What’s inside a TFT Monitor?

This post is now also available on my new improved blog:
http://theywereinvisible.blogspot.com/

Have you ever wondered what’s inside a flat screen monitor?  Well neither had I, but when my trusty 17″ TFT started acting up I decided that since it was already pretty much done for, I might as well have a little bit of entertainment pulling it apart and then seeing if I could put if back together again.

When I say it was playing up, it still worked, but the buttons on the front didn’t work so I couldn’t switch it off or adjust the display settings, which wouldn’t be such a problem if it wasn’t stuck on the lowest contrast setting!  Basically I decided it was broken and old enough to be replaced, so I went out and treated myself to a shiny new widescreen monitor.

So below is a gallery of photos from the evening that I spent taking a monitor literally to pieces and then put it back together.  My wife thought it was a waste of time, but she just doesn’t understand, it’s a guy thing.  I would also just like to point out that when I put it back together again, not only did the screen still work, but so did the buttons on the front, I actually fixed it!

Before the carnage!

Stand removed… it took me 10 minutes to figure out that there was a screw as well as clips holding the stand in place!

Once the screws were removed, it still wasn’t easy getting into the bezel.

Bezel now cracked open offering the first look inside.

The VGA port from the inside.

The internal speaker.

The inner workings split into 2 sections quite quickly, the controller section above and the TFT panel below, joined by a ribbon cable and some screws.

Here we have a side-on view of the TFT panel.

A mini screwdriver is required to persuade the panel to reveal more secrets.

Once inside we see that the majority of the panel is made up of this large backlight…

…which shines it’s light through this thin translucent LCD which displays the images.

The LCD layed flat.

This is, I imagine, where all the power is handled- judging by the capacitors and the kettle-lead socket on the right.  The audio line-in socket is also on this board (light blue) so there must also be controllers for that on there somewhere.

This little board controls the graphics interface with the PC.

Here we have the hollow front of the bezel…

…and here the full empty shell.

Here are all the internal components layed out.

Here it is back together some time later, minus a couple of screws as usual!

And it still works!!

So there we have it, hopefully something else I own will break and I will get the opportunity to see what made it tick.

Advertisement