15" Monitor - Looking for modular, easily modded design

[kdabr]

I've posted some bits about this project on modretro, but hit a brand new speedbump when nearly finished.

My Project: Taking a 90's network diagnostic terminal and converting it into an all in one




This was my nearly finished project. Screen looks great, doesnt it? Small problem- the backlight inverter board was fried, causing the screen to flicker to the point of being useless.

I figured since I had so much luck with the first monitor that I tore apart, the 2nd would be just as easy. Wrong.

The second monitor has one much larger PCB instead of 3 smaller ones. It uses short, delicate, thin, foil-ish ribbon cables instead of robust, wire-like ones (like the original screen)

Due to constraints set by the case being modded, the ideal screen would be less than 20mm thick...preferably thinner

The screen should have a res of at least 1024x768

I was just wondering if any of you guys knew of a 15" screen solution with robust wiring, and a modular series of interface/inverter/PSU boards that support a VGA interface? The boards dont have to be modular if the cables linking them to the screen are either A. Long enough or B. Extendable with relative ease

[bicostp]

You could try refurbishing the flickering inverter board with new capacitors, maybe the ones from the screen you know works. I've seen a similar problem on some older Dell LCDs and replacing the caps fixed the couple I've done it on. (In fact one is sitting on my desk right now.) That might fix it if the inverter isn't getting enough power.

If the problem is the inverter itself or the bulbs, they need to be replaced. I'm not sure how similar different inverters will be, so you'd probably have to rig up the entire inverter circuit from a different LCD if it's the problem.

As long as the capacitance rating (uf) on the new capacitor is the same as on the old one, and the new one's voltage rating is the same or higher, it won't blow up.

[kdabr]

The screen on the old monitor had a small crack in it anyway. I checked the caps and none of them appeared busted...the inverter board being shot was a hypothesis-it is entirely likely that the screen itself was defective....I went back to the place where I bought it to look at another screen and all of the screens they were selling (except the one I ended up buying with the oversized contoller board) had weird issues. There was a dell with epoxy on the screen, a gateway with crap color and contrast, an HP where the pixels were jiggling, and a sony with pressure damage

tl;dr- I bought this from a place where junkies take their broken crap. Who else would keep selling 15" monitors when you can get a new 17 incher for $100