Brick LCD flickering

[enzomango]

About six months ago I took the batteries out of my brick and stored it safely in a tackle box with the rest of the kit. I recently had some free time so I put the batteries in and turned it on. The LCD is flickering quickly and the text is unreadable. I reloaded the Lejos firmware a few times and even tried the firmware from the NXT CD. It appears to load the firmware successfully and I get the typical audible signals. I know it was working fine when I stored it and it was kept dry and clean. The temperature probably ranged from 70 to 85. It's out of warranty now. Any ideas?

[gloomyandy]

Hi,
Sounds like you have run into what seems to be a common problems with the NXT. It seems to be some sort of problem with the capacitors attached to the lcd. See this link....
viewtopic.php?t=1528
The above link also contains info. on a possible fix... BUT... If I was you I would contact Lego and see what they have to say (Others have reported the same problem and have had the NXT exchanged)...

Good luck

Andy

[enzomango]

Thank you Andy. That was the problem. If there's ever an opportunity to redesign the LCD/button daughter board, the HW developers should consider a slightly different design so that three rigid caps aren't soldered on the backside of a board that is going to flex because its receiving key presses on the front side. I have no idea what percentage of units fail, but I would warn others not to use excessive force when pressing the buttons.

[gloomyandy]

Hi,
I've seen comments that would indicate that this problem is/was with a particular batch of NXT bricks. I've no idea why, maybe they changed something, but my understanding is that Lego are aware of this problem...

Hope you get it fixed...

Andy