Best feeling ever when you eventually fix something

Hi Dave, My name is Dan. At my old job I build and troubleshot this kind of devices(all of FLUKE scopemeters). They were manufactured in Brasov, Romania, now they are obsolete(this type of scopemeters). What i wanted to say is: don't worry about the last bar it will fix it's self in time. Just leave it working for a while and it will disappear due to the heat generated by the display and backlight. That white stuff on the chips is used for heatsink, the radiator is the shield it's self. If you want help with the oscilloscope function write and I will try to help you.

Nice one Dave! I'm glad we finally got something fixed haha. Very fun to watch!

Fixing those strips is easier than it looks. Just hovering over the ribbon with a soldering iron can fix it easily. You don't even need to touch the strip. This is commonly done on the original Gameboy to fix the screens as they end up separating. You can even do it while its on to see your progress.

Two successful repair videos in a row!!! You bloody ripper!!

You fucking legend, fixing a multi thousand Fluke with a hot gun and a pencil eraser, gold, you and AvE are the best things to happen to youtube

I think this was the most intense EEVBlog yet! Awesome!

Great repair, have to try this myself now! Havent used a 196 in ages, looks strikingly like the SIglent SHS810 I recently bought!

Hi Dave, Love the Repair videos I've watched em all. Im just a hobbyist but your videos really do teach me a lot. i learn so much from them. Thanks for the hard work you put into them and look forward to more repairs in the future

I did enjoy it very much. I was so impatient and excited when you were going to push the button to see the reflow worked!

Thanks Dave, I love watching your videos, they're really entertaining and so informative. Your gusto to try and diagnose/fix that crappy zebra strip had me chuckling out loud and perhaps I'll try to repair one next time I encounter a failed strip instead of just wholesale replacing it.

It's annoying you can't like more than once! One of the most rewarding fixes I've seen! VERY useful information to be found in this video in general!

Dave, good job mate! I love watching your videos. This one was one the best.

You sir, are my hero. Awesome example of troubleshooting technique.

Had to do a LCD swap on a BMW E39 instrument cluster that has a hot-bar attached display. Need to get the iron with the T-bar tip so you can heat and press down at the same time. worked like a charm. Well done on the repair!

Super cool that you got the LCD fixed! Good result :)

Repair/troubleshoot videos are faves. This one was a toughie, but FUN!

Did this to my old Gameboy a while back. Damn those hotbar connections

You can sometimes get a quicker easier result by using a soldering iron rather than hot hair - provided temp not set too high. Same technique used to fix Gameboy and Game Gear LCD screen connections.

Love the videos. They keep me highly entertained and help me climb deeper down the rabbit hole of electronics. My fellow "Yankee" friends have been giving me weird looks ever since I've started saying all of Dave's Australian "catch phrases". Gotta make sure everyone knows that Bob is their uncle.

Thats awesome! Genuinely made me smile when I saw you fixed those horizontal lines, shame the scope part of it is cactus though. Perhaps a repair video part 2? Great stuff as always though.

What a beauty. And this Flukes 19x series, what a performance for a handheld scope.

I think it might be a decent repair technique for these hotbar attachments, to use a simple clamp and perhaps a long wooden or thin metal bar to apply even pressure to the entire connector (clamping it to the table basically), and then re-heating it. Avoids any sideways movement that could misalign the connections, and should bring the contacts into, well, contact, given some heat, since the pressure is all there waiting. Purely hypothetical, I've never actually done this kind of repair, but it's how I would have done it if I was to make an attempt! As surprised as you that it worked, good stuff!

Definitely need to make another video about the scope repair.

I was repairing this kind of LCD about 10 years ago when I was working at Thomas Electronics in Sydney. Reheat will temporarily fix the issue, but the it will be back quickly. The "glue" is called ACF. Very expensive and have to be kept in fridge. The correct procedure is: 1. using chemical to remove and clean (under microscope) the flex cable; 2. clean glass and PCB; 3. using a Automatic Bonding Machine to bond the flex to glass and then PCB with ACF. Even you've done it correctly for 10 times, it will still be 2 or 3 come back a month later. Nowadays' COG (chip on glass) or more advanced CIG (chip in glass) are not worth to repair anymore.

Nice work on the display Dave! I fixed this ribbons a couple of times by running a round tiped soldering iron set to 200° over the connectors applying light pressure. Use some sort of "drawing" movement as if you would use a pencil to color the area.

