Pro-95 L.E.D. Mod?

[Bentley]

Anyone ever attempt to modify the factory LED's? Mine are starting to dim out a little (unless I'm just jaded by the burst of light coming from my 97) I was thinking of replacing them, perhaps with blue .... maybe red.

I'm not very savvy with circut boards, so, if it is a major ordeal I will just deal with dim LED's.

 

[VintageJon]

Circuit board, PCB, rework advice.

Have:
25W iron with clean,smooth, well-tinned tip.
Excellent soldering skills...

Do removal with Solder Wick.

Use minimum heat to do the job...

Have never had to rework a GRE or Uniden PCB, but fear for the traces from experience with 1000's of PCB's over the years.

Best Luck.

73's
Jon

 

[VintageJon]

Actually the chance of an LED becoming "dim" is extremely remote. A poor connection or a
resistor changing value, or power supply weakness are all more likely suspects.

(He said after he already pushed the submit button...)

73's,
Jon

 

[Bentley]

Thanks for the reply Jon, I think the LED is actually as bright as its ever been, but I may just be used to the LED's on the pro97 which is MUCH brighter. Oh well, sounds like its not a job for me. Curcuit boards just arent my thing.

Thanks Again!

 

[PhilJSmith67]

It is possible to replace the LED's, but it qualifies as a modification "for experts only." Or, maybe it's for risk-takers only. I took mine apart, looked at the pair of LEDs which are about the 4x the size of a salt crystal, closed that baby back up and said to myself, "Green suits me just fine."

 

[VintageJon]

Won't touch Surface Mount here as I'm too old to see it...

High Brightness LEDs are available, but they draw a lot more current so battery-life may be affected.
Usual figure is 20mAH of these...

73's to all my fellow old blind farts out there,
Jon

 

[Russell]

I can't see the green. There are only two LEDs in there. How hard could that be? Where could I order two bright blue to replace them?

Thanks,
Russell

 

[KT4HX]

Thanks for the reply Jon, I think the LED is actually as bright as its ever been, but I may just be used to the LED's on the pro97 which is MUCH brighter. Oh well, sounds like its not a job for me. Curcuit boards just arent my thing.

Thanks Again!

Exactly so. The Pro-95 has never been known for good backlighting, though it is a terrific scanner. Fortunately for us, the manufacturers have finally decided we needed to see the screens with much less eye strain!

 

[DELCOLHFC]

PRO-92 LED mod......

I found an article on www.dkmods.com (Ithink) on the LED change out to a brighter set.
I didn't have any luck tracking down the part numbers they mentioned (didn't try real hard either), so I just dug into my son's electronics parts bin (he's 9, I'm scared) and came up with a pair of rather large, 5mm if I remember correctly, yellow/amber LED's from a bag of 20 assorted sizes and colors from RS. I then opened up my PRO-92 (almost if not the exact same display as the 95) and was amazed at how small the factory green ones were. I popped them loose with just a quick touch of the iron while applying just a touch of prying force. On the back of the display there is a plastic plate where there are two small depressions, I filed the epoxy body of the two new LED's down to where they fit snugly into those depressions. Using very thin hookup wire I fed the newly shrunken diodes in series (same as the factory ones) from the original PCB pads. To finish it up I used some brush on Liquid Paper correction fluid to "paint" the backside of the new diodes to help direct as much of their light towards the display as possible. The end result is a Pro-92 with an orange backlight, if you line up my 92, 96 and 97 side by side the difference in brightness is about the same between between the 92 and the 96 as it is between the 96 and 97. The modded 92 is the dimmest of the three but it is brighter than the factory green and alot easier to see.
I'm not sure what the threshold age is for old farts, but most days I feel I deserve the tag. I did all of this work looking over my glasses......