FYI I received my OLED display from @zigmars recently and plan on attempting the conversion on my AK soon. Wish me luck, it’s not my first time soldering but it’s my first time desoldering something this expensive the AK disassembly I’m already comfortable with, but I have yet to decide if I want to remove the screen from the old headers or remove the headers too and replace them. While I have it apart, if anyone wants photos of anything specific within Analog Keys or related to swapping the screens, let me know.
Also, assuming I’m successful, I went with the green display, and I’ll be happy to share pictures of how it looks afterwards.
As soon as I’ve got time to get started on it (likely this week or weekend) I’ll be sure to take photos of the process.
Just go easy on me if my solder joints aren’t the prettiest I’ll do my best.
I can go ahead and put here the resources I’ll be referring to:
For disassembly of the AK - I will be sure to take my own photos where that guide doesn’t have quite everything to know, but it’s a pretty complete set of instructions for taking the boards out.
For those that may have missed it, this is the guide for the desoldering / soldering.
Video of my struggle when trying to desolder with just a bare soldering iron (65W Miniware TS100) + copper wire. Doing it from the display side.
I do not know if this is of any use, but that’s the best I’ve got.
I realize now that I am not transparent (there are moments of where I block the shot with my head for 20s by leaning in to see better what’s happening) - sorry for that.
For anybody doing it this way, cover all the plastic knobs and pieces not to melt them, when you have focus on the already hard thing of desoldering this thing.
People may also want to look into using a solder ‘sucker’ - a spring loaded de-soldering vacuum which you can get from $5 - 30 or so depending on the model. Even better is a desoldering vacuum like the Hakko FR301, but that runs a few hundred dollars so isn’t practical for a single project.
The OLED panels themself have not changed. Just the bits around them (PCB, plastic bracket, etc.).
What I would say now is that most of the buyers have ignored this suggestion and seem to be completely OK with the white one.
What I said there might have been subjective and maybe more about my personal preference of yellow to white.
Tomorrow I can try doing a photo of both - side by side, for comparison of brightness.
I was checking out that Desoldering tool. looks so much easier (understatement). I did my MD screen years ago in similar fashion to your Rytm. ended up having to get a mate of mine to save me midway
so with this heated Desoldering pump, reckon you could remove the screen with just the pump? no other jankyness involved?
and in the vid it looked like you can solder with it too. reckon soldering the new screen with it would be enough or would you ideally use a standard iron?
For me, it was a godsend. heat the solder and suck with one device.
Once cleared per pin, that then enabled much easier removal.
Having only done my RYTM, I engaged first in complete jankiness, brute force wire snipping all the pins, pulling off the old LED unit and then needing to remove the pins.
Also a hot air gun is very useful for the blobs of silicon on the other side of the PCB over the LED unit holding post connectors. After heating they easily peel away.
When I attack my A4 I’ll post up what my better process was. RYTM worked and the new screen is brilliant, but I was lucky my rough approach worked without damage.
cool cool
think I might hold off till you do yours. I have a tendency to dive head first into projects and break stuff while doing so
looking forward to hearing how you get on.
And it’s done! I will be typing up a longer post with photos for those who wanted some details on the process. Not sure if it would be best to make a separate thread or to put it all in here, I’m leaning toward the latter.
In hindsight, this was a pretty ambitious project for me, since I haven’t used a soldering iron in nearly a decade and never desoldered headers like this before. I wanted to thank @mokomo for his recommendation on the Yihua desoldering pump, I wasn’t sure if it would be helpful but it certainly was, and is the only reason I could use the original headers/pins.
Display is crisp, responsive and bright! My photos don’t seem to do a good job of showing it. Glad I went with green, I think it looks great.
Coper wire method is good in theory. I did it a few times. It worked well for 4-6 pins long components.
With longer ones it is a struugle as it can be seen on the video.
To get it done quickly on 6+ pin long connections 2 soldering irons are required to distribute the heat evenly at the same time. This task also requires an extra pair of hands
I would personally opt for cutting the pins. Less fuss and less risk of damaging anything.
My second choice would be removing solder with Engineer pump and soldering wick pin by pin.
Yes, it is I started with copper wick and removed the majority of the visible solder from the pins, then it still required 2 passes on each pin with the Yihua pump, adding new flux each time for good measure. However, I dont think the copper wick was strictly necessary, it just felt like the thing to do. The two pins on the side seemed to be the most stubborn, I probably did 8-10 passes with the pump on them (was quite concerned about the amount of heat at that point). Once I actually got all the solder out, I didn’t need to heat the pins at all to remove the screen, I was able to pop it off with my fingers.
the AK disassembly I’m already comfortable with, but I have yet to decide if I want to remove the screen from the old headers or remove the headers too and replace them. While I have it apart, if anyone wants photos of anything specific within Analog Keys or related to swapping the screens, let me know.
I’ll do my best.
I started with copper wick and removed the majority of the visible solder from the pins, then it still required 2 passes on each pin with the Yihua pump, adding new flux each time for good measure. However, I dont think the copper wick was strictly necessary, it just felt like the thing to do. The two pins on the side seemed to be the most stubborn, I probably did 8-10 passes with the pump on them (was quite concerned about the amount of heat at that point). Once I actually got all the solder out, I didn’t need to heat the pins at all to remove the screen, I was able to pop it off with my fingers.