Monitor Replacement Part 2

Spent $45 on the way home from school today to get a shiny new Dremel. I find it interesting that the cheapest Dremel you can buy (at Lowe's) is cordless. The cheapest corded versions started at $70. More powerful motors I guess...

Anyway, got back and took those tabs off in no time. (Don't judge, it's been a while since I've used a Dremel)

Now, there are more different tabs that need to be removed. When I put the diffusion screens from the new monitor onto the iMac's backlight assembly and tried to put the black plastic surround back on, I noticed these diffusers have tabs sticking out in places that the iMac's diffusers don't. I considered just using the iMac's diffusers but upon closer inspection, they one of the layers looked much different so I figure it's best to stick with what was made for the LCD matrix. So I just grabbed a pair of nice scissors and cut 'em right off clean and pretty like. And you're like, that's what she said!

Once everything was all happy with the diffusers, I decided to test-fit the LCD matrix. Too bad it was too big. And you're like... sorry, I'm very tired But seriously, the LCD matrix of the new display was a few millimeters bigger than the one that was installed in the iMac. To add insult to injury, the ribbon cables connecting the LCD matrix to its circuit board is a few millimeters shorter than the iMac's. Yuck. I'll save you the hours of thought process and trial and error that went into figuring this out and get right to it (lucky you!):

So you can't see it in this picture naturally so I've taken the liberty to draw on the track that the LCD matrix fits within. Now the bits on the left are what's in the way. There's stuff in the way on the top to but don't worry, we'll talk about that later. The track along the bottom is (I figure) critical for the LCD to rest on and along the right, the plastic is too thin and cutting the entire track would probably end up breaking it. So I used my Dremel to bring the track down to the surface level.

With the left side out of the way, we can tackle the next problem: the ribbon cables being too short. My solution for this was to completely cut the top of the black plastic surround. I was surprised it actually seemed to free up just enough room and at the same time, still managed to stay firmly connected to the assembly all by itself.

Things to note from the photo above:

1. When I cut the top off, I left the top corner intact. There is a tab/snap combo that is the key to the black plastic surround not needing any glue to stay on.
2. Taking the top off the black plastic surround left the aluminum from the backlight lamps exposed. I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not, so I just covered it with a strip of electrical tape. This has the added benefit of covering and smoothing out my shoddy Dremel job of the tabs on the top at the beginning of this post. 

I test fit the panel and everything seemed to work out. I'm going to wait to install it completely until I can get my hands on some of the double sided tape that was originally used on the black plastic surround to keep the LCD Matrix from sliding around.