Is it possible to use an old LCD [as a diffused light source? In other words, just have the CCFL on so that the LCD would be totally white?

See above answers, but you may be able to use the original backlight and inverter. If the inverter is separate from the control board you will be all set. The inverters usually have a 6-8 pin connector on them for power/control.It is usually very easy to back engineer the connections.

From my experience, they are very reliable and resilient, so don't be afraid to poke around with them. A typical pinout may look like this:+--------------------------+ | V+ V+ ON DIM V- V- | +--------------------------+ V+ being the source from the power supply.(usually 12 v) V- Being ground. ON is a (usually) active low input to turn it on (connect to v- to turn on)DIM is another input that uses a voltage to control the brightness of the ccflsIt is fairly easy to figure out the pinout.

Just find a large capacitor on the board, and trace its marked terminals back to the connector. The other pins can be figured out after the power is figured. Connect power, then just connect the other pins to V-/V+ until something happens.

(hopefully not blue smoke :P ) If you are really worried, keep V+ to 12 volts, and probe the other pins with ground or 3.3v, if nothing happens, then probe with 5v then the full 12. Hope this helps.

Roughly, an LCD is made with two perpendicular polarized filters sandwiching a liquid iodine center. If you remove all power to the LCD the iodine will align and "twist" the light such that the LCD appears transparent. Or, if you removed just one of the polarizing filters it will render the LCD clear regardless if the iodine is aligned or being perturbed by an AC voltage.

However, I would think it common all the layers of an LCD to be glued together. In such a case, given the light source is a CF tube, I would just remove the tube (careful - they are usually very small and made of glass) and inverter and re-purpose it however you want. However, white LED are often used.In this case I would think it much more efficient simply to buy white LEDs.

The cost of new LEDs will be far less then the cost of your time extracting them.

All you would need is the inverter, ccfl, and diffusive light box and accompanying layers. Just remove the lcd glass and keep the rest in the frame. I might do this also as I have an lcd screen with damaged connectors.

Sure, lcd's are made of about 7 layers all you have to do is remove the active layer and there you go.

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