T35 white all the time

Archive
1

I had to leave my Spider kit alone for a while but now trying to get back into it by running a tutorial program with the camera and button.
The program runs ok except the LCD just stays white. I ran a simpler program to PWM an external LED and that works ok.

I don’t see or smell anything odd; the cap on back of LCD looks normal. All connectors are seated.
There aren’t many miles on this LCD so hopefully it’s not dead.

This is probably unrelated but I first noticed the LCD problem while trying to upgrade to 4.2 on a new computer which had not been used to run any programs before.
I got an error message about not being able to connect to the device so I went back to the older computer with 4.1 to make sure the Spider wasn’t dead. I confirmed the Spider was alive but the LCD remained white. I think this last paragraph is not relevant to the LCD problem but just in case.

2

Build a Gadgeteer project with only the display and run. The device will then be initialized for the display.

3

Shouldn’t the camera tutorial program take care of that? It’s about as simple as it gets.
I will try a Hello World program if I can before dinner.

4

I tried this Gadgeteer example from the wiki: http://wiki.tinyclr.com/index.php?title=Gadgeteer_Display
Added a line to echo the X-Y coords to the console and I always get 0 0 regardless of where I touch.

While messing around I did see the LCD backlight turn mostly off but it’s back on 100% of the time.

5

Andre, same result (of course no X-Y reporting). Successful build and deploy then Program Started.
LCD is just white.
I had no problem with this LCD when I first got it so I know it was ok for a while.

6

I replaced all cables and no difference. I will call GHI.
Weird how it acknowledges a touch occurred but does not return the correct coordinates.
Thanks for your help Mike & andre.m

7

As a last effort I inspected the rear LCD circuit under magnification and found lots of white stuff between some pins on the large fine pitch connector. After use of contact cleaner it looks better but not great. During the test program the backlight no longer looks evenly white but has blobs and streaks in various shades of grey. I can’t tell if I partially fixed it or ruined it.
I sent an email to GHI. I’m about 6.5 months out and they have a 6 month policy but there’s hardly any usage so I’ll wait and see.