Use your experience to repair an expensive digital caliper. Turns out the seal around the case had been misplaced in the plastic die cast seat. After dusting off and a clean install, display is back to life! THank you for the tip!
Thank you! This helped save my Oxo kitchen scale by visualizing the issue. The LCD was display just like the in the video. The design was different, this used a ribbon cable (not the clip in kind). I squeezed it into the circuit board and the display worked great. To fix the issue, I placed a thin piece of plastic so that it would increase the pressure by a little bit, enough that the display is now perfect.
Surprisingly easy fix, in fact for me just opening the case and fastening the screws was enough! Who knew. This saved my small kitchen clock and made my day (surprising how hard it is to find a small unobtrusive battery powered radio controlled clock that reliably shows the time and nothing else). Thank you so much!
Those Zebra strips have always been a problem. What you did was the proper way to correct the problem. Some people will even go a little too far and take the Zebra strips off the LCD display which is a big mistake. Oils from handling Zebra strips can cause all kinds of problems. I used to replace them on all kinds of test equipment and learned the hard way.
Just to thank you for posting this repair video. My Fluke 77 had the same issues, and I cleaned the LCD circuit board contacts as you've indicated. Presto! This cleared the issues up completely! Thanks!
Thank you so much Eric! I managed to fix my watch's LCD that somehow popped out of its plastic latch. As its was my first watch from many years ago, it means a lot to have it up and running again.
Just followed your video and was just about to dispose of my FLUKE 73 III It worked brilliantly so thank you for taking the time to help others. I now have a brand new meter ;)
It worked - Thanks! I looked at three different videos and each showed a different method (alcohol, silver conductive grease & buying aftermarket connectors) - might as well start with the easiest and see what happens. Glad to have the display back on my 27 year old Fluke 87.
Thanks for the info. I have a Fluke 87 that has been tucked away for about 8 years because of the ghost numbers on the LCD. I always figured it needed a new LCD so I used another meter. Came across your video, gave it a try and brought the LCD back to life. Now I can use the Fluke 87 again. Easy to do and a cheep fix for an expensive meter.
I am so happy, You have taught me how to fix or repaired my Fluke 87 multimeter, I am so please. My digital display is showing , just like new. You is a great teacher. Thank you very much.
Thank you for this video, I was able to fix my 9-year old digital scale. Followed your instructions to wipe the connectors with alcohol and now the lcd display is as good as new.
Did Fluke have a lifetime warranty on their meters a while back when they were more premium? Is that no longer offered because the construction quality has been revised for affordability?
I use one of those pencil eraser to clean the contacts first and then I use acetone to clean them. I also clean the ends of the contact strip with acetone and air blast everything clean and dry. Fixes it right up.
Thank you so much, I had that problem for a few months now and lately I was getting frustrated with it that I thought of throwing it in the garbage and buy another one even though they are pricey, thank you again so much😀😀👍👍👍
Really well put together Eric. I like the way you fast forward through the boring bits (that other people make us watch) and get right to the essential points. A good learning experience.
WOW My fluke 83 has been doing that for about 4 years and its 25 years old. So I asked a question why does it have this problem. In the time it took to watch this video I had it fixed. I can't thank you enough thank you thank you thank you!
I fixed the broken LCD display on my alarm clock by heating it with a hair dryer and then giving it few taps with my knuckles. Completely restored now.
I know a little of English language, because in my work I have to Know English and French Languages, but I understand your problem, cause I also have sometimes problems with technical words! Then I used to go to the "configurations": in the "right corner of the video Image", click on the "wheel" and after the opening of the "new image", select "legends", click on it and there you have a new "image" with: all the word translation languages, where you can choose your preferred language. I hope have helped you a little, Marcio Amorim Rego ! An embrace from: carlitos
I also use contact cleaner on the pink contact pad that makes contact with the circuit board. It's very amazing how sensitive those LCD's are to a minute amount of voltage drop.
A wary old and effective trick that are being used in the PC repair industri is to use the brown and blue ballpen eraser and some 90-95% Isopropyl-alcohol.