Hi David, I'm one of your multi-million followers eevblog, and I like a lot your way to show & teach electronics. I came up with a PM97 Scopemeter, with one vertical line missing. But differently than your PM196, do not have zebra connectors hot welded on the pcb, but instead have (3) Zebra rubber connectors: TOP, LEFT & RIGHT, between the LCD GLASS and the pcb. Useless to say the I wouldn't be able to recover the display using: - extra pressure by hand on the upper LCD border - cleaning the pcb LCD contacts using isopropyl alchool - cleaning the Gold-on-glass contacts - also cleaned the zebra strip band (both sides) - furthermore I tried reversing the rubber zebra strip, thinking that one of the contacts was malfunctioning - also tried to re-solder the Toshiba chips which drive the display columns so I quickly gone in lack of new ideas I sadly reclosed it.... Thinking: You're a liar or incredibly lucky ...

Had a same fault with an LCD years ago, also a hot-bar problem. I managed to fix it with just a regular soldering station set to a low (and increasing in case of fail) temperature and trial and error. Managed to fix the whole LCD. It was way smaller though! only 64x128 or something. The good part was that you don't need to take the compression bracket off of it. You can reach the hot-barred flex easily.

My guess would be stainless screws, probably to prevent corrosion. At least the non-magnetic nature means they probably used a decent stainless :)

Awesome repair Dave! Pretty obvious from the start but still very very interesting. Especially the "hot bar rework" part! Lukas p.s. looking forward to a pt 2 to fix the o-scope

Well done Dave, great repair video! :D

Wow. Thank you Dave! super stuff!

I once used a clothes hot iron/steamer to re flux a similar flex... it worked flawlessly and the fix was permanent. Just make sure you have an infrared thermometer to monitor/set the temperature on the iron.

it was difficult to believe my eyes! went in to fix a common issue for the WIN! bravo!

I'm not an electronics engineer or anything, but I still find your videos to be extraordinarily useful and entertaining (hard to find that combination!) Thanks!

Great job. Love the repair video.

Congrats Dave! Here in Canada we say He shoots,He score's! 👍

Way to go, Dave (with the display)!

I have had a similar failure on a Fluke 12 multimeter. Those elastomeric zebra strips look like a common fault on their displays. But you can order replacements directly from them at low cost.

I've fixed quite a few of these hot bar connections with just a soldering iron set to low temperature and quick swipe across the flat flex.

When you see chips with obviously missing heatsinks, alarm bells should go off; "maybe I'm not her first".

That was pretty good. I always like seeing stuff get fixed in these videos. :) Never liked that hotbar thing tho. There is always some sort of problem with those....

I've had this same issue with some old Motorola radio displays. I have had good results by using the edge of a hot clothes iron on that flex cable.

found your channel through AvE's channel, man you're hella funny LOL.

So epic!!! I've had an issue with this kind of hotbar connection on an electronic dictionary... I tried just using pressure (which worked for a few minutes), but now i'm going to try heat too

First time viewing with eevblog t-shirt. I feel somewhat more involved today :D

I was screaming at you to check if it works before fixing the lcd.

So I guess we'll see a part 2? At least I hope. It'll be interesting to see if you can get this working again.

Thanks Dave! I was able to repair my 192 with a iron!

(2.5 years too late): "I saw it, I saw it, I saw it!" At 3:08-3:15 during what I like to call, "Torsional maintenance." I saw two rows of pixels drop. Center of the screen. Keep up the good work. Off to watch the rest of the video now...

I love these tear down video!

Killer repair, I didn't think you were going to be able to do it but you freaking nailed it! Well done! I'm wondering if it would be easier to actually use a metal bar to put pressure down on the ribbon, like one of those roller bars from a printer. I always grab and keep them when I can because their hard and perfectly straight. Just clamp that guy down(not super hard obviously) across the ribbon and use the hot air gun, might have worked. Might have to look for one of these guys with the screen issue, it would be the only way I could afford one of these guys!

Good work, very informative!

Like someone else suggested, I'd check the fuses but I'd also check those optos and power isolation chips. Could be even simpler then the display, but if someone took the display apart they might have also overloaded the inputs somehow...

Finally a repair video that ends in a repair!

Hello Mate.... great videos. Here's another method for re-attaching the flex.... quick and dirty. Teflon sheet and Weller variable temperature soldering iron with very large tip. Teflon sheet prevents burning. Just wipe back and forth (slower/higher, faster/lower heat transfer) while viewing the display for corrected graphics. Got the idea from form/fill heat sealing industrial machines. Cheers.....

"You bloody beauty!" Gets me every time.

Awesome Dave.

Dr. Murphy again.... but your positive attitude helps a great deal!

wow, que video!! muy emocionante cada minuto de este!

Glad to see you got it half fixed! Now its just the other half...

Hi Dave ..same problem with the scope no display..but did a firmware flash and it good now

I tried to repair an lcd matrix with lines by covering the strip with kapton tape and swipe the soldering iron across the contact and it worked (for a few hours :) )

That is a heck of a nice scope. I started my Electrical Engineer program at my local college, and we don't have anything that nice. I am hopefully going to buy an old Oscilloscope next semester to assist with project troubleshooting.

useful instrument for probing HV power supplies to categorizes waveforms on the primary.

