HELP! Left Half of Screen is BLANK!!

The left half of my screen went blank today! The player still plays mp3's fine. Anyone have any info on how I can get it fixed? Any help would be very appreciated.

Yeah, I get to beat Tony!

Its in the faq

One of the column driver chips embedded in the VFD glass has failed. You'll need a new display

Best bet would be to contact Rob Schofield normally, but he's not fixing empegs for a while yet. Maybe Stu or someone else can help you with that repair. The tricky part is sourcing a VFD. If your handy with a soldering iron you can fix it yourself.

I think Paul Grzelak is working up another group buy for VFD's that should be in in the first part of the new year.

Greetings!

Indeed. Latest delivery estimate is early January. Unfortunately, I am out of spares at the moment. You would need to have a spare VFD and have it installed / install it yourself on the display board.

Is there anyone else here with a spare they are willing to part with to get this poor, sick player functional again???

In reply to:

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Maybe Stu or someone else can help you with that repair.

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If you need someone to replace the VFD for you, we have done several. If you're good at soldering (and desoldering) electronic components and know what you're doing, then it should be easy for you to do it yourself. In either case, be careful not to yank too hard on the display cable as it may break. It may be very hard to fix it and your display including controls may not work. Be careful!

Stu

so can i replace the burnt chip in my vfd? or do i need a new vfd alltogether?

You will need a whole new VFD. The chip is inside the display the VFD itself (I think).

Stu

do you know how much it's going to cost me for a new vfd? Are there any other alternatives? I want to be able to get this fixed ASAP (If possible) Thanks for all of the help so far!

The displays run about $65 or so when a kind soul gets a group order together. pgrezelak (Paul) has some coming in in January, as you might have read. Noritake does not sell single displays, so you'll have to try to get one from Paul or find someone selling a whole display board. Sorry.

Stu

Greetings!

Be warned - complete display boards are intensely rare, and are typically only taken from dead players. And there is very little that can happen to a player to render it that unrepairable.

There is a chance. When I got these last time, a few people picked up spares in case they had problems. I know that some of these people actually had to use them, but there might still be a spare VFD out there. You might want to post on General or For Sale, and see if anyone has a spare VFD left that they are willing to sell.

I will be getting in a bulk order of these around January (current delivery estimate), so that is your worst case. If someone does have a spare they are willing to sell you, I will put them down on the list for that batch. Good luck!

If no-one in the US pipes up, I have a spare VFD over here in Sweden that I'm willing to send you - as long as I can get one from the new order.

/Michael

I put a post up under 'for sale' & 'general' so hopefully I can get one from someone in the US, if not I will be happy to buy one from you. Thanks!