Gracias me sirvió este video era lo que necesitaba para mi reloj tenía lo mismo solo apreté bien los tornillos y me aparecieron el resto de números que faltaba gracias 🙏
Works like a charm. ALSO I'm sorry you broke off one of your little retaining clips (in your video) But that too was instructive and cautioned me to be watchful because I may have done the same thing as well as being mindful to orient the mode selecting rotary switch during reassembly, So let that be a lesson to would be posters in a "how to video" that your "mistakes can be equally informative and should not be "edited" out Great job and thanks for saving me money and frustration TIM
Totally agree! It's probably not too uncommon for people who are making videos like this to edit out all the little mistakes, simply because they have too much pride to include the mistakes in their videos. But just as we can learn from our own mistakes, we can also learn from other people's mistakes as long as they are being presented to us.
I find with the zebra strips on LCD displays and carbon contacts in remote controls it's always better to use methyl hydrate then rubbing alcohol though it did work well for you and that's great. Also you might try 99% instead of 70% alcohol. Looks good though.
couple years ago i fixed gearbox position (automatics -prnd321 thing) displays in my cars. for some reason it had zebra strips too, lcd like that could be with soldered wires, but no! still works (at least one shows proper gear, another car has offset position indicator for some reason now) , learned that from playing with some calculator doing things like in the beginning in the video.
Nice. You got lucky. The process of cleaning the zebra's and solder pad surfaces is always a crapshoot. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. So, you won this time. The amount of pressure against the strip is CRITICAL. Can't be too much, can't be too little. Sometimes the strips deform slightly or "shrink" slightly over the years, which can be enough to cause them to loose good contact. Even a few thousandths of an inch of dimensional change is enough for them to not work. So the shimming approach does sometimes work (but use only a TINY amount of shimming. If there is too much, the strip will get "squeezed" too much when reassembly, causing deformation, and the same poor contact problem). By the way, although Fluke no longer sells replacement strips (the woman in Service Parts actually laughed at me when I called--"Sir, your meter is 28 years old, we don't have parts for it anymore"), the strips for SOME models of Fluke DMM's are available from one or two places on the Net if you search hard enough. I bought a few for my 87's a few years back. Heartbreaking to consider trashing a $400 (more now) meter because of 20 bucks worth of silicone. Best wishes.
thx to your experience and a few other youtube videos covering "Zebra" rubbery conductive contact strips that are used to connect circuit board contacts to LCD contacts and how to clean them - i was successfully able to restore my LCD display functioning on a very expensive race car digital dash display - cost $0 - just 10 minutes of my time and some research and patience
Just replaced the "elastomeric strips" in my Fluke 77 after 30 years due to missing character segments in the display but that wasn't the fix. One of the PCB solder connections to the elastomer strips had rotten lead which didn't respond to contact cleaner. Scraped it with an Exacto knife then more cleaner. Works good now. Save your money and remove the 4 screws holding the LCD tower ass'y so you can examine the PCB contacts and clean them. If that doesn't help then try new strips.
Very cool ! I'm trying to fix the LCD on my car radio. I don't see a rubber connector piece though, like here and on other videos. It instead seems to have a tiny row of female/male connector pins . I'm not sure if that's the right term - I'm just starting to learn more about electronics...
Thanx, i need to try this on my Beckman 3020 as it has the same problem, and i "fixed" it the same way (putting more pressure onto the LCD) but the LCD went dark at some places, so i´ll give your kind of fix a go, as it won´t get whorse...;)
Use your experience to repair an expensive digital caliper. Turns out the seal around the case had been misplaced in the plastic die cast seat. After dusting off and a clean install, display is back to life! THank you for the tip!
Thanks to your video, I was able to repair my Fluke 85. Display is better now than it was 20 years ago.
Thank you! This helped save my Oxo kitchen scale by visualizing the issue. The LCD was display just like the in the video. The design was different, this used a ribbon cable (not the clip in kind). I squeezed it into the circuit board and the display worked great. To fix the issue, I placed a thin piece of plastic so that it would increase the pressure by a little bit, enough that the display is now perfect.
