Condensation into display

Dragos

1 mW
Joined
Apr 2, 2021
Messages
10
Hi, I have a small problem with the vlcd6 display.
It seem that there is some condensation inside.
1.jpg
I use this bike daily to get to work and back. There where some rainy days here, with a 2-6C temperature range.
The bicycle stays outside for about 9 hours daily then goes indoor :D
Can this display be opened without damaging it?
I see #3 small screws but I don't know if it's glued in place ..
 
The trick we used when the kids were growing up and dropped their phones in water was to throw them in a ziplock bag filled with uncooked rice for a couple of days. You could also use silica, like the packets used to keep things dry. You can get that in bulk by getting some silica kitty litter and use that in the ziplock.
You can speed things up by using a hair dryer to warm up the display a little,
 
I’d try to run a hairdryer over it, to evaporate the water. That could work. There could be other water that you can’t see. Typically, with lcd screens, there is double sided tape along the edge of the screen. The lens sticks to that. I can tell that is the case with this because I can see that the screen is not flush with the lens. There is a gap. I’ve taken many devices, with screens, apart. I love doing that.

If it were me, I would remove those screws and carefully pry along the seam where the front and the back meet. Use something plastic for this, guitar picks are nice. A metal object would dig into the plastic. Be careful of the area where the buttons are. There may be some type of silicone membrane behind the buttons. Once the back is separated from the front, I would slide the backplate down the wire. There may be a screw, or two the hold the PCB to the face of the display. I would remove those. They may be different size screws from the ones removed from the back, so be sure to keep them separate. Then the PCB will be able to be removed CAREFULLY. Hopefully, water didn’t get to the PCB. There will be some type of wired connection between the PCB and the LCD. There may also be a wired connection from the PCB to the buttons. If there is a socketed connection, I would remove that to get the PCB out of the way. With the PCB separated, I should be able to carefully pry the double sided tape from the LCD and the faceplate. I would take my time, using a guitar pick or some other plastic flat thing, as to not scratch anything. Once that is done, I can dry the water out and begin to work in reverse to close it all up. This is what I would do if it were me.

If that didn’t work, then I just might look at getting a new controller and display. Probably a different display.
 
Well, I have opened and there was water inside. Don't know how it was working with all that water inside :mrgreen:
There was some silicone between the two parts of the display case that I think they used to keep the water out.

20230117_223933.jpg

I dried it and used some black silicone to make it "waterproof" again. I put it together and it started/worked.
I did some power on/off two or three times ... then the magic smoke came out.

Don't know what happened. Maybe the black silicone was electrically conductive?

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Anyway, I have another display that I want to try, to see if it will resist the weather :lol:

20230117_235617.jpg
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But this new display have a loooong cable. Any idea if there exists some shorter adapter cable that can be used between the motor and the display?

This is the old cable - display + throttle:
20230117_235825.jpg
 
Dragos said:
Don't know how it was working with all that water inside :mrgreen:

Rain is pretty clean and pure. The more pure it is the less conductive. Spilling a Pepsi is much worse than spilling pure water on electronics.
 
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