Last edited 16 Sep 2008
Minor update Mar 2021 – The Power button has become temperamental in past few years. I finally opened up the Sharp and used Isopropyl alcholol to clean the contact and the rubber button. It is better after cleaning. However, I had not realised until today, the Sharp could also be turned on by pressing any of the buttons down the left hand side of the display !
If you own one of the old Sharp Wizards, you may have encountered the problem where vertical or horizontal lines are missing.
My understanding of the problem from googling around, it is a problem with the soldering of the flexi-cables to the LCD panel.
I was wondering whether a DIY repair was possible.
I've not been able to find any instructions on how to dismantle a 7xx series Wizard so here is my unofficial guide which covers models such as the ZQ-770 and OZ-770.
Look carefully and you can see a few missing vertical lines in this photo.
The back of the LCD screen is actually clipped onto the front bezel of the screen lid. If you carefully get your finger nail (Don't do this if you have weak or brittle finger nails !) or a guitar pick between the back/bottom edge of the screen cover and the round hinge, you should see the two halves of the lid start to separate.
Next, run your finger nail/blunt table knife/guitar pick tool along the opening gap and it should separate further. There are 2 hidden clips. Repeat exercise for the other side. Now you can carefully lift the back cover away from the screen – the top edge of the back cover should unclip easily from the front bezel.
Note that the small tabs on the lid which fit into the arrowed slots shown in above photos are fragile and one or more may break off.
At first I thought it was this dark brown flexi that was responsible for the screen line problems. I tried prodding it while the Wizard was switched on but it made no difference to the display. (If you own a Psion 5mx PDA, the similar looking flexi is notorious for breaking and causing all sorts of display faults)
I eventually discovered this to be the offending flexi-cable if your Wizard suffers from missing vertical lines. If you prod it gently while the the Wizard is powered on, you may see vertical lines disappear or reappear.
The following describes how to dismantle the keyboard half of the Wizard.
Remove the 6 screws as shown below. Now get a finger inside the battery compartment and carefully start to separate the two halves of the plastic in the vicinity of the compartment opening. Once you have started to separate the two halves, run your finger nail, or use a blunt table knife and continue along its length.
Repeat the exercise down the sides of the case and along the front edge.
Once the two halves have started to separate, the battery compartment lid latch is likely to fall out at this point !
The other end of the screen flexi-cable is held in position by a plate and 3 screws as you can see from the photos below. Once the screws and plate is removed the flexi-cable lifts off.
To separate the front bezel from the display PCB, remove the 10 black screws from the back of the display PCB. Each black screw is marked with a white triangle on the display PCB.
Note there is a small bit of adhesive on the left and right edges of the LCD panel, so be careful when attempting to separate the bezel from the LCD panel! I used a guitar pick and carefully ran it down the gap.
The flexi-cable along the top of the screen is responsible for any vertical line issues. The flexi on the left hand side is responsible for any horizontal lines.
I am not able to progress any further in separating the LCD panel from the PCB. The left hand side flexi cable needs to be carefully detached from the PCB to allow the LCD panel to be folded upwards and away from the PCB, to gain access to where the top flexi cable is soldered to the PCB. I do not possess the specialist tools that are likely to be required to carefully align and resolder the flexi cables back onto the PCB.
As a result, my conclusion is a DIY repair is not possible.
Useful links
My Reciva Logik IR100 Internet Radio Resource page