Surprisingly easy fix, in fact for me just opening the case and fastening the screws was enough! Who knew. This saved my small kitchen clock and made my day (surprising how hard it is to find a small unobtrusive battery powered radio controlled clock that reliably shows the time and nothing else). Thank you so much!
Those Zebra strips have always been a problem. What you did was the proper way to correct the problem. Some people will even go a little too far and take the Zebra strips off the LCD display which is a big mistake. Oils from handling Zebra strips can cause all kinds of problems. I used to replace them on all kinds of test equipment and learned the hard way.
alcohol.... the solution to all of life's problems
Hobbyists can get 99% Alcohol from Amazon. Pure acetone can be used to clean connections or left over flux.
Hahaha !
The cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems - Homer Simpson
Just to thank you for posting this repair video. My Fluke 77 had the same issues, and I cleaned the LCD circuit board contacts as you've indicated. Presto! This cleared the issues up completely! Thanks!
+100nortonfan Your welcome!
Thank you so much Eric! I managed to fix my watch's LCD that somehow popped out of its plastic latch. As its was my first watch from many years ago, it means a lot to have it up and running again.
Just followed your video and was just about to dispose of my FLUKE 73 III
It worked brilliantly so thank you for taking the time to help others.
I now have a brand new meter ;)
My fluke 87 was saved by this video. Thank you uploader, for sharing this video.
Fixed my old 7-segment clock thanks to this, much obliged good sir!
Thanks. Your video helped me bring back my FLUKE87 display. Thanks again!!!
It worked - Thanks! I looked at three different videos and each showed a different method (alcohol, silver conductive grease & buying aftermarket connectors) - might as well start with the easiest and see what happens. Glad to have the display back on my 27 year old Fluke 87.
Thanks for putting this up ! I have a fluke 88 that was doing the exact same thing and the cleaning of the contacts fixed it.
My contacts were slightly different than yours but I followed your logic and actually fixed 95% of my screen! Thank you so much.
Thanks for the info. I have a Fluke 87 that has been tucked away for about 8 years because of the ghost numbers on the LCD. I always figured it needed a new LCD so I used another meter. Came across your video, gave it a try and brought the LCD back to life. Now I can use the Fluke 87 again. Easy to do and a cheep fix for an expensive meter.
I am so happy, You have taught me how to fix or repaired my Fluke 87 multimeter, I am so please. My digital display is showing , just like new. You is a great teacher. Thank you very much.
Genius! Thanks to you I found a simple fix to my exercise bike speedometer. Many thanks!
Thank you for this video, I was able to fix my 9-year old digital scale. Followed your instructions to wipe the connectors with alcohol and now the lcd display is as good as new.
Thanks much for this. I ended up lightly scraping the contacts with a precision flathead screwdriver and all segments came back.
Superb instructions. I followed step by step with a Fluke Automotive (Fluke 88) and it has restored it perfectly
Glad to help.
Did Fluke have a lifetime warranty on their meters a while back when they were more premium? Is that no longer offered because the construction quality has been revised for affordability?
Thanks so much! You just fixed my jewelry scale just cleaning the adhesive and adding electrical tape. Genius!
I use one of those pencil eraser to clean the contacts first and then I use acetone to clean them. I also clean the ends of the contact strip with acetone and air blast everything clean and dry. Fixes it right up.
Thank you so much, I had that problem for a few months now and lately I was getting frustrated with it that I thought of throwing it in the garbage and buy another one even though they are pricey, thank you again so much😀😀👍👍👍
Worked for me nicely on my poorly designed exercise bike LCD screen, thank you! :)
Thanks a lot, we have the same LCD issue with Casio DQ - 750F Digital clock and we did a alcohol cleaning on BUS from LCD to PCB and it did worked.
I have the same issue with a cb radio but the practical application is exactly the same. Thanks for sharing this video. Kind regards. Paul.
Really well put together Eric. I like the way you fast forward through the boring bits (that other people make us watch) and get right to the essential points. A good learning experience.
Just saved an old expensive Digital Vernier Caliper from the scrap heap using this method. Thanks.
Thanks for your help..... I used alcohol and cleaned up the strips really good and it all works perfect.
