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Now I can
play my cz101 at night...

Discussions about anything analog,
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Now
I can play my cz101 at night...

by Projectile
» Fri Jun 24, 2011 5:35 am

I love the Casio CZ series synthesizers, but all of them
except the cz1 and cz5000
suffer from having dim grey screens with no backlight, which makes them nearly
impossible to use on a dark stage. You can buy backlit LCD displays all day long
for 3 bucks on ebay, so I decided replace the dim grey LCD screen in my Casio
cz101 with a bright blue backlit one. Simple mod. Huge improvement!

pics:

Next,
I want to add a rotary encoder for faster scrolling through parameter values,
but that's a little more complicated.

..

Last edited by Projectile
on Fri Jun 24, 2011 7:21 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re:
Now I can play my cz101 at night...

by Silverfish
» Fri Jun 24, 2011 5:51 am

Excellent! I've seen this mod a few times on various CZ
models. I'd like to do this to my CZ3000 some time.

Is the LCD anything
in particular, or just a "regular" 16x2 LCD?

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Re:
Now I can play my cz101 at night...

by Projectile
» Fri Jun 24, 2011 6:02 am

Silverfish wrote:Excellent! I've seen this mod a few times
on various CZ models. I'd like to do this to my CZ3000 some time.

Is
the LCD anything in particular, or just a "regular" 16x2
LCD?

It's just a standard 16x2 lcd (HD44780). I just
bought the cheapest one I could find on ebay.

If you want to do this
mod, you will have to file or cut the screw holes wider on the new lcd board in
order to get it to fit on the mounting bracket. I used a dremel tool. Also, it's
a pretty tight fit in there (at least it was on the cz101), so watch where you
run your wires.

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Re:
Now I can play my cz101 at night...

by gmeredith
» Fri Jun 24, 2011 6:03 am

Do you have some DIY links to this mod? Did a search but
nothing showing how to, or where to buy the display and its part number. I have
a CZ101 just itching for a bit of blue

Cheers, Graham

**EDIT** just posted a fraction after you did -
thanks for the info!

Casio: FZ1, CZ101, PG380, VZ10M, SK8,
RAP10, DP1 drum kit, DH100, CDP200
Yamaha: TX81z, TX802, SHS10
Roland:
SH101, DR660, MS1, PM16, TR33
Others: Korg MicroKontrol & ES-1, Alesis
MMT8, Emu ESi2000 & CF card reader, Evolution MK461C,
BCR2000

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Re:
Now I can play my cz101 at night...

by Projectile
» Fri Jun 24, 2011 6:15 am

gmeredith wrote:Do you have some DIY links to this mod? Did
a search but nothing showing how to, or where to buy the display and its part
number. I have a CZ101 just itching for a bit of blue

Cheers, Graham

**EDIT** just posted a fraction after you did -
thanks for the info!

I don't have any links with
instructions, but I used this picture for reference to make sure I didn't wire
it up backwards:

He
installed a trimmer to adjust contrast, but I didn't find it
necessary.

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Re:
Now I can play my cz101 at night...

by madtheory
» Fri Jun 24, 2011 7:49 am

Projectile wrote:I love the Casio CZ series synthesizers,
but all of them except the cz1 and cz5000 suffer from having dim grey screens
with no backlight

That's the coolest looking backlit
screen I've seen. Nice job. Small correction- the CZ-5000 has no backlight
either. Only the CZ-1 has this, using EL foil.

The Casio CZ
madtheories
madtheory.com

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Re:
Now I can play my cz101 at night...

by drawtippy
» Fri Jun 24, 2011 2:21 pm

This is a giant pile of awesome. I love my little CZ but I
feel like I don't use it enough cuz it's at an awkward angle and I can't see the
screen. Please, any more info on the install would be greatly
appreciated!

--nice job!

Visit http://www.arttestmusic.com/

Voyager, JP-6,
Pro-One, Korg 800DV, CZ 101, VL-1, Micron, Solina, OB-Xa, JX-8P, Sid
Station

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Re:
Now I can play my cz101 at night...

by jrombrasher
» Fri Jun 24, 2011 5:08 pm

I sold a CZ101 on ebay a few weeks back and the buyer
returned it because the display was too dim (I really tried to warn them pretty
explicitly in the description) Anyways, it's funny you posted this, I just sent
off for probably exactly the same display yesterday, I'm glad to see that it
works well in the unit. Now i'm actually pretty glad the buyer sent it back,
this is gonna look awesome, I might even hang onto it.

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Re:
Now I can play my cz101 at night...

by Projectile
» Fri Jun 24, 2011 7:10 pm

drawtippy wrote: Please, any more info on the install would
be greatly appreciated!

Since there seems to be a
lot of interest in this mod, I'll post whatever info I can.

