Monitor Replacement Part 1

Alright, so I lied. I ripped that iMac to shreds last night. Heres how it all went down:

Note: I'm not going to go over how to dismantle the iMac base or the monitor. Apple's own repair guides are very good, and it's all pretty straight forward. 

So after cracking open the iMac's monitor, I realized there is one minor issues: the new LCD won't fit. The casing on the iMac's panel is, of course, especially designed for the case.

After removing the iMac's Panel and placing in the new one, I noticed that the screw holes that hold the iMac's panel to it's housing are in the way the new panel. I thought about using a Dremel to take them out but that would probably destroy the case.

So instead, I transplanted the new panel into the case of the iMac's panel. This is wasn't really hard, it was just very time consuming and one mishap means I need to buy a new $100 monitor which I would not be happy about. Luckily, it will be quite some time before I'm even able to test to see if this part of the mod worked and by then, there will be so many more things that could catastrophically gone wrong, it won't really matter.

Start by breaking the aluminum colored tape wherever it is present on the iMac's display.

Then, carefully unsnap the tabs that go all the way around the iMac's display and remove the metal surround.

Next de-tab and remove the black plastic surround

Remove the plastic that covers the circuit boards on the back, unscrew the screws holding the boards in place and carefully peel them back. (Fun Fact: I'm just going to stop saying "carefully" and "be careful" now because I don't like to nag (yes I do). Just promise me you'll be careful.)

Now the white plastic bit should just lift right off. There are a few sheets of plastic (diffusers and polarizers I believe) in between the two pieces so make sure you don't let any of them get away from you. I also feel it appropriate to note that it was this step when I had on of those "what the ef am I doing?" moments. Reminding me of this talk Mythbuster's Adam Savage gave regarding failure and these moments. It's worth a watch. 

Now here's where the two roads diverge in the woods. If you were happy with the brightness of your iMac's screen, you can probably try to leave the backlights in, saving yourself loads of work. However, if your screen was dim or non functional (like mine), you're going to need to swap the backlights from the iMac with the backlights (above) from your replacement monitor.

The backlights are pretty easy to remove from the iMac. Just push the exposed ends (where the wires are coming out) up and out of the case.

Once you have them both out, set everything aside and begin to dismantle your new monitor. The process is very similar to the iMac's, but screws are in different places and the tabs/snaps are slightly different. Once you've gotten the casing off of the panel, the actual LCD matrix is completely unprotected so I lay it down on some very soft cotton fabric to prevent any scratching. Yes, those are clean underwear, don't judge me! 

Now the backlight assembly on the new monitor is much easier to take apart than the one on the iMac (you can actually easily pull out the piece of Plexiglas. When I tried to do that on the iMac, I broke one of the tabs holding it in). This is a good thing because you'll need to take the whole thing (Plexiglass and lamps) out of the plastic case in order to get the lamps out.

Take off the last plastic surround by de-tabing it from the back and cutting the tape on the front.

As illustrated below, the backlight lamp is itself different on the new display than the iMac. Because it's so much longer on the back side, it won't fit into the iMac assembly and needs to be trimmed.

Because the lamp's shell is made of aluminum, it's pretty hard to just cut it. There are probably about a million better ways to do this, but I had limited supplies and it was getting late so I used a utility knife to score the cutline (making several passes to get a good dent in the aluminum) and a pair of pliers to twist it off. Make sure you cut enough off the back. If you leave too much, it won't slide all the way into it's new housing.

Once the new Backlights are ready, slide them into the iMac's backlight assembly from the side. I found this to be pretty difficult. Like I said before it would be easier if you could remove the Plexiglass, but when I tried, I broke one of the tabs.

When I got to this point, I was very excited to reassemble the whole thing. But not so fast. Turns out the ribbon cables that connect the circuit boards to the LCD matrix are located in different areas on the new display than they are on the iMac's display. Because of this, almost all of the tabs along the top of the white container are in the way and need to be removed.

After working on this for a while with my utility knife, I was getting nowhere. It was late, I was exhausted, and so I stopped for the night. I'm going to go buy a Dremel tool this afternoon which will make quick work of it and I will probably appreciate having as the project progresses.