Thanks again...
Thanks Eric, fixed my Fluke 73 perfectly using your vid
WOW My fluke 83 has been doing that for about 4 years and its 25 years old. So I asked a question why does it have this problem. In the time it took to watch this video I had it fixed. I can't thank you enough thank you thank you thank you!
I fixed the broken LCD display on my alarm clock by heating it with a hair dryer and then giving it few taps with my knuckles. Completely restored now.
Gonna try this one on my motorcycle....
@@stuartracing1 How did that go, Paul?
@@Tom-bf6nm I didn't get any change.. I wish I did,but nothing...
Thank you! Fixed the display on my fish scales with this. Adding a bit of sponge on the back of the display works well to keep it flush to the screen.
Hey man, thank you very much for helping! I'm not fluent in english so my daughter is helping me, but your video helped lots!
I know a little of English language, because in my work I have to Know English
and French Languages, but I understand your problem, cause I also have sometimes problems with technical words! Then I used to go to the "configurations": in the "right corner of the video Image", click on the "wheel" and after the opening of the "new image", select "legends", click on it and there you have a new "image" with: all the word translation languages, where you can choose your preferred language. I hope have helped you a little, Marcio Amorim Rego !
An embrace from: carlitos
Thank you for making that video. I could finally fix the display of my kitchen scale I really depend on!
Thank you! You just saved me from having to buy a new LCD watch!
Pencil eraser is a great contact cleaner, especially for battery contacts.
had one of these fluke 85 with a issue with screen for over 30 year and 5 min after watching your video its fix thank you
Congratulations and thanks a lot for your video, sir. Greetings from Madrid...!
I also use contact cleaner on the pink contact pad that makes contact with the circuit board. It's very amazing how sensitive those LCD's are to a minute amount of voltage drop.
Thanks so much - this gave me hope on an old machine.
just got one off eBay and that saved me money and a headache! thank you
This method worked for me on different make multimeter. Thanks for sharing.
Great tips Mr. Eric! very useful and informative. I'll try that with my bushnell yardage pro 1000 where the middle digit is getting washed out.
Cleaned and now it works again thanks for the video
GREAT !!! I make exactly what you show and ... my Fluke 85 display return OK !!!! Thanks a lot !!!!!!! (& GOOD YEAR !!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Very helpful! Cleaned mine with alcohol on both the board and spongy pad and it made the segments stronger; less faint!
A wary old and effective trick that are being used in the PC repair industri is to use the brown and blue ballpen eraser and some 90-95% Isopropyl-alcohol.
Thank you! Tried your solution and it worked!
Nice tutorial, thanks!
Amazingly simple. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. Cleaning its contacts worked with my digital watch. 👍
Excellent information and solution!
Just tried this on 2 fluke 87 meters and it worked great on both. Thank you for posting.
Thank you! Very useful especialy for FLUKE
I have exactly the same issue with my multimeter and thought all was lost, but no! Thanks for the tip.
I just tried your fix, it worked perfict thank you so mutch
Excellent. I am having same problem in my Fluke 87
Using this to fix a faulty meat thermometer :) thanks for the video!
CONGRATULATIONS! 😍❤️💯👏🥇
Nice job, one minor suggestion. I avoid 70% isopropyl. Use denatured, or at minimum 90%. It leaves less residue than 70.
It worked very well for me, thank you
Gracias me sirvió este video era lo que necesitaba para mi reloj tenía lo mismo solo apreté bien los tornillos y me aparecieron el resto de números que faltaba gracias 🙏
Thank you very much. You saved me 332 USD from the pirates at Fluke. They want 200 for service ?!?!? and 132 for mandatory calibration. CROOKS
Thanks for your video. My JBL Horizon clock has a similar problem with its LCD display, I'll give it a try
Works like a charm. ALSO I'm sorry you broke off one of your little retaining clips (in your video) But that too was instructive and cautioned me to be watchful because I may have done the same thing as well as being mindful to orient the mode selecting rotary switch during reassembly, So let that be a lesson to would be posters in a "how to video" that your "mistakes can be equally informative and should not be "edited" out Great job and thanks for saving me money and frustration TIM
Totally agree! It's probably not too uncommon for people who are making videos like this to edit out all the little mistakes, simply because they have too much pride to include the mistakes in their videos. But just as we can learn from our own mistakes, we can also learn from other people's mistakes as long as they are being presented to us.
