[abarth]

Hi there,

I have a strange artifact on the right display. It is a small black “scratch” with a slight distortion around it.
It is not a complete line and moves when moving the head or the IPD adjustment.
Is this a ribbon cable issue, or a mirror issue or a led array issue (like dirt on the transparant housing which protects the led array)?

Any hints welcome 😉

• This topic was modified 3 months ago by abarth.

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I’d love to see this answered by someone who knows what they’re talking about. I’ve had this issue on several consoles, all of which have their ribbons soldered.

I can at least say that:
– yes, this ribbon cable has been resoldered too, but I had this issue already before resoldering, although not that visible and on a slightly different position
– I reopened my VB, detached the ribbon and unscrewed its LED-PCB, blew cautiously into the direction of the mirror, cleaned the transparant housing of the LED-array with a soft cloth (it was not dirty before but I did it nevertheless), rescrewed it, reassembled everything and now the “scratch” is less visible and a bit shifted to the right end of the screen.

Overall I think I will leave it as it is for now.

This is dirt on the plastic lens itself and is a non technical issue. It can be hard to get rid of though and you have to be careful not to make matters worse by scratching the plastic while cleaning it.

You can use an eraser and you can apply quite some force with that without really damaging anything. After that, cleaning it with rubbing alcohol and a microfiber cloth can help you get rid of this.

I have had some cases where I really had to go at it, but with a lot of trying, got rid of it.

What I cannot explain, is why it seems to move when you move your head, maybe the dirt is just a really small speck on the tiny LED and it just seems to move, while you see the moving of the mirrors trying to make the whole image.
Which also explains why it can be so hard to get rid of and isn’t detectable by eye on the lens itself.

Though it is a lens problem a 100% sure. Sometimes you see lots of seemingly scratches as well, which might have you think the display is ruined. Those are normally way easier to get rid of than the one in your case. Though almost always, it is dirt on the plastic itself.

Thank you very much for the detailed response 🙂