light WATT METER screen

J

justlooking

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i tghink i have this in the right section ,

i bought a watt meter [see picture] but there is not a light in it to light up the screen, and the screen is not easy to see when traveling ,
is there a way to put a light in it ?, i dont mind if i have to run the light off of a separate battery in its own case ,, i just want to be able to see it in poor light ,,
#thank you

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Sure--put an LED at each end of the backing plastic for the LCD, just like they do on the backlit versions of such things. Proably even has the stuff in place for it already. LEd will need a dropping resistor to keep it down to whatever it's current limit is according to it's spec sheet, usually a few mA.

Point the LEDs into the LCD.


Alternately, use a "book light" that can be powerd by USB, and put a 5V DC-DC or battery on there, and point the book light at the LCD (this way you don't have to open anything up). Or use a book likght that uses little coin cells and just replace tem as needed.
 
justlooking said:
i tghink i have this in the right section , i bought a watt meter [see picture] but there is not a light in it to light up the screen, and the screen is not easy to see when traveling ,is there a way to put a light in it ?, i dont mind if i have to run the light off of a separate battery in its own case ,, i just want to be able to see it in poor light ,,#thank you
Click to expand...

I have one as well and can not read it at night unless I am under a street light. A small led flashlight could work, or one of those small led book lights that clamps on a book for reading at night......I have no idea if the lcd screen has a back-light capability. I didn't look for it when I had mine open. :(
openboardlarge_zpsc7feeb46.jpg
 
You could put a backlit version of the HD44780 LCD, but these are usually thicker than the non-backlit versions, and the extra expense will bring it to the cost of a turnigy wattmeter anyway :p
 
It's one mroe thing I like about the Cycle Analyst. Not only does it have a backlight, but it has either white or amber lighting, depending on which ones you solder the bridge to. :) (at least in the v3 I have here, possibly in the v2 but I haven't looked yet)
 
Been toooo cold today to go outside for me, so what else can I do? How about opening my "Power Analyzer" again! :D

Turns out the LCD is a fairly generic c1602a v1.2 but without the LED for backlight.
x-backlight.jpg

Nothing under the LCD
View attachment 2

Pin 16, the LED ground is open.
Missing ground for lcd.jpg

But there is enough room for some LED's if you want to go through the trouble. You might get some kind of glow under the LCD.


You can find replacement 1602 LCD screen with backlight on ebay for about £3.00 with Free Postage if you dare to try and replace it. :twisted:
 
i have bought 2 of them .
i could not make my mind up on the
blue background with white letters ,
or the yellow background with black letters

just got to see what they look like when i get them , taking in account that they will have to be seen in bright sun light as well as at night,
 
justlooking said:
i have bought 2 of them ........,
Click to expand...
Which ones did you buy? Got a link?

:D
 
if you look on the side where the led is mounted normally you will see a spot marked A for anode and K for cathode of the led. that is where it is soldered in. the resistors at R7 and R8 are in parallel and are the current limiting resistors for the led. each one is 3R3 so the combined resistance is an equivalent 1.65ohm. i don't see any other parts associated with it on my turnigy.

i also bot a wattmeter with no backlight. it is almost identical to the turnigy except it was only $23.42 instead of $35 with shipping for the turnigy from hobby king.

it also has some trimpots for the displayed voltage and current calibration so i think it may be more useful than the turnigy for the remote shunt procedure since you can now re-calibrate the meter once the shunt is moved and soldered to something else.

of course i blew mine up first thing, shorted the battery through the shunt. whack!

it ran for several hours after that but now it conked out. i tracked down the problem to a small surface mount resistor that burned out in the linear regulator circuit. it is a surface mount 805 of 2k ohms so i am gonna replace it by soldering a small 1/8 watt 2k resistor in its place since there is a place where i can solder the leads to several diodes and a cap all in parallel on one end and then over to the voltage reference emitter on the other end. should work again!

cheap, cheap:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/330770085904?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649

also the mcu that drives the red pcb is ATTINY26L-8SU
 
I have same wattmeter and tried replace LCD with Ebay Blue backlit LCD. This wattmeter has LCD 16pins Which means that LED pins are included. I replaced LCD. Backlight worked but LCD itself not (not initialized, white bar) :?
 
yes, i said earlier it has just two 3.3ohm current limiting resistors in parallel at R7 and R8.

but on the meter i have with no led there is no space under the display for the light to go under. you can see how the metal bracket that holds the display is different in thickness between the two styles.
 
i might be wrong m8, but i think that the led would be done so that the light shines into the end of the screen ,, so that the light will shine length ways across it, if you put the led behind the screen then it will shine through it and not cover any area to speak of ??
 
if the new board kills the screen digits, one could always try powering the led via a different power source. A tiny hole drilled into a side cover, some small wires and a small battery...9v or something.

:D
 
one other thing. i found that the turnigy meters use about 150mA and the other wattmeter identical except for the led used about 40mA.

i bet you could put a small white led 3mm, and peel up the edge of the bottom of the metal bracket that holds the display stick the led in there under the display and see how much light gets out through the display. i may try that yet. i burned up one of the surface mount resistors in that wattmeter and have to replace it too.
 
I would say that the replacement screen probably has different contrast voltage settings.

Find the contrast pin and hook it up to gnd, there is a good chance that this will change the display.
 
A lot of those suggestions seem like they could be expensive and difficult modifications. I am lazy, so I thought of using this.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Bright-CLIP-ON-Clip-NEW-Flexible-Light-LED-Reading-Booklight-LAMP-Mini-Battery-/190803263311?pt=US_Tablet_eReader_Cases_Covers_Keyboard_Folios&hash=item2c6cc2bf4f

A flexible clip on led light. Likely sounds like a pain in the ass, but it probably beats the snot out of opening that thing up and trying to tinker around with it, unless you immensely enjoy that sort of thing. You may need to improve it's water proofing with some caulk, but that'd be no big deal.
 
did anyone find a data sheet for the pcb?

on my wattmeter with no leds, it has the connector pins labeled, but not on the turnigy meter with the led.

since everyone has the turnigy meter i will read off the labels from #1 at the bottom to #16 at the top

for pcb: C1602A-V1.2

1. VSS
2. VDD
3. V0
4. RS
5. RW
6. E
7. D0
8. D1
9. D2
10. D3
11. D4
12. D5
13. D6
14. D7
15. BL+ this is the trace that runs over to the current limiting resistor pads. on my pcb there surface mount pads in that line for schottky diodes to protect the led
16. BL-

Back Light is self explanatory but if someone can put a handle on the other stuff it may be useful for the arduino hackers. like RS and RW
 
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