The LCD
board in the cz101 has 14 pins. Most of the backlit screens sold on ebay have 16
pins. The extra 2 pins are for power and ground to the backlight. you simply
need to jumper these 2 pins to the existing power and ground pins. On my cz101
the power wire was white and the ground wire is red, and they are the first or
the last 2 pins depending on which direction you are counting from. Aside from
the 2 extra pins, all HD44780 LCD display boards should have the same pinout, so
as long as you keep the wires in the same order, the worst you can do is hook it
up backwards.

Here is an HD44780 pinout diagram for reference:
http://www.instructables.com/image/FMCPZRTG8LWOHW9/HD44780-pinout.jpg

Everything
else should be pretty straight forward. If you need any help, feel free to post
your questions here and I'll try to answer as best I can.

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Re:
Now I can play my cz101 at night...

by awol9000
» Sun Jun 26, 2011 5:04 am

Nice mod. I'm looking to pick up a CZ-101 as my next buy. Any
other mods known?

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Re:
Now I can play my cz101 at night...

by ColorForm2113
» Sun Jun 26, 2011 5:12 am

very nice! i think im going to have to do this when i get
time

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Korg Monotron, Roland S550, Casio CZ5000

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Re:
Now I can play my cz101 at night...

by slippast
» Mon Jun 27, 2011 7:52 pm

Projectile wrote:

drawtippy wrote: Please, any more info on the install
would be greatly appreciated!

Since there seems
to be a lot of interest in this mod, I'll post whatever info I can.

The LCD board in the cz101 has 14 pins. Most of the backlit screens
sold on ebay have 16 pins. The extra 2 pins are for power and ground to the
backlight. you simply need to jumper these 2 pins to the existing power and
ground pins. On my cz101 the power wire was white and the ground wire is red,
and they are the first or the last 2 pins depending on which direction you are
counting from. Aside from the 2 extra pins, all HD44780 LCD display boards
should have the same pinout, so as long as you keep the wires in the same
order, the worst you can do is hook it up backwards.

Here is an HD44780
pinout diagram for reference:
http://www.instructables.com/image/FMCPZRTG8LWOHW9/HD44780-pinout.jpg

Everything
else should be pretty straight forward. If you need any help, feel free to
post your questions here and I'll try to answer as best I
can.

Thanks for the info. So it sounds like the cz101
is already wired for power, it just doesn't use
that in the passive display?
When you say 'jumper these 2 pins' is it obvious where they connect on the CZ?
Please forgive my ignorance, this sounds like a project that A) I could pull off
and B) I could afford.

Is in necessary to disassemble the entire keyboard
or can you pull the LCD from the front? I may splurge with an extra $3 and go
for orange or red. Thanks again.

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Re:
Now I can play my cz101 at night...

by Projectile
» Tue Jun 28, 2011 8:39 pm

slippast wrote:Thanks for the info. So it sounds like the
cz101 is already wired for power, it just doesn't use
that in the passive
display? When you say 'jumper these 2 pins' is it obvious where they connect
on the CZ? Please forgive my ignorance, this sounds like a project that A) I
could pull off and B) I could afford.

Is in necessary to disassemble
the entire keyboard or can you pull the LCD from the front? I may splurge with
an extra $3 and go for orange or red. Thanks again.

The
original display is not "passive". It doesn't have a backlight, but it still
needs +5v to operate. The +5v wire that supplies power to the original display
seems to be able to handle enough current to supply a typical backlit LCD just
fine. Most replacement LCDs have 2 pins which require a +5v connection: one for
power to the display, and one for the backlight. You have to connect these pins
together (and the two grounds pins), so that they both recieve +5v from the
single power wire connected to the original display. You can find them by
looking at the HD44780 pinout diagram I posted. All of the wires you need are
soldered to the original display board. You simply have to desolder them, and
connect them in the right order to the new LCD board, plus the two
jumpers.

You do have to take the cz101 apart, but it's not that
difficult.

One note about LCDs for those experimenting with different
colors. Most modern backlit LCDs draw a fairly low amount of current and the
cz101 should be able to handle them just fine. But beware that there are a few
oddball LCDs that draw significantly more current than usual. These could cause
problems. They also might work fine. I don't know becasue I haven't tried them.
I just know they exist, and they have caused problems in other DIY projects. The
ones I know about specifically that have been reported to draw a high current
load are made by crystalfontz. They look like this: http://www.crystalfontz.com/product/CFAH1602B-YTI-JT. If you
want to be on the safe side, I'd just avoid the LCDs with the black background
altogether until someone reports that they work in the cz101.

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Re:
Now I can play my cz101 at night...

by madtheory
» Tue Jun 28, 2011 9:45 pm

Very cool

The Casio CZ
madtheories
madtheory.com

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