Sharp EL5100 calculator.

Nov 17, 2006 9 Replies

Anyone know what causes dark clouds to gather along the top edge of the LCD?!



This calculator has been sitting on a shelf for years and when I tried to use it found the batteries were flat, the seals had begun to sweat a little and my first though was electrolyte contamination. Careful examination showed the slight leakage was more or less confined to the individual button cell compartments, the LCD internally has a Cd plated metal surround which was pristine - no evidence of electrolyte contamination.



To make sure I dismantled the calculator and stuck all the buttons on double sided tape to keep them in the right order while I scrubbed the casing with detergent. The plastic window must be polarising as there was no sign of the clouds with this off the LCD.



Another thing that makes me doubt electrolyte contamination is the cause, the various enunciators along the top edge of the LCD seem to cut an overlap out of the cloud effect. Ideas anyone?!



TIA.


On Fri, 17 Nov 2006 16:52:27 +0000, ian field Has Frothed:

I would say just a deterioration of the crystal due to air seeping in?

Pierre Salinger Memorial Hook, Line & Sinker, June 2004 COOSN-266-06-25794

Would that clear around an active display segment? It seems more likely that air ingress would cause complete and permanent malfunction in the affected area. But then I'm obviously hoping its not air seepage!

Bleeds? Just a poor display. The original Radio Shack Pocket Computer is notorious for this.

Ian-

I don't know about yours, but mine has a completely black LCD display.

I haven't done anything about it after several years, but it would be neat to restore it to operation. Does anyone know where I would look to find a new display?

Fred

Sadly that may be true - some of the Radio Shack calculators were Sharp ones in disguise.

If its a Sharp, simply google for it there are people out there selling spares but at inflated prices! My EL5100 has a little bit of sentimental value because it was a present from a relative when I started college, and I quite like the 10 or so memories that can store 80 term formulas, but I have plenty of other calculators that do most things I need and I didn't like the look of the Sharp spares prices.

All were Sharp or Casio. See

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etc for more.

Ian-

I see what you mean. However, I was only able to find two places that listed the part (VVLLF8034XE-1). One, bigwarehouse.com.au, listed it for $97.25. I assume this is in Australian dollars.

The other, Partstore.com, listed it as "not available". They have a reverse-lookup that shows the display is also used in the EL506D calculator, which I happen to have. Sadly, the EL506D display is about half as long as the one on the EL5100.

A year or two back, I was able to obtain a user manual for a Sharp microwave by calling a number in South Florida. Perhaps I can locate a display by following that route. Or maybe not, at that kind of price!

Fred

Refusing to believe I could be so unlucky as to get a leaky LCD, I started to wonder if LCDs "stagnate" if left for a long time - maybe the liquid crystals start to align together in a way that blocks light, the fact that the LCD seems to have cleared round the arrow that shows LH display overflow, this area had been particularly badly affected. It may be my imagination or wishful thinking, but the clouded area seems to have receded slightly after leaving the calculator on top of one of the HiFi speakers for a couple of days and playing a Black Sabbath CD on repeat all

24/7.

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