Even more damn spiffy eh? :D

Incase you dont know, inverting a LCD means to rotate the polarising film infront of the screen, making the dark bits light up and the lighted bits go dark if you know what I mean. If you dont, all will be revealed.

Thats what we start with...

Thats what we end up with.

Now you should get what im on about, if you still dont, well, err... I dont know.

WARNING: Neither I, Matrix Orbital or ICEHardware will take responsibility if you screw your display up while performing this mod - you do it at your own risk!!!

Anyway - on with the modding!! :D

What you need:
Your LCD - if you dont have one get one
Enough polarising sheet to cover the face of your LCD
A Sharp Knife
Scissors
Pliers or you can use the scissors (whichever works best for you)
Skill ;)

This method will work on just about all LCDs because they are all built in the same way. I.e. they have the polarising sheet infront of the LCD ready to be changed, not embedded in the glass or summat.

The display and the film

Taking her apart:
I thought it would be wise to ground myself while performing the operation as LCDs can be static sensitive, so I used an old wrist band I had lying around.

Aren't my wrists just the sexiest?? ;)

The first thing that I did was to remove the four screws and spacers from each corner of the LCD. This is only required on LCDs with 2 PCBs and HD44780s or graphic LCDs will only have the one PCB.

The screw to come out

I only had to remove 2 screws because I removed them for an earlier project (now binned) and unfortunatley lost them - oops!

The screws ( and a mysterious LED??? )

When you have removed all the screws and spacers, it allows you to get to the tabs inbetween the two boards easier.

There (circled) are the tabs in question

These need to be twisted round so that they are all in a straight line (shown below) so that the metal bezel of the LCD can be removed.

The tabs lined up

You should notice how the LCD looks at one end to make sure that you dont put it back upside down!

Above you can see theres a little blob of glass which lines up with the hole in the bezel - very useful, I also made a mental note that the blob and the hole are at the same end as the GPOs. Now 'tis time to remove the bezel and the actual screen. If you have lined up the tabs correctly the bezel should come off with no probs, just pull it off carefully and gently, making sure the rubber contact strips dont get pulled off the screen. They can come off the board, just not the screen.

Voila!

Changing the polarising film:
Now that she's apart you have to remove the screen carefully from the metal bezel. A little push from the front should lift it out no problem.

Theres the screen, "tut tut chris, look at all that dust" ;)

Now we have to carefully (yes, all of this mod should be done carefully if you dont want a dead LCD) remove the polarising film from the screen. Its stuck on there pretty good :( You should start in one corner by lifting the film from the screen with a sharp knife.

One corner lifted

Then work all the way across one end so that you can pull straight down.

Then you can just pull it all the way down. Pull down, parallel to the screen, not away from it, or you might put too much force on the LCD and break it! If you do it carefully all the way down, all the adhesive should come off with the film and not left on the screen. If you do get some left on the screen, youll have to clean it off or it will look mucky when we are finished.

Theres the mucky old stuff, adhesive and all!

Now we have to cut a new piece of film. You need to hold your film infront of the screen, and rotate it until the screen looks darkest, when its at its darkest is the right orientation for the inverse effect. When you have the right orientation, just put the bezel on the sheet of film and cut around it, as we will need a piece that fits snug inside the bezel to keep it from moving around.

Cutting around the bezel

There, the piece (with a bit of trimming) fits nicely into the bezel

Now we can put the screen back into the bezel, making sure it and the film are nice and clean. Remember to put the screen in the same way as it came out ( glass blob etc. ). Then you have to insert the bezel and screen back onto the board the same way as it came out and retwist the tabs. When you are putting the screen and bezel back on, make sure that the gold contacts are clean or otherwise it will display jibberish when you turn it back on. Then just replace the screws and...

You're done! :D

Now its time for a test...

YUM!!

I think inverting the display improves the look of it by far, but if you dont like it, remember you can always go back by cutting another piece of film where the display is at its lightest and putting that in the bezel.

If your display is displaying jibberish, check the connections between the screen and PCB for hairs etc.

WARNING: Neither I, Matrix Orbital or ICEHardware will take responsibility if you screw your display up while performing this mod - you do it at your own risk!!!

Cheers for reading, I'd like to thank the source of the polarizing film (you know who you are) and Henry from Matrix Orbital.