Yet another backlight upgrade thread, RFC :)

[shotgunefx]

Ok, so I've got my lilliput apart.

Looking at it, I see a few things that make me think.

1. Wouldn't it be better to have something reflect the light from the 3 sides of the CCFL that face away from the light guide? Something like reflective tape? I have another backlight out of some old mac thing I got surplus and it seems better designed. The light guide on the spare one is only on the left side but it has a coating to direct all the light into the guide. Also the guide itself seems better. The lilliput just looks like some dingy glass (and it was actually kind of dirty ), the surplus one I have is almost the perfect size and may actually fit under the lilli with a slight amount of surgery.

2. Look like you could fit another two inches of CCFL in the space if you wrapped around the light guide like so. You'd have to polish that side of the guide, but that shouldn't be too hard.



3. I may be off, but it looks like you have a little more than 4mm of space in the assembly, I'm thinking, why not just get two 2mm bulbs and stack them? Has anyone tried this? I dont' care if both run off a seperate inverter.

The last option seems attractive, outside of hunting down a 2.0mm long enough, seems like bending it would be the toughest, which brings me to my next thought.

I was thinking of going to one of the local neon sign shops. They bend glass all day. I would think it wouldn't be too hard for them.

If anyone has any suggestions or has gone down this road before, love to hear it. I did search, but didn't find anything that addressed these specific thoughts.

[turbocad6]

I've heard rumors that someone sucessfully bent a ccfl that was already charged somewhere here on these forums by heating it with a candle, but I find it hard to belive... I think they have to bend it before it's charged...

adding another bulb may give good results if that light can also get to the edge of the lightguide.....

I have seen a few sucess stories with stacking 2 lightguides with double the ccfl's & have done this on a larger screen with good results too, that might be worth a shot if you can find a busted lilli that still lights up.... but it'll then be too thick to go back in the housing...

[dupa2]

I think there's certain gas pressure inside, so it's risky operation. Can be done though, you don't heat up glass too much, just enough to bend it. I didn't try it on such thing though.

[shotgunefx]

I've heard rumors that someone sucessfully bent a ccfl that was already charged somewhere here on these forums by heating it with a candle, but I find it hard to belive... I think they have to bend it before it's charged...

adding another bulb may give good results if that light can also get to the edge of the lightguide.....

I have seen a few sucess stories with stacking 2 lightguides with double the ccfl's & have done this on a larger screen with good results too, that might be worth a shot if you can find a busted lilli that still lights up.... but it'll then be too thick to go back in the housing...

I've seen some casemod sites where people have done it. (bent ccfl), here's one. twisted mods

I think it will take some practice (and some good ventilation in case)

I think you could fit two in there and get it back together, the lilli has little rings to snug it in the housing a bit. (Whether the backlight would break without them... ), but fairly certain that two 2mm or 2.6mm would fit. Hard to find smaller ones that long though.

The light guide is double the height of the ccfl, so it shouldn't be a problem.

Every see anything as far as reflective foil tape for the ccfls?

Now that my cameras has found, I'll post some pics this weekend, especially of the other backlight I have.

[shotgunefx]

Nothing special, just a couple of pics.

8" Lilliput light guide and "mount"


The CCFL spacers I was talking about. I definitely think you could fit two CCFLs in there.


The light guide from some random backlight I got from Electronics Goldmine. Believe it was a surplus out of some sort of old apple product. I might try cutting this down (just a little too big) and using it in place of the stock one.


It has mirrored foil around the ccfl to direct all the light into the guide.