This worked for me on the Fluke 87 True RMS !!!
Thanks for your advice man, helped me a lot :)
used alky and works like new again! not fluke brand it is innova but same principle..nice vid..
It works!! Thank you very much!
great information, Thank you
thank you! I'm going to try this with my landline phone. Thx.
I find with the zebra strips on LCD displays and carbon contacts in remote controls it's always better to use methyl hydrate then rubbing alcohol though it did work well for you and that's great. Also you might try 99% instead of 70% alcohol. Looks good though.
couple years ago i fixed gearbox position (automatics -prnd321 thing) displays in my cars. for some reason it had zebra strips too, lcd like that could be with soldered wires, but no! still works (at least one shows proper gear, another car has offset position indicator for some reason now) , learned that from playing with some calculator doing things like in the beginning in the video.
Awesome video, worked perfectly. 8sed a hair dryer instead of toaster and the screen is perfect again
Instead of alcohol, I'd use "tuner cleaner" to remove and neutralize any oxidation on the contacts.
This worked for me. Fluke 29
Oooooh ya.. I broke the same tab too... No biggie.... It working great now
Worked a charm
Nice. You got lucky. The process of cleaning the zebra's and solder pad surfaces is always a crapshoot. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. So, you won this time. The amount of pressure against the strip is CRITICAL. Can't be too much, can't be too little. Sometimes the strips deform slightly or "shrink" slightly over the years, which can be enough to cause them to loose good contact. Even a few thousandths of an inch of dimensional change is enough for them to not work. So the shimming approach does sometimes work (but use only a TINY amount of shimming. If there is too much, the strip will get "squeezed" too much when reassembly, causing deformation, and the same poor contact problem). By the way, although Fluke no longer sells replacement strips (the woman in Service Parts actually laughed at me when I called--"Sir, your meter is 28 years old, we don't have parts for it anymore"), the strips for SOME models of Fluke DMM's are available from one or two places on the Net if you search hard enough. I bought a few for my 87's a few years back. Heartbreaking to consider trashing a $400 (more now) meter because of 20 bucks worth of silicone. Best wishes.
Thanks - very helpful
muchas gracias excelente video ..
Worked great!
Nice video. I'm going to have to try this with my bench PSU that's developing some LCD issues.
Very thanks sir. It such a big help ❤❤❤
thx to your experience and a few other youtube videos covering "Zebra" rubbery conductive contact strips that are used to connect circuit board contacts to LCD contacts and how to clean them - i was successfully able to restore my LCD display functioning on a very expensive race car digital dash display - cost $0 - just 10 minutes of my time and some research and patience
Just replaced the "elastomeric strips" in my Fluke 77 after 30 years due to missing character segments in the display but that wasn't the fix. One of the PCB solder connections to the elastomer strips had rotten lead which didn't respond to contact cleaner. Scraped it with an Exacto knife then more cleaner. Works good now. Save your money and remove the 4 screws holding the LCD tower ass'y so you can examine the PCB contacts and clean them. If that doesn't help then try new strips.
Very cool ! I'm trying to fix the LCD on my car radio.
I don't see a rubber connector piece though, like here and on other videos.
It instead seems to have a tiny row of female/male connector pins .
I'm not sure if that's the right term
- I'm just starting to learn more about electronics...
Excellent! I hope I can fix my pedometers for my stationary bike. The digits are completely screwed up.
Thanks for info...
Great! Now I can get back to 1985 without worrying.
Very good.
excellent
Nice, now going to try this with my jumbo sailing watch... 😕
Very helpful
useful,thank you.
Worked for me!
Thank you! :D
Thanx, i need to try this on my Beckman 3020 as it has the same problem, and i "fixed" it the same way (putting more pressure onto the LCD) but the LCD went dark at some places, so i´ll give your kind of fix a go, as it won´t get whorse...;)