Dave, great repair job on the LCD - shame about the scope inoperability! I have a label printer with a hot bar connected screen with a similar problem. I also have a rework station, a pencil with a rubber and a tonne of perseverance - so I'm going to try your excellent repair method! What's to lose? I can't use the bloody thing as I can't see what's on the display!

+EEVblog if both scopes are not working I'm thinking you could narrow it down to the main ADC area. Perhaps even the circuit that switches between the 2 channels to the one ADC input. Does it use a single (differential pair) input to the ADC? I think with the schematic you could at least isolate the fault pretty quickly. Hmm... I want to see it fixed!

Used to repair Saab SID units with this problem. A piece of masking tape over the "hot bar" and a clothes iron on max. Plenty of heat and pressure from the iron and the tape to hold the flex in place .

You guys think Dave'll say In Like Fly... yep yes he will. Just kiddin'. It's why we love you Dave.

I have seen Nintendo Colors with this exact same problem, and the ribbon cable that the mainboard connected the LCD had to have solder reflowed at the screen connector.

Dave's razor, percussion maintenance...

Good on you, mate!

From 1996 to 1999 we used 240x64 displays from Varitronix that also had the 64 rows hot bar attached. ALL of them failed. So since 1999 we use Winstar and Bolymin displays. They use longer zebra strips where each of the four sides 16 additional contacts are used to connect the rows. Those displays are a bit wider though but that's ok.

Nice work

"the signal path" did a Tear down and Repair of one of these.

Sweet find!

I have one of these, but one of channels is blown as well as the screen... Those gray pads on the chips are sil pads as they contact with the metal casework which acts as a heatsink....

I'm a fan club in Thailand I follow all your videos. And I hope that one day I can send things to you. And you unpack it in the mailbag.

At the end the last defect (after repairing the lcd) @6:03 i noticed just below the LMC66, a resistor(i think) that has been replaced. The soldering looks sloppy. Might be something going on around that part?

Some chipis and a chicken dinner hahhahaha. I laughed a lot! thanks for sharing. I enjoy every single moment with this man I learned a lot!!!

Dave, it's VOGT electronic AG (used to be a German company founded by Hans Vogt in 1934, he has patents for making magnetic cores) nowadays it's SUMIDA AG (from Japan).

I've always wondered how they manage to manufacture these zebra strips as they're an absolute pain to get working once they've been separated

Great video. I took a chance on a Fluke 193C , a very nice scopemeter. Yes all the data and service info is available. What is not available is the top most c over to the scopemeter.Fluke freely says the part is obsolete unless you send it to them. The female power Jack which is btw reversed with positive casing and negative pin is also obsolete but there are dozens available from Mouser etc. I love fluke but their obsolete policy is a bit skewed. These are 2-3 thousand dollar meters on eBay or junk. I got mine for 500. I'll eventually find someone to part one out.

Amazing instrument

At 7:40 I was so disappointed that you didn't point out the chip's name is Jill. :( Good on ya, Jill!

"VOGT" N9, Vogt Electronic seems to now be part of Suminda who produce shiny inductive components (according to their website).

29:23 Handheld Scopes are usually finicky, most of the time not that accurate as well, that thing is really expansive but if you damage it it will never work as good as factory, good job on the screen alignment though that’s really tough to work on 👍🏻

You did actually manage to affect the screen a little by twisting it- 3:09 one of the lines in the center switches from black to white

Nice job on the LCD there, regardless of the PITA line that won't die, you certainly have more patience than I do, I'd have sourced a replacement screen myself... :P It reminds me of a Tricorder from Star Trek too, just without the blinkies and bleeps... :P

GENIUS!

Fantastic!

You won the battle but the war isn't over! You've gotta give the scope inputs another look😎

This is a *widely* known issue with these. Multiple eBay sellers offering fixes for this exact symptom.

I'm so jelous about the scopemeter, i can't even afford a proper Multimeter :/

Love it!

The moment I saw those vertical bars, I thought that was going to be the issue as there are several HP printers that get this same problem (they just have simple 2 line lcds but it's the same stuck-on cable like that, and a very similar issue). The fix for the printer was to simply take a flat screwdriver and press down on the cable, slowly working your way up. Although heating it up would be a great idea, I'll definitely try that next time I get one of those printers!

I just realized that I've watched a ton of your videos and I don't even know what your name is!

I just talked to John Bender (from Shermer High School) and he was a bit disappointed that he stole the wrong Scopemeter from shop class - that is, one with three problems instead of the two that he knew about. He would still like Dave to attempt a repair of the oscilloscope section of the scopemeter. The "Breakfast Club" sends their best to the Jones family and all the viewers.

Hi from Canada Dave :-)

oh and btw , you can fit hard foam or styro between the flex and the metal pressure casing , i fixed a gameboy with it someday