Casio FZ-1 fun stuff

[gmeredith]

Anyone out there done any fun things with an FZ1/10M/20M?

I had to replace the backlight in my display, so I made up an LED backlight out of a handful of LED's instead of buying a replacement backlight that was going to wear out again.

It's worked really great!! And it will last forever, and you can choose different colours for backlighting (or even mix different coloured LED's on the same backlight for a funky whacky look!!)


This is what I did:

Just buy 8x 3mm round LED's of about 200mcd brightness. I chose orange coloured, but red is a bit dull for reading the screen with. Green is good. Buy them from any electronics shop like Radio Shack etc.

Solder a row of 4 of them together in series, so that the 4 of them will fit along the top of the FZ screen area. Test them with a 9V battery. Now make another row of 4 exactly the same. Test them also. Now open up your FZ-1 and remove the plastic backplate that keeps the backlight in place. Remove the backlight, and also a little transformer that powers the backlight (its on the circuit board that the backlight plugs into).

Take the plastic backplate and cut a large rectangular hole in it the size of the FZ LCD screen, so that it resembles a picture frame. Now reinstall it on the back of the FZ screen where it normally goes. Sticky tape a piece of white paper over the rectangular hole, as a light diffuser.

Sticky tape or glue the LED rows to the white paper along the top and bottom, around the perimeter of the backplate, facing inwards. The tips of the LEDs should just protrude past the picture frame part, so that they are in the screen area just slightly.

Solder these 2 rows individually to a toggle switch, and solder the switch to a 9V battery clip. Plug in a 9V battery and switch the switch on, and test that each row of LED's works.

Close the hood of your FZ and have a look at your FZ screen from the front (dont switch your FZ on yet). You should see a glow!! Mount the LED switch somewhere convenient on the FZ casing, like the back, so that you can switch it on and off as needed. The battery can be mounted externally, if you wish, in a holder, or you could mount it inside the FZ and open the hood to replace it. If you are keen enough, you can power it off the floppy drive +12V power wire (in this case, use a 100 ohm resistor in series on each 4x LED bank line) and have it powered off the FZ instead.

Finally, cover the whole back of the screen, LEDs and wiring with some insulation tape, to prevent any short outs with other parts inside the FZ-1.

Put your FZ back together and power it up. Switch on your backlight and enjoy!

If you use tri-coloured LED's, it might be possible to make some kind of colour light chaser circuit to power the backlight and totally trip out while sampling hehe!

Cheers, Graham