing a TV screen
. And that lead me to this guy replacing the polarization layer on a cell phone
. I then started whatsapping around Dubai (where I live) to try to find a shop that can do this work. As I said, this was common a few years back, but not so much now. It took me about a half dozen inquiries before I found a place, iStyle in Bur Dubai, that could do the job.
Last night I took the panels over, and here are a couple of photos of the technicians working on my SL500 panels:
And here is the finished panel:
This morning at home I removed the protective film iStyle kindly left on and installed them in the panel.
I don't know if the panels will work because I have not had a chance to install them, but if they don't it is most likely down to something I did. For example, I broke the corner off the left hand display just on the edge of the liquid layer, so that may well go bad. But again, that will have been my fault.
I will post again after I put the cluster back in. And thanks again to KBob without whose help I most assuredly would have busted up the panels completely.
I had thought initially that there was just dust on the panels--and when I got the panels out (thanks to KBob's tutorial), here is what they looked like:
Pretty awful, right? Well, I spent a few days looking for reasonably priced spares and all I could find was 150 USD plus, or a spare whole cluster for about the same. I even tried looking up all the various part numbers I could find on this thread and elsewhere for these little panels. They really should cost only a few dollars each. They are nothing special as far as I could tell.
The high price of the spares really annoyed me. I kept looking at these panels and thinking about it, and googling. And after closely looking at photos I found that the problems were all in the upper plastic layer of the panels--what turns out to be a layer of polarizing material. This lead me to refresh my recollection on how LCD panels work and that it was, in fact, possible to remove and replace this layer. It turns out these problems were pretty common a few years ago in a wide variety of LCD products. Here's a video of a guy repairing a TV screen
Last night I took the panels over, and here are a couple of photos of the technicians working on my SL500 panels:
And here is the finished panel:
This morning at home I removed the protective film iStyle kindly left on and installed them in the panel.
I don't know if the panels will work because I have not had a chance to install them, but if they don't it is most likely down to something I did. For example, I broke the corner off the left hand display just on the edge of the liquid layer, so that may well go bad. But again, that will have been my fault.
I will post again after I put the cluster back in. And thanks again to KBob without whose help I most assuredly would have busted up the panels completely.
Last edited by JohnYoung; 11-03-2019 at 06:48 AM.
The following users liked this post:
marko69 (11-03-2019)
#18
Senior Member
Thanks John, you inspired me to check out this repair. I watched about 20 youtube video's on how to replace polarizing film. I'll give it a shot soon.
#19
For what it is worth, I would recommend finding a shop that does this every day. I paid the equivalent of 55 USD to have both of them done. I -might- be able to do it, but I have a friend in the cell phone business back in Singapore and I learned that manipulating these slivers of glass and plastic really does come best with practice. or maybe I'm just fumble fingered. That's why I don't begrudge getting help on this to get it right. That said, the polarizing material is really cheap on Amazon and you could do it and redo it over and over until you get it right--unless you break the glass. But I admit it was hard to find a shop that would still do this.
Either way, the best of luck!
This evening I was cleaning the plastic cover for the cluster and tomorrow I will plug the thing in and see how the repair went.
#20
So here's an update. The concept is sound. The execution was...flawed.
The displays looked bright white and washed out.
And I lost half the display on one--the display I cracked.
I suspected that we had gotten the polarization angle wrong, so I pulled one of the LCDs, removed part of the polarization layer we had put on, and changed the angle so as to make the darkest possible throughput--45 degrees off of the original replacement filter; it looked like this:
And then I threw it back in the car to see, and confirmed the solution.
Tonight I'm going to take a very close look at the left display to see if I can figure out why I lost half of it, but I may have to buy a fresh LCD, darn it. This one has the odometer so I've got to get it fixed, eventually at least.
The displays looked bright white and washed out.
And I lost half the display on one--the display I cracked.
I suspected that we had gotten the polarization angle wrong, so I pulled one of the LCDs, removed part of the polarization layer we had put on, and changed the angle so as to make the darkest possible throughput--45 degrees off of the original replacement filter; it looked like this:
And then I threw it back in the car to see, and confirmed the solution.
Tonight I'm going to take a very close look at the left display to see if I can figure out why I lost half of it, but I may have to buy a fresh LCD, darn it. This one has the odometer so I've got to get it fixed, eventually at least.
The following users liked this post:
JohnYoung (11-04-2019)
#22
Senior Member
Total failure. Replaced the film, polarization is wrong, but now I have dancing ballerina's on the display. May have mishandled it now I'll have to get a new lcd. Broke the black ribbon clip, may have misaligned the ribbon. Left side display is now flashing intermittently, didn't even touch that side.
#23
Member
So sad! I'll bet there were hundreds of us hopeing you would succeed. I"ve still got a couple of the panels that I have experimented with to no avail.
#24
Don't give up yet! It has taken me a few days to get the material, but I did and just this morning started putting things together.
The trick was to get more material put the cluster back in without applying the material and make sure of the angle. Like this, and then mark it with a permanent marker (on the protective removable layer, not the film itself)
In my case the film I had worked best at exactly 45 degrees, so I used a right angle to cut to that angle.
Then I filled in the corners (which are covered by the bezel anyways, but I was worried about light leakage.
Here's the finished product.
I suspect I do not have the best material but hopefully it will be good enough. I hope to plug it in later today and see.
The trick was to get more material put the cluster back in without applying the material and make sure of the angle. Like this, and then mark it with a permanent marker (on the protective removable layer, not the film itself)
In my case the film I had worked best at exactly 45 degrees, so I used a right angle to cut to that angle.
Then I filled in the corners (which are covered by the bezel anyways, but I was worried about light leakage.
Here's the finished product.
I suspect I do not have the best material but hopefully it will be good enough. I hope to plug it in later today and see.
#25
So I plugged it in and I think it is an acceptable result. My main problem before was that it was completely unreadable in bright light/daylight. That now seems to have been resolved.
But, sadly, I did bung one of them up getting it out so I still need to replace one of the modules. I can't not do this because the odometer is blanked out.
The polarizing material I used was for an iphone 4, in case anyone else wants to try this. A fair amount of effort is involved, but I really, really didn't want to spend so much on LCD modules that should be a few dollars at most.
Just wanted to add that it looks better in the dark than my photo suggests. My phone's camera makes it look more washed out than it ought to, I think--maybe because of the ambient light where the car was sitting. Ideally I'd suggest getting a bunch of different self-adhesive polarizing films and seeing what works best. As mentioned, I used film for an iPhone 4.
But, sadly, I did bung one of them up getting it out so I still need to replace one of the modules. I can't not do this because the odometer is blanked out.
The polarizing material I used was for an iphone 4, in case anyone else wants to try this. A fair amount of effort is involved, but I really, really didn't want to spend so much on LCD modules that should be a few dollars at most.
Just wanted to add that it looks better in the dark than my photo suggests. My phone's camera makes it look more washed out than it ought to, I think--maybe because of the ambient light where the car was sitting. Ideally I'd suggest getting a bunch of different self-adhesive polarizing films and seeing what works best. As mentioned, I used film for an iPhone 4.
Last edited by JohnYoung; 11-19-2019 at 09:03 PM. Reason: Just adding another thought at the end.