Deep scratch on my Explorer Lite

[Steve_r]

I was working behind my panel one day, tidying up some cables and checking everything was OK, when I refitted the panel I had that heart sinking realisation that the screen of the Explorer Lite had been resting on the top of my control stick.....many expletives ensued....

Question is...can I do anything about it?

The screen still functions normally, it just has a deep scratch on the middle that you can see and feel when you rub your finger over it.

Are there any plastic products that don't involve rubbing and buffing (that's clearly not going to end well!!) that might help to hide my bad day?

[adamoconnor]

I don't know that I would try to do anything other than live with it and try to ignore it or replace the touch screen.

Especially if it's one of the newer capacitive touch displays (you'll know because there's no calibration options), adding any products to the plastic can potentially ruin the touch screen system or at best make it erratic.

Maybe Rainier can chime in if he's helped repair this before...

[matthunter1448]

Is there a way to upgrade to the newer touch screen?

[rainier]

Yes it is possible to upgrade to a new touch screen - we have to do that if we have a repair that needs a new touch screen - the previous types are no longer available.

However there is an issue - the previous technology screens have the touch screen integrated as part of the LCD display module and the essential display polarizer is the first layer you see (the part you scratched) - this arrangement is very good as it is a great way of cutting reflections without reducing light transmission.
But it means if you remove the touch screen from the LCD display you have no polarizer and hence only see a black screen.

So in this case we have to fit both a new LCD module as well as the capacitive touch screen (which has its own non-reflective surface film - but not polarized in addition to a second non-relefective polarizer which is now part of the LCD module.
We then fit a small interface PCB made for this purpose onto your processor board which brings out the required interface for the capacitive touch panel (This only works on a G3 so if you have a G2 we also need to replace the processor board and upgrade to a G3 first).

Bottom line: It's not the cheapest thing to do unfortunately - coupled with the current disastrous situation with respect to supply of electronic parts including LCD screens - World wide shortages of chips and LCD glass are causing us great headaches - in some cases prices have gone up by up to 1000% or parts are simply unobtainable - with manufacturers quoting lead times of up to two years.
As example: One of our orders for processors was placed about October last year for 1000 of them. We can get 30. Next month. Maybe...

Many car manufacturers like Audi for example have shut down some car production lines because they cannot get processors - it's a problem not limited to us...

[JoshuaEmove]

I was always under the impression cleaning a board with water with large caps like that is not a good idea?

But then I guess theres no ICs, so maybe its fine?