Eleco Video Screen

[Chrisdice]

Has anyone seen this before. The middle of the screen is darker then the top and bottom. Also the words make a dark stripe across the width of the screen. I'll try and post pictures to show you what I mean.

[chaz70]

Ive never seen it like that before. I do notice some very fine lines running from left to right on mine. Basicaly looks like your lower half of the screen, only very small stripes. (2 ot 3 of them) They are only noticable if you REALLY look for them.

Here is a picture of mine. You can see the screen is nice and even all the way up.

[Eddie]

Ive never seen it like that before. I do notice some very fine lines running from left to right on mine. Basicaly looks like your lower half of the screen, only very small stripes. (2 ot 3 of them) They are only noticable if you REALLY look for them.

Here is a picture of mine. You can see the screen is nice and even all the way up.

Why is your Sinbad bellyglass different? I have never seen that one before.

[chaz70]

It is not just the belly glass. The whole machine has a different color scheme to it.

Why? I don't know! I purchased it from a local vendor. He sells many Sinbad adventures. The machine is a real eye catcher when it is out on display in the market. :-) Normaly he sells the regular machine, but he had mine and another like it at one point. I just got lucky because it was my 1st pachislo and I didn't know it was different at the time. I like the regular one, but I think the one I have looks NICE.

[luckydog]

Like a few others models the factory made some with different bellyglass.

Like Million God and Gold X

[fronzdan]

Chris, I've seen LCDs act like that before. Does it come and go, especially if you open/close the pachi's door? Usually it's a mechanical/connection problem. LCDs use a high density connector that relies on even pressure and perfect alignment of rubbery pads to the LCD interface. Over time and because of frequent mechanical stress (i.e. opening/closing pachi door or opening/closing laptop screen) the alignment of the connector can go off and cause weird lines/bars etc. Look at where the connection is made to the LCD...sometimes gently pushing on the connection fixes it. I'll take a look on one of my Elecos to see where that might be.

[Chrisdice]

I took everything apart and reconnected it so all the wires are tight. I was thinking of swapping out parts w/ my Beast sapp till I find what the problem is. But let me know if you find anything.
Thanks

[luckydog]

swapping the LCD would be the best way to see if its the screen or not.

[alstonj1]

The problem you discribe sounds like a brightness issue that if turned down would mask the diffrence in individual grafics background color .I have yet to see a brightness control on any Machine with a LCD but im sure theres a pot on a board in there somewhere . But LCD do develop lines over time as they begin to fail . usually it starts as individual pixels but sometimes it does it as full lines you might want to try swapping the screen with another machine (or sister machine ) that you know is working 100%. then you'll know what the problem is it could be a problem that will take years to develop into full failure tho so i wouldn't sweat it if it really doesn't bother you .

[fronzdan]

I took everything apart and reconnected it so all the wires are tight. I was thinking of swapping out parts w/ my Beast sapp till I find what the problem is. But let me know if you find anything.
Thanks

Actually any connector you can easily unplug and plug isn't what I was thinking of. This connection, if it's accessible, would be right on the LCD panel itself, usually with a flex circuit. It is how the actual LCD glass/plastic panel connects to its own PC board. You can't solder to an LCD panel, so this is why they use those rubbery, high density connectors. Anyway, I'll take a look when I get home from work.

Hey....if you swap LCDs between Sinbad and Beast Sapp, won't it look weird seeing Sapp boxing to Arabian music surrounded by harem girls? j/k

[fronzdan]

Ever get this working, Chris? I took a look at one of mine. The video dsplay board is the big one that's mounted between the speakers. On the left side of the board, there is a white ribbon cable that goes to a small board at the top of the LCD. That little board might be covered by a plastic shield, mine is. Beyond where the white ribbon connector attaches to that little board...it could be on the other side of it or it could be on the other side of a flex circuit, it has to attach to the actual LCD itself. That's where the problem could be. I didn't want to poke around in there too much because it most likely requires a removal of the whole LCD and who knows what else.
But if you DO end up swapping LCDs and the problem follows the LCD, you might think of looking at this on the "bad" one.

[Chrisdice]

I tried the Video display board and the board attached to the LCD just left of the reels. It wasn't either one of those. I swapped LCD's and Bingo. So my Sinbad is good now. The Beast Sapp has the issue now, but thats a flea market game anyway and most people won't even know anything is wrong with it. I'm just picky and wan't my games to be as perfect as possible. Thanks for the comments everyone.

[fronzdan]

Yeah, if it's working (mostly), it's not worth taking apart the LCD to try and fix it. If it was dead, that would be a different story.